The Noise Is the Strategy

Keeping Up in an Unraveling World

I keep telling myself the chaos of the current administration is intentional. It’s impossible to keep up daily; everything from trans rights to vaccines is being shredded, and who knows what’s next? Then there are the bizarre moments, like Elon Musk advising the cabinet and the suggestion to put Trump on money like a king. It’s too much to track, let alone make sense of.

And that’s the point. It’s meant to exhaust us into saying, “Let’s go to the Winchester, have a nice cold pint, and wait for all of this to blow over.”

When I first joined Substack, I subscribed to every blog and newsletter that piqued my interest. But I quickly realized I was overwhelming myself. So, without unfollowing, I pared my emails down to just a few, including Heather Cox Richardson, Joyce Vance, and Jay Kuo, while checking the rest on the website. Because self-care is as important as staying informed.

For a while, I tried keeping lists of everything happening, but that proved impossible. Every day brings something not just absurd but dangerously destructive.

Take the first U.S. measles death in a decade. The administration shrugged it off, with RFK Jr. saying it “just happens.” But it doesn’t. Measles is entirely preventable. The agonizing death of children is preventable. And yet, here we are, possibly facing multiple pandemics with no reliable information from agencies designed to keep us informed. If another one hits, I can only imagine the public’s reaction to masks this time around.

I expected another pandemic someday, but I wasn’t prepared for it to be just five years after the last. Knowledge helps us prepare and prevent, but we’re not even trying.

Then there’s Musk’s cabinet statement, where he admitted he’d likely make mistakes, citing Ebola as an example. At the same time, the President bizarrely asked if anyone was unhappy with DOGE’s work but didn’t allow responses. These aren’t payroll errors or managerial tweaks. These are decisions that could cost lives, nationally and globally. Cutting the government shouldn’t mean letting kids go hungry or ignoring major weather events.

It’s easy to feel like nothing we do matters. Today is the national boycott which is not a bad thing. I plan to hit up some Asheville breweries and restaurants instead of shopping online. But will a one-day dip in sales make an impact, or will people just shop twice as much tomorrow? I don’t know. But it’s better than nothing.

What I would love to see are more alternatives. Communities shifting toward local action like direct sales, local participation, and taking social off media and back into real spaces. The revolution starts with one person at a time.