Losing My Perspicacity January 27, 2025

Good morning and Happy Monday! Thanks for reading.

Wow, I was hoping the deluge of bad news would slow down over the weekend, mostly because I can’t imagine Trump working on Saturdays or Sundays, but the hits just keep on coming. Most notably, we’re now in a trade war with Colombia, where we get our coffee, cut flowers, and not an insignificant amount of oil and citrus fruits.

Take a look:

The guy who spent most of his campaign screeching that he was the only one who could lower the cost of groceries took six days to do something so dumb it will almost certainly cost the price of food staples to increase for Americans. Not to mention that US foreign policy is now happening on social media platforms.

This all started because Trump tried to deport two military planes of undocumented immigrants to Colombia who, like Mexico before them, refused to allow the flight to land. Of course, Trump responded to that like the child he is.

THAT led Colombian President Gustavo Petro to hit back at Trump with some hard truths and to impose a reciprocal tariff on American goods for 50 percent.

It turns out that trade wars are more unsettling when they happen to you in real-time than when George Lucas uses them as the sole basis for conflict in The Phantom Menace (I hated this movie).

The US is Colombia’s biggest trade partner (by a significant margin), ahead of Panama, the Netherlands, and Brazil. Meanwhile, the US does most of its trading with Canada, Mexico, and China. Colombia comes in at around #28 on our list of trading partners. However, we do get the bulk of our coffee from Colombia (27 percent in 2023) and Brazil (35 percent), and we’re the second-largest importer of coffee in the world. Get ready to pay more at the Starbucks drive-through (though support your local coffee shop if you can).

Of course, the only people who will be hurt by this mess will be the people of the US and Colombia. And while there is a FAFO feeling towards the Trump voters in the US, the people of Colombia, where more than 35 percent of the population lives in poverty, did not ask for any of this.

Petro’s big gripe seems to be American military planes landing in Colombia without notice or cooperation with Colombian officials, which, honestly, seems fair. Petro later said that he would send his own planes to pick up and repatriate Colombian migrants, but the war of words (and tariffs) seems far from over. Of course, the federal government immediately jumped to tell everyone how fabulous the emperor’s new clothes look.

All of this is a result of Trump being upset that another world leader is denying him the right to do whatever he wants and calling him out for treating people like livestock. It’s been ONE WEEK since Trump took office. I’m already exhausted.

Soon after I put the newsletter to bed, this happened:

It seems to me that Trump balked at the threat of tariffs on our goods and is now trying to make it look like he won this round.

Last week, I made LMP available to anyone who wanted to read it, as a paywall seemed unimportant during a week when it felt like every gain in equality America has made since the end of the Civil War was being dismantled. Today, I’m making this newsletter free for all once again, because I truly believe that we all need to pull in the same direction if we hope to make a dent in Project 2025 and whatever else is coming our way.

If you could help me spread the word by posting, reposting, or otherwise sharing this edition of LMP with your friends and mutuals, I would be much obliged.

Today: How we fight back; Pete Hegseth did something unterrible; Now is a great time to get excited abut canning!; and The High Note.

Here we go.

How we fight

There’s been a lot of hand-wringing this week about where the Democratic leadership is and what they’re doing. Certainly, Chuck Schumer’s tepid skeets don’t do much to reassure the 75 million of us who voted for Kamala Harris.

Great, Chuck. WHAT ARE YOU DOING ABOUT IT?

While I believe there will eventually be a leader to emerge from the congressional democrats (AOC and Jasmine Crockett seem to be the front-runners for this role as of right now), it’s incredibly frustrating to watch Trump run roughshod all over the Constitution while Democratic leadership tsks and shakes their heads.

As those of you who read every day know, I was pretty inspired by what professor and author Brooke Harrington had to say on The Daily Show last week. In the last five minutes of the interview, Harrington pointed out that America has dealt with oligarchs before, and they lost much of their influence when Americans decided they simply weren’t going to put up with their shenanigans anymore.

That seems like an incredibly daunting task, especially since guys like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg make their billions off dozens (if not hundreds) of companies. And yes, just about every site in the world runs on Amazon Web Services, and us regular people have no ability to impact that kind of thing.

But this isn’t so much about taking the broligarchy down as proving to them that there is more money in behaving like decent members of society than selling out to a wannabe dictator and his fascist dream.

To that end, I asked the Bluesky community for suggestions on small things we can do daily to fight back. Some of these are bigger than others, but even if we each pick a few things to concentrate on, we can send a message. And keep in mind that people all over America are already doing these things, so you’re joining a fight in progress.

Here’s what The Resistance is doing after Week One:

• Spamming the DEI snitch line at [email protected]. Here’s one of the emails I sent, but feel free to do whatever you see fit, including downloading the screenplay of The Bee Movie. Feel free to make a burner account if you need to.

• Call or email Target and let them know what you think about their decision to “roll back” DEI initiatives. 

• Make sure your Costco membership is up-to-date and do as much shopping there as you can, as Costco is one of the few companies that has refused to bend the knee to Trump.

• Do what you can to get Amazon out of your life. I’m doing this one step at a time. This week, my goal is to find other places to get my “subscribe & save” items. Other ways to kick Bezos to the curb include:

  • Canceling your Prime membership

  • Switching from Good Reads (owned by Bezos) to Story Graph, a similar app created by Black women.

  • Get rid of Kindle Unlimited and Audible (I know, I know, I’m still struggling with this one)

• Opt out of cheap books from Amazon and opt into your local library! (Most have a wide selection of ebooks and audiobooks, and some can even be read on your Kindle)

  • Download the Libby and Hoopla apps to your reading device (I read Libby books on my Kindle and Hoopla books on my iPad).

  • Use Libra.fm for audiobooks

  • If your library doesn’t have a book you want to borrow, ask them to order it (this helps out authors and libraries!)

• Leave the Metaverse (Facebook, Instagram, What’s App) and X. Elon is already screaming about X “barely breaking even.”

  • Use Line or Signal instead of WhatsApp

  • Sign up for Bluesky instead of X

  • Move from Insta to Bluesky’s new photo app once it launches

• Move your financial accounts out of banks and into a credit union. Get a credit card through your union and cancel all other cards (I’ve wanted to do this for years, maybe this will be the kick in the pants I need)

• Download the Goods Unite Us app. Don’t buy from companies that have supported Trump or that are anti-DEI

• If you have the option of joining a union, do it

• Shop locally even if it’s inconvenient

• Plant a victory garden 

• Donate to the ACLU and/or Planned Parenthood

• Getting in the habit of writing and calling your reps. Put their contact info in your phone so you can call quickly and easily at a moment’s notice.

• If you’re a member of the LBTQIA+ community, download the Freddie app to organize and build community

• Get Proton Mail with VPN. Put tape over the cameras on your phone and laptop when not using them (I have a little sticker that slides back and forth)

• Follow, promote, and share social media posts from your favorite anti-Trump accounts. Help them build influence the same way the right has helped guys like Joe Rogan, Charlie Kirk, and Nick Fuentes

• Divest from media companies owned by oligarchs and invest in smaller, local media outlets and outlets reporting fairly and independently. Be intentional about what links you click on

• Get involved in politics at a local level

• Don’t support content made by celebrities who support Trump. Carrie Underwood and Nelly have already seen their streaming numbers drop after performing at the inauguration

• Block USA Today on all social media platforms (This one was happening all over my social media today due to this kind of thing)ff

And another loving reminder from me:

• Drink lots of water

• Move your body when you can

• Take your meds

• Wear sunscreen, even in the winter

• Wear your seatbelt

• Consume art that brings you joy

Again, these are suggestions from Bluesky users and others I follow, and I can’t vouch for every single one. For example, choosing to “shop local” and avoid Target and Walmart is easy for those of us who have multiple options for grocery shopping, but not so much for those who live in a food desert and drive 35 minutes for basic staples. Very few people can do everything on this list (I’m not even close). The important thing is to do what you can. Every little bit helps. Enough “little bits” become a movement. When enough people get involved in a movement, it becomes a revolution.

The point is to make it financially toxic to support Trump and his agenda. Public pressure works.

Do your worst, Americans!

Worst person you know just made a great point

If you had Pete Hegseth pegged as doing something right this weekend, you were way ahead of me.

Broken clock, blind squirrel, etc. I don’t believe this is representative of who Hegseth is, which appears to be a terrible person.

Speaking of Black heroes of WWII, I watched The Six Triple Eight on Netflix today, cried three times, and dug through my X DMs for a group message Kerry Washington was in so I could tell how great she was. I highly recommend it — it inspired me to stop brooding in front of football and double down on fighting back.

Get ready to pay more for food

I’m hardly a prepper, I generally role my eyes and change the channel when commercials for emergency generators and freeze-dried MREs for ones bunker show up on late night TV.

That said, you might want to start putting some things aside.

If you haven’t read Grapes of Wrath in a while (reminder that John Steinbeck used Sonora Babb’s notes to write it and never gave her credit), more than three-quarters of our vegetables come from California. According to another outlet, 75 percent of migrant workers in Bakersfield didn’t show up for work last week. And the damage won’t be limited to California. It’s going to happen in Florida and Texas and everywhere else.

Now might be a good time to explore the exciting world of canning!

The High Note

Every day, I do my best to leave you better than I found you. I know it seems bleak right now. But leaders will emerge. The Resistance will form. We will push back, and we will win.

Don’t give up.

This song inspired me when I was 16 years old and took over as President of Amnesty International at my high school, and it is still inspiring me today:

Survive and Advance today. Don’t let the bastards get you down.