January 2025: What We Do Now
The quest for happiness is off to a rough start
How does one have a happy life, in the here and now?
This was the question that inspired me to start this blog a year and a half ago, shortly before I began medical school. In the subsequent eighteen months, I learned thousands of facts, one of which was that in graduate school, priorities like “a happy life” fold like Flat Stanley to more pressing priorities like graduate school. Even so, after living through January 20th through 31st, the challenge of finding happiness amid an exhausting academic grind pales in comparison to the challenge of finding happiness as a compassionate American in 2025.
The first time that Trump was elected, I was a seventeen-year-old high school student. I remember feeling so powerless, thinking about how it would impact the LGBT community, how it would impact women. This time, I’m a twenty-five-year-old medical student, married to a federal civil servant.
Last time, I worried about the right to abortion in the abstract. This time, I’m staring down the very possible reality of being forced to choose between my patient’s life and my license and/or freedom. Even though I live in Alaska, a unique purple state with a constitutional right to privacy that covers citizens’ rights to abortion, the party that just wanted to leave abortion up to the states now seeks to ban abortion federally. Pregnancy and childbirth, previously a frightening miracle for age-old reasons, are now a terrifyingly unacceptable risk depending on one’s state of residence. Last time, I worried about the jobs that would be lost and the funding that would disappear; this time, one of the jobs on the line is the one that provides my family with income and healthcare.
It feels worse this time. Watching institutions flounder, acquiesce, paper over, and enable feels twice as bad during round two. Since I was a little kid, I’ve wanted to do some kind of meaningful work. I imagined advocating as a doctor for my patients and advising protocols at my Department of Health, maybe eventually one day at Health and Human Services. I wanted to be part of a society and country that strived to be better, that was interested in building a safer, healthier, kinder world.
As of right now, the big institutions that run American society are not interested in building that safer, healthier, kinder world. That reality is hard no matter how many times you realize that. And as much as I would like to think differently, that reality was the case well before Trump was elected. The awful things that Trump has done may be unprecedented in terms of norms, but not in terms of American human rights infringement. One of the most moving and meaningful sentences that I read as a young person was in the Declaration of Independence. “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” The visionary who wrote those words had five children with a woman named Sally Hemings that he legally owned as property; he inherited her when she was an infant upon his father-in-law’s death. The ideals of America (words) were never reflective of the reality of America (actions). It’s just that when that reality is a double Sieg Heil at the US presidential inauguration, on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, in the twenty-fifth year of the twenty-first century, it’s hard not to collapse in total despair.
But we cannot collapse in total despair, for three very important reasons. First: the collapse of America into further despair and exploitation is the goal of the Trump administration, and the political establishment is complicit and will not protect us. Secondly, our compliance, our conviction, and our belief in our collective future are the most important powers that we have, and we cannot surrender them. And thirdly, a despairing collapse, while tempting, is hardly helpful on the deck of the sinking Titanic. If there is one thing rural healthcare has taught me, it is the old adage “Do what you can, where you are, with what you have.” Never assume a situation - or a patient - is irrecoverable; that’s how you miss the opportunity to save a life.
There is very little that I, as an individual citizen, can do about the actions of the Trump administration. But there is whole a lot that I as an individual can do about the impact of the Trump administration in the conversations that I have.
The Trump administration is attacking immigrants. I cannot stop Trump from deploying ICE against my fellow community members. But I can speak out, loudly and repeatedly, whenever I hear anti-immigrant rhetoric, so that my neighbors do not hear only silence after their rights and humanity are publicly questioned. In the event that ICE invades my community, I can remind my fellow Americans that they have the right to an attorney and should answer no questions and submit to no searches, in every language that I speak. In the event ICE is detaining and questioning people, I can take some time out of my day to have a lengthy chat with the immigration agents, and loudly reflect on any personal liberties being violated.
The Trump administration is attacking transgender people. I cannot stop Trump from constant and flagrant transphobia; I can’t stop the Executive Branch from banning the use of pronouns with email signatures. But I can loudly speak up against transphobia everywhere I hear it. I can complain, loudly and repeatedly, at how damned annoying it is to email HR each and every time I want to know how to address a Taylor or a Chris. I can misgender every single person who states that they think pronouns are stupid and that people shouldn’t share them. If they don’t seem to like that and want me to call them something different, I cam remind them that pronouns are stupid and that people shouldn’t share them. I can vocally defend gender affirming care, both medical and surgical, which both transgender and cisgender people utilize.
Trump has emboldened people to say hateful and bigoted things out loud. They say those things in public places and in private, to friends and to strangers. They continue because they face no meaningful social consequences. People are too shocked, uncomfortable with confrontation, and unwilling to risk becoming a target of the bigot’s ire themselves to speak up, and they stay silent. Because almost no one ever speaks up, it’s easy for the bigot to quash the occasional voice of opposition. Trump took over the American political establishment by stomping over rows of pearl-clutching politicians who - I suppose - were all hoping that someone else might risk their careers to do something about it. Speak your agreement loudly when you hear someone else stand up for justice, and if you hear no one, do it yourself.
Resisting authoritarianism where we find it is essential to some sense of purpose and fulfillment, but building egalitarianism around you is essential for finding happiness. Look towards the relationships that are safe harbors from prejudice, towards people who make you want to be a better, stronger, wiser person. For far too long, we have tolerated people who don’t think other humans deserve food, shelter, medicine, safety, and freedom. For far too long, we have defended institutions and corporations that disenfranchised, exploited and mistreated our fellow human beings. For far too long, we have allowed a desire for surface-level order to replace a desire for justice.
We must completely deprioritize the institutions that have failed us and turn our money, attention, time, energy and focus to strengthening and safeguarding the ones that have stood by us. We must shed a persona-conscious, performative concept of activism by rolling up our sleeves and doing the work that communities need to survive difficult times. We must scour our closets for items that we don’t need that our neighbors could use, join Buy Nothing groups, cook food for more people than live in our households and enjoy food cooked at households not our own. We must care for elders and children, and give their caregivers respite wherever we can. We must fight the loneliness pervasive in this capitalist hellscape by reaching out and showing up for people who will reach out and show up for us.
We need to stop doomscrolling and start watching content that fills us with energy and hope; for me this week that was this podcast interview with Jon Stewart and AOC. We need to shift our attention from what we can’t control to what we can. We need to find the things that we do best, the skills that can build that healthier, safer, better world, and do them on purpose. We need to become familiar with the process of healing from the grief and trauma we have experienced and will experience.
There can be no doubt that some among us are in danger, and that fascists will come for them. The choice left up to us is whether they will stand alone.
Hannah Miriam Watkins
Anchorage, Alaska
February 1, 2025