47 Ways to Un-Trump Your Life and the World
From nurturing plants and taking smart action for democracy to reconnecting with play and using your voice for good, here are some ways to keep the second Trump regime from burying you and us.
It’s been a special kind of horrifying, hasn’t it? From Elon Musk and his team of DOGE bros being set loose upon federal agencies without guardrails to one unethical, unqualified person after the next placed in positions of acting as bulldozers and tyranny enablers, what I am calling Trumpin’ 2: Electric Stomach Flu™ has been as awful and disgusting as we could have easily foreseen.
There is a lot of ink being dedicated to this rabid bull-in-a-china-shop of an administration right now, as well should be, but my goal here is to uplift, empower and let a little light in during what feels like an actual blitzkrieg without spiritual bypassing. Tipsy Aunt Delulu may be a fun and breezy hang for an afternoon but you don’t want to reside with her. Nor is Debbie Downer a good alternative.
It can be overwhelming to figure out what can be done; numbing out is an alluring option and that is by design. We are supposed to be rendered immobilized by the sheer pummeling and audacity of this administration. That is why I wrote this, too: To give myself and others tools for not just surviving, and not even just thriving, but putting tyranny where it belongs, the dustbin of history. That prioritizing care for ourselves, care for each other and care for a lot of things that are the antithesis of callous, cruel Trumpism.
Sadly, he is our 47th president, there’s no getting around that. That can’t stop me from gathering an equal number of ideas to un-Trump your life and the world.
Plants Un-Trump the World
1. As I write this, it’s late February in Northern Hemisphere (probably soon to be renamed the American Hemisphere) so it’s a good time to plan a garden. If you don’t have a yard, join a community garden or just grow some herbs in your windows. Don’t forget fire escape plants.
2. Retail therapy can sometimes help when it’s a plant or two. A little green does really uplift a mood. Aromatherapy, too: Whether it’s incense or essential oils in a diffuser, let the power of plants do some gentle lifting for your spirit.
3. Visit a botanical conservatory and let the space, pretty flowers and scent of soil envelop you. Most are pretty affordable to visit and many have free days. Spending time with plants doing their thing is an important reminder that life keeps going and growing regardless of the ghouls and their ravening.
4. Grow food instead of grass and be part of a movement that can help reduce hunger and increase access to nutritious foods in your community with the resources from the Food is Free Project. Set up a card table with a cute little sign put your excess tomatoes, zucchini and herbs out for the picking.
5. Plant native species flora if you have a garden, too, growing local grasses and flowers that also are beneficial to pollinators.
Books, Libraries and Reading Un-Trump the World
6. Activate or renew your local library card. Check out the calendar page on your local library websites. Go to events that intrigue you. On my calendar? A club for exploring a new culinary herb each month and a true crime reading group. (I contain multitudes.)
7. Beyond your personal local library, check out ebooks, audio books and magazines from the free LIBBY app.
8. Rediscover the joy of spending the night with a good book rather than scrolling or streaming. Let’s be friends on Good Reads or just sign up there to keep track of what you’ve read and what you’re wanting to read next.
Doing for Others Un-Trumps the World
9. The 5 Calls app is a handy platform that simplifies the process of reaching out to our elected officials about important matters. It can also be used from a laptop. The platform gives users five timely action items and whom to call as well as a suggested script if that’s helpful. Don’t forget that it’s often easiest to be patched through to your congresspeople through the Capitol Switchboard rather than calling offices: 202–224–3121. Is it slacktivism? Yes. Does it still make a difference? Yes. Is it better than nothing. Oh, yes.
10. Indivisible is a grassroots movement of local chapters with a mission to build an engaged democracy rooted in progressive action and values. You can find local chapters through their website or get support for starting your own group there.
11. To keep on top of things, I’d also recommend signing up for Heather Cox Richardson’s free daily newsletter, which puts current events in a historic context; following Alt National Park Service for real-time updates and calls-to-action on Trump administration attacks on organizations and workers and checking out Robert Reich’s work and list of priorities and ways to take action when you’re feeling frozen with overwhelm. Don’t overload and burnout, though!
12. Volunteering feels good. Put your time where your heart leads you but I will be so bold as to suggest a few big buckets of need: Supporting reproductive choice; showing up for immigrant communities under attack; rolling up your sleeves for community cleanups. Check out Volunteer Match and Idealist for ideas.
13. Can you start a Little Free Pantry or Little Free Library? Can you donate to one? (This is our cutie: Please donate if you can!)
14. Donating to NPR and PBS while funding is at risk being slashed is also a great idea. Same with the Associated Press, founded in 1846, which recently had its access to the White House and Air Force One revoked indefinitely for refusing to change their editorial standards to reflect Trump’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico.
15. Think micro as well as macro: Do you know someone who is elderly, sick, depressed, going through a difficult time, or disabled and could use some help with walking, feeding, or bathing their companion animal? The love of a companion animal is an invaluable gift for those who have challenges but only if they are not overwhelmed by their care. If they don’t have animals, maybe you just help around the house, weeding the garden, helping with laundry or dishes, etc. It also feels good to do good. Win-win!
16. Check the Goods Unite Us free app (or website) to see how businesses and brands donate to influence politicians and political processes. Did you know, for example, how far-right Cuisinart, owned by Conair, is? It was news to me. On the app, you can perhaps find competitors to any purchases you might make that are not funding the Republican party.
17. Adopt, don’t shop!
Taking Care of Yourself Un-Trumps the World
18. Take breaks from your phone and from screens in general. I started what I call a weekly screen shabbat from Friday evening until Saturday evening and it has been key for my mental health. Most phones allow you to put on a “do not disturb” focus and allow you to override that focus for contacts you want to keep active during the time. I start out most screen shabbats by having a little dance party with my husband to this fabulous song by Le Tigre. (Worried about forgetting things or finding yourself distracted by obsessive thoughts regarding subjects you want to give down rabbit holes on Wikipedia over? Just write ’em all down on a list. I can assure you that these things suddenly feel a lot less urgent when you are back in the online life.)
19. Give the above suggestion a test drive on the Global Day of Unplugging, March 7–8th. Plan for it to feel weird, uncomfortable and to have to stop yourself from reflexively reaching for your phone, but it will be an accomplishment. It’s a good opportunity to plan for something else: Going to a museum, seeing friends, exploring a new town, etc.
20. Catherine Price’s books, The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again and How to Break Up with Your Phone are excellent resources for becoming more embodied and less laptop/phone and notification dependent.
21. Take walks whenever possible. I think of walking like the exercise equivalent of drinking water: It’s right there, there are few barriers to entry, it’s not all that sexy but it’s so good for us. Movement in general helps to un-Trump your life.
22. One of my favorite things to do during a screen shabbat? Puttering. Oh, how I have learned to lean into the joy of a good putter. To me, this might look like emptying out a junk drawer and making it a trifle less junky; weeding my garden; going through a big pile of unopened mail to make it smaller and smaller; or just slowly walking through my home and seeing where I am drawn to putter.
23. Feel like your mood is worsened because you’ve been in a negative feedback loop? Try a challenge like this to quit complaining for a period of time and see if that improves things. That said, the art of a good kvetch may be right what the doctor ordered.
24. Slow down: Watch the birds at a feeder. Dangle your feet in some water. Marvel at ants moving in and out of an anthill. Spend the day at a beach with a trashy book or great magazine. Practice tai chi. Drink a cup of tea or coffee and do nothing else.
25. Breathing exercises for calming or energizing need to be in your tool box.
26. Birdsongs lift us up! Use the trills, the whistles, the buzzes and the whole reveries to help you remember that there is a whole big beautiful world out there. For a very real biological reason, the sound of birds singing reduces anxiety and amplifies a feeling of safety. Seagulls and ocean waves could do it for you, too. Don’t undervalue a little sound therapy just because it’s free.
Having Fun and Being Silly Un-Trumps the World
27. When was the last time you rolled down a hill (on purpose!), swung on a swing, made a dandelion crown, spread out a blanket and watched the clouds pass, stopped for a lemonade stand, played hopscotch, ran through a sprinkler, skipped down the sidewalk, splashed in a puddle, played duck-duck-goose or gone down a water slide? Or, I don’t know, pointed at a Tesla Cybertruck and laughed your ass off? Reconnect with your inner-child to deflect toxic Trumpiness. What did you have fun doing when you were a child? Make a list and re-explore. Anyone who stares at you can go join the Trump brigade. They are SO much fun, after all. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
28. You know one of the best ways to Un-Trump the world? Laugh. Trump rarely laughs and he has no discernible sense of humor. Self-important narcissists rarely do. A sense of humor is essential for mental health always but especially in these difficult times. Watch the funniest movie you know, hang out with your most uproariously hilarious friend, revisit memories that are sure to have you in stitches and laugh, baby, laugh.
29. Keep an ongoing list of places and things that make you feel happy and/or relaxed. I keep this on my Google Drive for ease of finding and updating it but you can write it anywhere, including a notebook. The idea is to add places that have positive associations for you that are easy to forget about when you are in despair. On my “Pathways to Happiness” list, I have meeting up with specific friends; listening to a good mood playlist (you should start one if you haven’t already); do yoga; going to my favorite little downtown or café; taking a bike ride. You can even color code these lists: One color means these ideas are low-stakes and easy to achieve; another color means they are free; a third color or highlight could be more of a heavy lift, like a weekend roadtrip. The point is to not leave yourself in the lurch when you are in the most need.
Taking Care of the Planet Un-Trumps the World
30. Shop your closet and don’t buy more unless it’s ethically made, AKA, sweatshop-free. Otherwise, make thrifting your go-to, in person or online, through sources like ThredUp and Poshmark. Looking for something new but not exploitative? This collection of sustainable fashion may be a good place to start looking.
31. Donate clothing and other household items that don’t personally spark joy to resale shops, especially those with a charitable and progressive mission like Chicago’s Brown Elephant. Actually, finding things to donate sounds like a great puttering project.
32. Go vegan. Eating animals is tyrannical, unnecessary, cruel and harmful to future generations.
33. Minimize your purchasing of plastic. One simple strategy: bring your own reusable containers for bulk foods and bags — including bags for produce — to the grocery store. Make more at home, like your own nondairy milk.
34. Bringing your own containers for leftovers when you eat out, along with packing stainless straws, mugs and reusable cutlery when you’re out in the world, is a great way to minimize waste and un-Trump the world.
35. Walk, bike or take public transit more, drive less. Again, movement benefits mental health.
36. Spend time outdoors in nature. One of the things I started doing at the beginning of the pandemic was noticing and putting names to the trees and plants around me and developing more curiosity about the natural world I would normally just take for granted. Free apps like iNaturalist and PlantNet are quick to learn how to navigate and fantastic! I love taking walks with people now and casually impressing them with my identification skills.
37. For bird enthusiasts, I recommend the Merlin app for identifying calls and birds.
Creating Un-Trumps the World
38. Create art for it’s own sake: from sidewalk chalk to paint, pottery to macramé, art, even mindless doodling, are antidotes to soul-crushing authoritarianism.
39. Remember to laugh at them, too. As the amazing writer and activist Arundhati Roy said in 2003, “Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness — and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe. The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling — their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability. Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them. Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”
40. Not everyone likes to cook or bake but a DIY meal or treat cannot be beat. Have I got some recipes for you!
Connection Un-Trumps the World
41. Write a letter, card, email or text to someone who has been really meaningful in your life. Let them know what they mean to you or just that you’re thinking about them. Send it.
42. Make plans with friends. Don’t break them. Maybe even have a standing get-together day each week or once a month.
43. Call your long-distance friends and close family members on occasion to keep your connections healthy.
44. Give a little but sincere compliment to a stranger. It just takes a moment and it can really brighten someone’s day.
45. Move to group texts to keep in touch with your communities instead of Facebook messenger. I have recently organized a few under different fun names and it felt really healing.
Last but not least, This Un-Trumps the World
46. Remind yourself every day to do no harm but take no shit.
47. Stay alive, awake, self-loving, courageous, vulnerable and full of grace.
Marla Rose is cofounding partner of VeganStreet.com.
