"The Overwhelm is the Point"
Find your counterpoints
Pushing Against the “One More Thing”
My origin story goes like this: When I was almost 5 my family moved from the Caribbean to a 600-person farming community in rural Indiana. There, I was raised along with my four siblings in Trump’s America long before it had the moniker. It was a town trapped in the backwoods and backwards of time, where Klan groups met and no one seemed to remember that the state fought for the Union as they raised large Confederate flags next to the stars and stripes. From a young age I was desperate to leave and breathe easier in any other place but there. Because each day was a new mix of advocating in school against harmful stereotypes, calling out racist language and views, and correcting false facts and missing history. I often felt on edge, waiting for the next battle or worried about what would be hurled next at me to confront.
There came a point that it was too much to always think about, and I realized that it was preventing me from being focused on the things that I wanted like leaving Indiana and focusing on developing my writing. So I doubled down on my education, learning more outside of school than inside by burning through books at the library, and I wrote pages and pages of poetry and musicals and stories. I didn’t listen to voices and beliefs that Black girls were unwanted or ugly and won multiple pageants. And there was nothing anyone could do when I graduated top of my class and got my writings published. I was living for myself and my dreams.
It wasn’t until years later that I read Toni Morrison’s words that gave deeper meaning to my actions:
The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing. (Toni Morrison)
The Plan to “Flood the Zone”
This feeling of ‘there will always be one more thing’ is one I find myself grappling with often in this sociopolitical climate. When people ask me, “Did you hear about ______,” I often find myself saying, “No. I can’t keep up with everything happening.”
The exhaustion that lives deep in your bone, the doom scrolling for hours, the catatonic states of not knowing what to do and feeling overwhelmed? Those have always been purposeful.
During the first Trump presidency, his then advisor and key supporter Steve Bannon1 would repeatedly state that the Democrats were not the opposition, it was the media. And in 2018 he admitted to writer Michael Lewis that the “way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.” He elaborated this point by stating that the media is dumb and can only focus on one thing at a time, and that each day they would flood the zone with three things, they’ll only bite on one, and that would give the Trump administration the space to do everything else on their agenda.
And that’s precisely what they do.
The revenge tour they have created around DEI and blaming it on everything from government inefficiency to the tragic American Airlines and Army helicopter crash. The absolute circus that is Elon Musk and DOGE and its little minions. Renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. Every time they say another country caved to their demands when they really just agreed to what they were already doing. The commentary on annexing Gaza. Dismantling USAID and trying to halt all federal grants.
In a recent article, Ezra Klein describes how overwhelming the media works in their favor and makes it hard for an opposition force to emerge or for coherent thought to occur. It doesn’t just overwhelm the media. It overwhelms us. Klein’s request for us in this second presidency is this: do not believe Trump. He is overwhelming us with Executive Order after Executive Order because, as Klein notes, “Trump is acting like a king because he’s too weak to govern like a president.”
This is an insight that helps me refocus. To cut through the “one more thing” being thrown by Trump and Co. And even though mainstream media continues to play right into this, the playbook is glaringly obvious once you pull back the curtain and see it for what it is. They can only keep us as overwhelmed as we let them.
The reality is that when people ask me if I have heard of the next terrible thing happening, and I don’t know what they are talking about, it’s because I’m not trying to keep up with everything happening. And neither should you.
If you needed permission, this is it.
Developing Your Counterpoints
If the overwhelm is the point, then we each need to develop our counterpoints to challenge it. Here are a few that I have found help me refocus from the noise:
Lean more into collective care - Self-care has been big business over the years. The fact that they have “sold” us on the belief that taking care of yourself means buying a lot of things like like expensive massages and trips, is capitalism at its finest. Self-care does not need to be expensive - it can be gratitude walks and a daily meditation. It is what will keep you grounded in the face of a world full of fires. But it is also not enough. When we find ourselves in a constant state of grief, we need the healing powers of collective care. Collective care is about being in a group that takes care of one another’s well-being. While self-care focuses on the individual, collective care recognizes our responsibility for taking care of one another. Now more than ever, we need community. People who would notice if we didn’t show up. People who can note when we are struggling and know how to support in those moments. The people you will do the same for too. Start with circles of people you know and check in once a week or every other week via phone or FaceTime with one another. I also encourage you to think about what collective care looks like in your immediate neighborhood. When is the last time you knocked on a neighbor’s door and introduced yourself? It may feel dangerous or scary during these times, but these are the people who will be with you in the event of natural disasters and emergencies. Get to know them.
Limit your time online - I would be lying if I did not admit that on more than one occasion (far too many than I’d like to admit), I have fallen into the gripping traps of doom scrolling. It is so hard to get out of that trap! But hearing the same news over and over again does nothing to address the news itself. I promise it is okay to put your phone down. Social media not only acts as a type of echo chamber, it also acts as a megaphone. It amplifies the distractions we talked about earlier in this post. It makes it harder to find our counterpoints. You will need to find what works for you but some examples of ways to limit your time online is to find things in your community that excite you to get out of the house. I like to do active things like play pickleball or hike, and I joined a co-working community that has clubs that host really fun events. You could also use the greyscale mode which is scientifically meant to make your phone less appealing. I also have set timers for different social media apps, but you have to ensure you don’t keep hitting the “add time” button to infinity. Try different things and see what sticks. In the interim, I’m going to look at you as a loving friend and look you in the eye when I say, “Touch grass.” It really does ground you.
Find what drives you - Saying that there are a lot of things going on is a big understatement. And they all can feel like they deserve and demand our attention. But as we try to balance existing while giving a damn, it will be important to identify the things that you feel the damndest about and lean into that lane. Maybe you feel really riled up about bodily autonomy and reproductive rights. You might want to get involved in volunteering at your local Planned Parenthood or fighting back at a local level on laws aiming to make abortion data public. That is where you should put your efforts. It would not require you to ignore everything else going on. In fact, it would make you even more well versed in advocating in the space if you spent time learning about how this particular topic is connected to other topics such as overall access to healthcare or how race and class compound these issues. It isn’t abandoning whatever else is going on. It’s knowing that resistance and revolution will not look the same for everyone.
Practice spotting the noise - When you are reading the news or engaging with social media, pay attention to where stories land in your body. Stories that repeatedly leave you feeling on edge or spike your anxiety maybe be your body telling you that the source you are engaging with is purposefully utilizing tactics meant to rage bait and promote hopelessness. There are people and outlets that are providing news without the extra theatrics. Not everything is “Breaking News.” Find the sources that keep you informed and are also dispelling rumors and lies and giving you actions that you can take to meaningfully push back on the very real horrors that are occurring. This will help you regulate your nervous system more and more over time.
A short list of hard news:
Oklahoma State Board of Education approved a proposal to ask immigration status and proof of citizenship for parents and students when enrolling in public school. Other states are considering similar proposals.
The SAVE Act currently making its way through Congress would create and worsen barriers to voting, including making it harder for married women who have changed their name to vote
The combination of Trump and Netanyahu puts a fragile ceasefire (that has already been violated multiple times by Israel) at risk
Some hopeful stories:
A litigation tracker of legal actions against Trump administration’s actions to remind you that folk are fighting back
Democrat Mike Zimmer won a special election in Iowa state Senate District 35 in a district Trump won by +21 points in November to illustrate how folk are starting to see through the lies
Workers at a Whole Foods in Philadelphia became the first group of employees to successfully unionize (Whole Foods is owned by Amazon who is notorious for union-busting).
One action you can take in the next week:
There are three special elections between now and June that would change the makeup of the House of Representatives and make Trump’s efforts to pass laws through Congress much harder. Those elections are Gay Valimont (FL-1) and Josh Weil (FL-6) on April 1, and Blake Gendebien (NY-21) later in the year. They will not be easy wins, but they are some of our best chances when it comes to Congress between now and the 2026 midterms. You can donate to support these candidates, sign up to volunteer for things like phone banking, and ensure that anyone you know in those districts are registered to vote and have a plan to vote. And tell others about this glimmer of hope and how to support.
Back in 2017 a group of my friends and I were so worried about the influence Bannon and his ideology would have on the decisions of the Trump administration that we started a citizen watch group called Bannon Watch where we wrote articles to highlight his evils and flagged things that citizens could do to stop him.
It’s so easy to get overwhelmed and distracted, but they’d love for us to buckle until pressure. Thanks for the reminder that we don’t have to do everything — but we can do something.