True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.
— Martin Luther King Jr
Today is the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr who was born on 15 January 1929 (we’re just three years shy of the 100th anniversary of his birth…). The country observes his birthday on the Monday following the 15th, this year falling on the 19th. But I tend to remember him on his actual birthday, because I doubt he would like the idea of shifting a memorial date to accommodate a more convenient wage work schedule. Also… I just prefer to keep things real…
I wish we had Dr King here now. There would undoubtedly be more of Poor Peoples Campaign Martin than I Have a Dream Martin. But I think we need both. Or simply the grace and strength of his leadership, one of the few true leaders this world has ever known. We need someone who can cut through the misinformation and lies to reveal the wounds. And we also need someone who can inspire us and show us the path to healing. Today, I might even settle on merely knowing that healing is possible… Dr King is the antidote to the poison enveloping us today.
Here is one of the better recordings of his most famous speech. And here is one group that is working to carry forward Dr King’s vision for economic justice.
So… what follows is sort of by way of an excuse for why you haven’t seen much writing here lately…
Do you know how many essays I’ve written in the last couple months, only to abandon them as irrelevant and callous in the face of the steam-roller of recent events? I can’t keep up. I can’t focus. And there is just no time to process “what the hell just happened!” before the next “what the hell is happening!” rolls over us.
This country is under assault from its ostensible leadership, a continual destabilizing barrage of irrationality and violence, seemingly delivered as much to render the entire nation into a state of paralyzed bewilderment as to spread physical chaos and death. It almost feels like a calculated shock and awe campaign to neutralize any and all opposition. After all, if we’re all staring gape-mouthed at our screens, or even if we’re all constantly marching in protest or gathering to grieve, then we are unable to mount any sort of defense against the waves of destruction that radiate ever further and further out from Washington.
But as diabolically intentional as this all feels, I’m not convinced that there is a coordinated plot or any organized will behind the barrage. For one thing, these are not organized people. They are clearly all out for themselves. In fact, it seems that several of the number twos are using the doddering imbecile at the center to raise themselves to number one. Or at least to benefit at number one levels. (Maybe that is the preference, actually, since the grey eminence gets all the reward with none of the responsibility… not that responsibility has ever been in the Washington lexicon…)
But more than that, this is all so random. There is no relationship or reason. It’s all a stream of cruel caprice, with no indication that whatever ensues is not spurred solely by a momentary whim, usually from the moron in chief. I’ve noticed that whenever some fresh hell erupts, there is always an apparently surprised scramble to maga-splain it. Nobody, not even those near the center, seems to know what’s going on while it is happening. And the king of whimsy? He spouts off contradiction and fabrication in the same sentence. His tether on reality is certainly not strong enough to know what’s going on, or even remember that he ordered it, if he did… Makes me wonder: is anyone in charge at all? Is there a way to be in charge of all this? Being in charge requires one to at least be aware, and these people are clearly not aware.
Jon Stewart played a snippet of the oil executive cabal convened by the White House to divvy up Venezuela’s natural resources — held the day that we abducted their president, if anyone was in doubt as to the motive behind that particular whim. Our fearless leader did not actually fall asleep, as is his wont at such meetings… But he did get up and wander over to the window to look out on his ludicrous ballroom construction project and blather about that for an awkward minute or so. Even more awkwardly, when he finally sat back down, he was passed a note from one of the number twos, enjoining him to pick up where the conversation had broken off with his abrupt urge to stare out at piles of drywall and heavy equipment. Instead of simply following the directions, the idiot read the note out loud, to the obvious embarrassment of everybody on camera — everyone except the idiot, that is. (The oil execs were not visible, but I’m sure they were wearing similarly strained smiles…)
This is not the face of conspiracy…
To be a master-mind sort of requires one to have a mind…
Far from a coordinated effort, I would say that they’ve completely lost control, most particularly of the President and, more lethally, the loosely official mob of ICE goons that has been empowered to terrorize the country under any pretext. Jeff Danziger, political cartoonist for the Rutland Herald (among many other publications), put it succinctly in a recent cartoon. Two thugs with guns and tactical armor are standing in the snow. One says to the other “I figure if Trump can shoot someone on Fifth Avenue, I can shoot someone in Minneapolis”. (And, of course, that someone was a woman…)
I think that’s about where things stand right now…
We’re at the flailing stage, when those with power realize how hollow that word is in a collapsing world. They are lashing out, each grabbing whatever they can as the flotsam floats by. Many of them are causing harm purely for the rush, a pale simulacrum of the power over others that past despots wielded. Because now, nobody has any true power. Nobody is truly in control. Nobody has a clue what’s going on or where any of it is leading. The Washington circus is all a shambles, though none the less deadly… because these idiotic sociopaths have given carte blanche — and automatic weaponry — to thousands of incels to play out their sick gaming fantasies on real lives. And the goons with guns have figured out that nobody is in charge…
This is not unexpected. It’s not even original. This banal story has played out over and over again. If it weren’t so devastating, it would be embarrassingly cliché. If you could stand at some remove, you might even pity the poor schmucks who are following the same farcical script as every other failing tyranny in history, right down to the costumery. Even so, it is debilitatingly disorienting. Everyone I know has the thousand-yard stare over some shell-shock, be it as minor as the latest exponential increase in the electrical bill to the unmitigated horror of losing a loved one to the maw of violence.
So, being a practical witch, what do I do to cope?
Unsurprisingly, it’s what I usually do. Turn off the screens. Be with people I love. Take care of my part of the world. Stand together for what is right. Do good things like bake bread, clean the house, eat healthy stew, sleep. And read. Mostly real books and local newspapers, but some few trusted online essays (since essays are mostly published online these days, even those that lambast the enshiternet*…).
Oddly, I take a sort of grim hope in all this evil. This is their last hand and most of them obviously know it. It will probably get worse as they get more desperate. It may not end in what years I have left. But this disaster of a society is definitely dying. Most people in the younger generations are already resolutely turning away. More importantly, the resource base that fuels all this misery and the stable biosphere that supports it are both fast failing. (Hence the flailing about grabbing what’s left.) So even if there is a will, there will not be a way to enslave and destroy the entire planet, not for many hundreds of years, if ever again. This is the beginning of the end… the Imbolg in the middle of winter… the breaking of the ice…
And while the center burns itself to ash, life goes on. Pretty much as it always has. With bad and good, joy and grief, pain and beauty and such wonder. Give attention to that, to the reality of your life, because that’s the best medicine for bewilderment. And it’s also… just life…
*Yes, thank you, more Cory Doctorow neologisms…
Here are a few of the books I am reading now. I’m sharing because they are especially good at diverting attention and reminding you what is solid.
One Long River of Song by Brian Doyle (Back Bay Books, 2019): a posthumously published collection of essays so heart-breakingly beautiful that it takes effort to notice that he’s writing in terms of bugs and rodents and toddlers eating mud and boys being boys.
Against the Machine by Paul Kingsnorth (Thesis, 2025): Kingsnorth unleashed on the Faustian bargain we’ve made with the technosphere.
How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell (Melville House, 2019): exactly the observations one needs in this attention-deficit culture.
The Magick of Food by Gwion Raven (Llewellyn Publications, 2020): why we eat what and how we do, complete with archeology, myths and rituals, and great fireside tales.
And this week’s fiction (because even that feels more real than what is happening…)
The Enchanted Greenhouse by Sarah Beth Durst (Bramble, 2025): a magical epic spinning together winged cats, talking plants, botanical spells gone awry, cozy cottage-core, and the great mystery of how we find our story.
And last, but certainly not least, The Ladies of Grade Adieu by Susanna Clarke (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2006): a collection of short stories for when you just need the vaguely steampunk alternate history of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, but with the ladies driving the plot.
I sort of missed this yesterday. It’s been a week… So here is a Thursday Wednesday Word that, though I picked out the list many weeks ago, seems to be perfectly apt right now…
The Wednesday Word
for 14 January 2026
bitter
What does bitter mean to you? Think about it. If you’d like, send me a quick poem or story… or just a few thoughts. If you really have something to say, maybe enter my Wednesday Word contest on AllPoetry.
©Elizabeth Anker 2026
By My Solitary Hearth 