80 and Angry

WHAT TO DO

Let’s translate 80 and angry into 80 and energized. Turn watching the news into watching for ways to take action. Turn moments of despair into moments of becoming desperados. Turn to helping our country thrive again.

Actually I’m 82. Like so many at my age, anger rises as beliefs are skewered and the results of our activism dismantled. Our distress spikes knowing that we will not live to see any correction. Our children will suffer the consequences. Hopefully, our grandchildren will live in a “corrected” world where women’s rights, civil rights, and first amendment rights are secured.

The question I am most often asked by peers and friends half my age is “what can I do?” I assure them that change will come, that it will take time, and that I am depending on younger folks to make it happen like we did in the 60’s era of action against the Viet Nam war and for civil rights.

However, the challenge cannot be theirs alone. For our sanity, those of us past 80 need to find ways to feel that we are helping correct the future without us. We face real constraints, including diminished physical abilities and stamina, time spent caring for others aging less well than ourselves, and a desire to spend more time with family and friends. Not to mention that our particular skills may not be relevant to a lot of today’s advocacy tools. Fortunately, basic organizing strategies – personal contact and action – benefit from what we do have: flexibility.

Using our time wisely we can become contributors to the correction and, in doing so, reduce our anxiety and restore some hope.

What to do.

Go Local The Maga revolution did not start with Donald Trump. His complicit audience was built town by town. Future acolytes became school board members who today ban books. Supportive state and local officials devise ways to suppress the vote and demand the display of the ten commandments and distribution of bibles in public schools. Soon they could encourage and participate in Stasi-like reporting on a neighbor’s display of a Pride sign. There is a lot to do:

· Volunteer for local candidates – school board, town council, town clerk, etc. Be the little old lady (or man) who walks their neighborhood, for who is not going to open their door to an elder; who stands up at public meetings and events and speaks out; and, who writes personal notes, texts, and makes calls. Remember, today’s local office holder can become tomorrow’s mayor, state legislator, and on up the electoral ladder

· Find websites that track ICE activity. Although the administration has managed to get ICE alert apps removed you can still find out about activity. Be a witness and record and publicize intimidation tactics and unexpected arrests which often result in heartbreaking family separations. What else do we have to do on a Tuesday at 2pm?

· Find out if there are regular protests in front of local congressional offices and set aside that time every week. There is bound to be a coffee shop nearby to gather before or afterwards for some social time.

· Seek out neighborhood members of Indivisible where folks figure out and bond together locally to raise their voices and take action. There is a lot more to do than just politically protest. In Brooklyn, a local group decided to offer training for local small business employees about their rights. The effort has been met with enthusiasm and now the founders are training trainers to expand their impact. The great part of Indivisible is its “to each their own” attitude.

Go National There are loads of groups that organize national protests such as NO KINGS DAY. If you can’t or like me are not great big group marchers, offer to give rides, house organizers, supply water, hold a sign-making party. On such occasions, gather neighbors in your back yard or living room with signs in hand and/or wearing great t-shirts. Take pictures and post to your social media or any local outlet. You will feel you have done something and will let others know they are not alone.

Donate Sadly, we live in a country where money matters more than it should. Right wing billionaires are gobbling up media outlets and led by an wannabe dictator are working hard to dominate the news consumed by most Americans. We can’t compete dollar for dollar with them but that doesn’t mean the 4% of Americans over 80 can’t help finance resistance. It begins with reorienting priorities to meet today’s challenges. Recently a friend who had never given a penny to any candidate asked to whom to give in the run up to the 2026 elections. Another asked which organizations were mobilizing most effectively and which organizations were trying to fill the gaps created by funding cancellations. Personally, my reorientation means first time giving to the Florence Project, the acknowledged leader in protecting immigrants in Arizona where we now spend the winter; supporting the Freedom from Religion Foundation because of my obsession with separation of church and state; and, doubling our annual gift to Oxfam America where I served on the board and which is working to fill the huge humanitarian gap created by the loss of USAID funding. Whether you commit to a $10,000 gift or ten dollars a month, giving something will count.

Celebrate To get through these times it is really important to take time for joy and to spread it. Certainly something makes you smile each day. Small and large. A graduation from kindergarten. Fall foliage. In my case, grandsons’ upcoming graduation from high school and college. Publication of something that made you smile – Andy Borowitz perhaps – or in my case, the release of our ten year old grandson’s graphic novel. An unexpected gift that charms us, such as the almost empty jar of peanut butter presented to us by neighbor’s 8, 5, and 2 year old children who thought our dog would love licking it. Most important, call your kids, your friends, near and far relatives and regale them with tales of joy. Send pictures, post to your social outlets. Give the gift of smiling to someone else.