Self-care is important for all of us, especially because we're in what amounts to a nationally traumatic phase. I think part of it is to remember that there is more to opposition than opposition. In other words, it's not just about recognizing and cataloguing and publicizing all the things that are going wrong; it's about modeling and celebrating the alternative.
Those of us who work in politics can only make ourselves useful if our heads are filled with things that we can contribute to the political space. JFK had this quote about how if more politicians knew poetry and more poets knew about politics, the world would be a better place. Being attentive to the things that add meaning to our lives alongside politics will help us inform our politics with the values that really do make America great.
What's worse: a president who is very faithful to an ideology that you find extreme, or a president who is very cynical and appears to have no ideology at all? Neither one of those things is great.
In really every area of the mayor's life, whether you're trying to fill in holes in the road, trying to keep your community safe, trying to have the robust neighborhood life, or trying to encourage the arts - really at every turn our job has gotten a lot harder under president Trump.
