The Big Billionaire Bonanza passed and you’re feeling anger, sorrow, despair, and a desire to retreat and find solace in a tub of ice cream. If you worked hard to prevent the bill’s passage, you might be feeling deep discouragement: what’s the point of all the phone calls, the protests, the other actions when Republicans remain spineless and unspeakably cruel?

I hear you.

It’s horrible to think about the roughly 17 million people who will lose their health care. It pains us to consider the millions who will go hungry. How can we even think about the billions of dollars being poured into detention facilities and ICE to kidnap immigrants, many of whom have been here for decades, imprison them in inhuman conditions, and deport them or send them to countries with appalling human rights records? It all may make you wish to lose your empathy. What’s the point of feeling for the suffering when it simply makes us suffer?

These are all perfectly natural reactions to what is happening, and I think it’s important, at least temporarily, to allow yourself to feel such things. I get bouts of rage at commentators looking eagerly forward to the 2026 elections. There’s a hell of a lot of horror that’s going to happen between now and then, and a lot of what’s happening is going to be difficult or impossible to fix.

And yet. Beyond our anger and despair comes the need to continue the fight. Because we’re activists, and that’s what we do—we keep fighting, however tough it gets, and while sometimes we lose, in the end we are going to restore democracy, building it back stronger than it ever was.

But that’s not easy, so let me share a few things I tell myself when I get discouraged—and let me tell you, in my decades of activism I have repeatedly wanted to give up.

I refuse to make my enemies happy. They want us to succumb to despair. We must respond with strength and persistence and yes, even joy.

Empathy sucks. It hurts to feel the pain of others. But I liken it to falling in love: it can be beautiful and it can feel like it’s ripping your heart out of your body, leaving you a quivering sobbing mass. But imagine never falling in love, all that you would miss. Those who do not experience empathy—sociopaths like our president and many of his enablers (eyes on you, Jodi Ernst, and the soulless Stephen Miller, and cosplaying Kristi Noem the dog killer, and so many other accomplices including every single person who voted for the bill)—are, in a true sense, not fully human. We can’t be jealous of people who do not feel empathy. We hate how they hurt others. We would never want to be like them. So yeah, empathy hurts, and it’s a hell of a lot better than the alternative.

Not everyone is going to join the fight. Some people are too busy or preoccupied with making a living. Some people can’t risk the consequences. About a third of the country is going to blindly follow Donald Trump no matter what devastation he wreaks on their communities and even their families. Some former Trump supporters who see the light are going to be too ashamed or fearful to stand up. Those who are willing to join the fight are always the minority, and we can’t afford to lose any of us. What you do matters, even if it doesn’t have immediate results. We need you. Whatever piece you are willing to contribute, keep it up even when it feels useless, because often we have no idea what action it is that finally succeeds in changing hearts and minds.

And hey, if you need another reason, think about the scorn we heap on the Germans who were quietly complicit with the Nazis. Why didn’t they stand up? Well, what are we doing now? This is our moment to show how we would respond in the face of fascism—and no, it’s not an imminent threat, it is (as Heidi Li Feldman wrote: https://indivisiblesantafe.org/the-dictatorship-is-here-the-constitutional-crisis-is-now/  ), already here. When this is all over—and believe it or not, one day it will be—we want to be able to say that we did our damnedest.

Find ways to soothe your bruised soul. Do what it takes to keep yourself fit for the fight. Limit your media exposure and when it becomes overwhelming, take a break from it. It’s important to stay informed, but we don’t need to know every detail (nor can we). Take long walks and bike rides, visit friends, enjoy good food, read a novel, listen to the Talking Heads. And then pick yourself back up and rejoin the fight, keep protesting because yes, protests are worthwhile (https://indivisiblesantafe.org/are-protests-worthwhile/) and because we need you. There’s a lot more pain to go through, but we are strong, our movement is growing, and together we will win.