What We’re Feeling Right Now

Exhaustion. Horror. Outrage. Relief. The emotions many of us are feeling, after closing the book on 2020 and in the first weeks of the new year, change day by day—and, considering the circumstances, sometimes hour to hour.

We’ve been grappling with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic for nearly a year. Our lives have been upended. Businesses have closed, restaurants have shuttered. Many of us have lost our jobs and faced unprecedented uncertainty about what the next week or month will bring.

If we’re parents with school-aged kids at home, we’ve added “part-time teacher” to our list of jobs. If we’re healthcare providers, caregivers, or newly-classified “essential workers,” we’re putting our health on the line while working every day.

And too many of us have lost family, friends, and loved ones to this pandemic.

We’ve dealt with these personal struggles while confronting the fact that many of our fellow Americans have minimized the risks posed by COVID-19, flouting public health directives and seemingly living in an alternative reality. The federal government’s shambolic and unhinged response has deepened distrust and politicized something that should have nothing to do with partisanship.

Former President Trump’s repeated attacks on the democratic process and attempts to overturn the results of the November election came to a head on January 6. We watched as a mob, believing that the election had been “stolen” after months of fomenting by politicians and media figures, stormed the U.S. Capitol to stop the certification of the Electoral College vote.

Many were flying Christian Nationalist flags or carrying “Jesus 2020” signs. They told members of the press that they were “taking America back for God.” One of the events advertised for that day was the “Jericho March.” They blew shofars and marched, saying they wanted to expose the “darkness of election fraud and corruption” and crumble “the walls of corruption.”

What we saw on display on January 6 was a stark reminder of the fragility of our system of government and a rejoinder to the notion that Christian Nationalism is a powerless fringe belief system.

The horror and spectacle of that day was a predictable outcome of the Trump Administration’s continual elevation of the most extreme voices of Christian Nationalism for the past four years. This was, at its core, an unsurprising result of that fusion between Trumpism and Christian Nationalism.

But that it was predictable—and that we’ve been warning about the threat posed by Christian Nationalists for years—doesn’t lessen the stress and outrage we felt watching it happen.

With President Biden’s administration taking office, none of us should pretend for a moment that everything is fine or that President Biden will magically fix the policies of the past four years (and longer!) that have undermined equality in the name of religious privilege. Our work doesn’t stop simply because someone else is in the White House.

With more than 225 federal judges confirmed during his term, former President Trump has remade our judicial system with jurists whose views on religion are out of step with historical precedent and the values of the majority of Americans. They have already struck down even the most benign public health measures that incidentally affect religious worship.

And in the states, we know that legislators will be working overtime to tie the hands of governors and public health officials, proactively shielding houses of worship from large gathering bans and other common-sense regulations. Or banning access to abortion services. Or enacting the dangerous—but now run-of-the-mill—Project Blitz-style bills that we’ve been opposing for the past three years.

It’s a lot. There’s hardly been time for most of us to catch our breath. And after the year we’ve been through together, we can be forgiven for needing a minute. To borrow a phrase, “It’s okay to not be okay.”

Needing to take that minute to breathe is not a failure. Our bonafides as activists and advocates won’t be revoked because we need to recharge. The work that needs doing is still going to be there when we get back. And, most importantly, after taking that break, we’ll be better for it.

Many of us—especially the people who are in the proverbial trenches, testifying in front of our state legislatures, attending community meetings to find new partners, volunteering and performing service to improve our communities, and running our own local groups—do all of those things in our “spare” time. After finishing work for the day. After making sure our families are taken care of. And after all the other things that we have to do on any given day.

With so many challenges confronting us, it’s tempting to think that we can power through, setting aside our exhaustion for “just a few more weeks.” But those weeks often turn into months. And those months of going at 110% capacity turn into burnout.

The people who make up this community—all of you who are reading this—are the most important resource we have in this fight. Our work would simply not be possible without the dedication of the hundreds of state-level activists who lead our groups, represent us in state legislatures, and volunteer their time to build a better community.

And we can’t ask for or expect that dedication to come at the expense of our health. We’ve got work to do, but that work isn’t going anywhere. Take the time you need to take care of yourself. The work will still be here when you get back.