Even if you have never attended an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting (I have not), you may have heard the opening lines of The Serenity Prayer:

God grant me the serenity

To accept the things I cannot change;

Courage to change the things I can;

And wisdom to know the difference.

This is an excellent mantra for so many parts of one’s life, including—and perhaps especially—political activism. Few other areas of human endeavor demand that you give your attention to an unrelenting sequence of events that are dramatic, maddening, and largely out of your control. You are constantly asked by candidates, advocacy organizations and media outlets to pick up burdens that are not your own and carry them with you at all times, as though somehow by doing so you will personally alter the course of world events.

In this article, I am going to do the exact opposite. Instead of asking you to pick up more political weights, I am going to encourage you to put some of them down. These are not your weights to carry, and you should not be burdened by them. While we can all make a difference in the world, and while we should always make the difference we are able to make, none of us should be burdened with the weight of outcomes that are beyond our capability to influence.

1. You don’t have to read every email, article, or social media update

One weight I have seen many folks carry with them in politics is a feeling that they are obligated to read every political email that comes to their inbox, every update on their social media feeds about politics, or every article published by a media organization. It seems not unlike the way many folks feel obligated to finish any plate of food they receive even if they are no longer hungry. If I signed up to receive a newsletter or follow someone on social media, then I have to read every update from that person or organization.

If this is a weight you carry, you need to put it down. It’s perfectly OK to only read some of the news and activism emails to receive, and then to just ignore, delete or “mark as read” the rest once you have had your fill. The same goes for your social media feeds, or the content produced by your favorite media organizations. You don’t have to read the whole thing, and those people and those organizations are not expecting you to read everything they write. You are not singlehandedly keeping them in business, and there will not be a quiz. When you have had your fill of the news and activism for a day, just stop and move on to other pursuits.

2. You don’t have to respond to the nasty messages you receive

There is simply no way to avoid receiving negative, nasty comments about you and your work if you engage in politics. Personally, even though I don’t post on social media anymore, I still receive 3-4 negative comments every day via email. The sad truth of modern life is that if you produce content that other people consume, at least some of your consumers will go out of their way to tell you they hated it.

While you should read and consider fair-minded criticism, you also need to just let the flames go and not respond. You are not going to have much success trying to convince someone who went out of their way to insult you that you are not actually worth insulting. Responding to them is analogous to tying to persuade the hardest core conservative Republican to become a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

The people who insult you are not being respectful or fair minded, but you can’t change them. When they try to hand you those weights, just drop them on the ground and never pick them up again.

3. Don’t concern yourself with what you consider inept messaging from Democratic leaders

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In late October 2016, as Trump closed in on Clinton in the polls and Election Day drew near, I received a text message from a younger political professional friend of mine asking me a simple question:

“Chris, tell me it’s going to be OK.”

I responded by saying that, unfortunately, I couldn’t tell him that. The future is uncertain, and rarely more so than on the eve of a close presidential election involving Donald Trump.

Over nine years later, in early January 2026, I received a very similar question from a paid subscriber for an edition of Ask Us Anything:

“The number one question that so many people seem to be asking about this current political moment is, ‘Are we going to be okay?’ What’s the simplest answer you have when someone asks you that?”

I gave that reader a similar, although perhaps more stoic, answer:

There is just nothing that ever guarantees the future will be OK. The best we can do is to sort out the things that we, as individuals, control from the things that we cannot control. From that point, we need to use our best judgement on what to do when it comes to the actions we do control, and to make plans for what we would do in the event of various possible contingencies. From there, it is best to accept all outcomes with equanimity.

I then went on to briefly say that, in my personal opinion, we will actually be OK, but I did not offer much detail.

However, this is a response that deserves more attention. So, in this edition of Life in Activism, I would like to expand on my belief that, at least for most of us here in America, we probably will be more or less OK in the coming years.

First, I should note that the best I can do is to say that we will probably be OK. While that outcome seems likely to me, the future is, of course, uncertain.

Second, I can’t promise that we will all be OK. Trump has already done real damage, and will continue to more. Further, even if Trump wasn’t in power, it is never the case that everyone is OK. That just isn’t how life works.

With those two caveats in mind, below the page break for paid subscribers I present to you my seven good reasons reasons why most of us will probably be OK over the next few years.

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Spoiler alert: This article has a plot twist

This is a free edition of my weekly Life in Activism column. Every Tuesday, I offer paid subscribers of Wolves and Sheep and Bowers News Media practical advice from my 22 years in politics about how to keep a cool head no matter what is happening in the world so that you can enjoy your life even when you are engaged in political activism. If that is of interest to you, please consider becoming a paid subscriber today.

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My problem

So, I have a problem, and I imagine it is a problem you have had to deal with in your life as well: Everyone around me is just plain wrong about something!

In my case, what everyone is wrong about is the widespread idea that economic conditions have deteriorated for the majority of Americans in recent decades. I do not believe this. Instead, I believe that, on average, economic conditions have substantially improved for most Americans in recent decades.

First, let’s establish that my viewpoint is in the minority. According to a poll conducted last month by The Argument, 77% of voters “believe it’s harder to get a ‘good, well-paying job’ than 25 years ago.” According to a poll from Pew Research in April 2023, 58% of Americans believe that life in America was better 50 years ago, versus only 23% who believe it was better today. (Notably, the 1973 oil crisis was in full swing 50 years before that poll was taken.)

It seems pretty clear that overwhelming majorities of Americans, whether they be left, right or center, believe that economic conditions have deteriorated for the average person in recent decades. However, I do not believe this. The reason I don’t believe this is because, looking at broad-based, factual economic data, it just doesn’t seem to be true.

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis has data on real personal median income, real household median income, and real family median income over the last forty years. It shows a clear, substantial increase in all categories (all charts show data from 1984-2024):

Keep in mind that these charts are in “real” or “chained” dollars, so they take inflation into account. The charts also show medians, so they cannot be skewed by rising incomes among the ultra-rich.

This increase in real median income has not been caused by people having to work longer hours. In fact, the opposite seems to be happening:

This increase in real median income hasn’t all been eaten up by taxes, or taken away by having public benefits slashed. We know this because there is a statistic, real disposable per capita income, which takes both taxes and transfers into account:

It also hasn’t all been eaten up by debt, although debt has certainly increased. While I couldn’t find a Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis graph on real median household net worth (they only had total household net worth for the entire country), an investing company called DQYDJ has data showing that real median household net worth went from $108,501 in 1989 to $192,084 in 2022 (both of those numbers were in 2022 dollars), an increase of nearly 80%.

Many people will object to all this by pointing out that, during this same time frame, income and net worth have increased significantly more for the highest earners and the wealthiest than they have for the median American. And yes, that is absolutely true! However, that doesn’t actually contradict my viewpoint.

It is entirely possible that economic conditions have actually improved substantially for the average person, as all of the data I have here clearly shows, and that economic conditions have improved significantly more than that for the wealthiest Americans. Both of those things can be true. In fact, both of those things are true! What is simply not true is that economic conditions have worsened for the average American in recent decades, even though the widespread nature of that belief was one of the main reasons why Donald Trump become President of the United States for the second time last year.

And now for the plot twist:

Anyway, I am just going to stop there with the economic statistics, because it isn’t even the main point of this article. I am well aware that I am in the minority on this issue and that if you disagree with me, I am unlikely to change your mind. In fact, I am so aware of it, that during a long evening walk I took with my wife three days ago, I spent a good portion of the walk complaining about how everyone else was wrong about this one (I’m not even sure if she agreed with me, to be honest) and that I was unlikely to change any minds about it.

Despite that, I did spend some time during that walk thinking about writing an article on Wolves and Sheep justifying my position. However, I ultimately concluded that such an article would be counterproductive to my goal of building a community here, because not only would most people reading it disagree with me, but many would likely feel put off by it.

Then it dawned on me: a much better article would be to write about how I ended up coping and coming to terms with everyone around me being wrong, because that is a problem almost everyone faces from time to time.

And you know what? I have actually come to terms with everyone around me being wrong about this. I’m a long way from where I was back on Wednesday night, and I think that the steps I took can be useful to you when you inevitably find yourself in the same position.

Four things you can do to feel better when everyone around you is wrong.

1. Make sure that you are actually correct

I did some research after my walk to see if maybe I was the person who wrong about this one. This is just a generally important thing to do anyway: always be willing to do real research on your beliefs, and to keep an open mind about them. It will help you become better informed, more persuasive to others, and it is even possible that you will be the one whose mind is changed. Plus, I find that knowledge isn’t just power—it usually leads to a sense positive well-being, too.

You can see the research I conducted at the top of this article, and I think it mostly justified my position. I did find at least one counterpoint, though. The average sized home that people are living in dropped by about 10% in 2020, and never recovered. That is a pretty sharp decrease, and I can see why it would make people feel poorer.

2. Develop the best possible way you can to make your case to someone else

As I have written in the past, the only political messaging that you control is your own, and so that is the messaging you should focus on. Don’t worry too much about the messaging that politicians are using, because you can’t control that. Besides, if your messaging turns out to be extremely persuasive, they might take notice and use it themselves.

In my case, if you have read down this far in the article, that means you have already read my best attempt to persuade you that the economic situation for the average American has, in fact, substantially improved in recent decades. I don’t know if it persuaded you or not, but I did give it a real try.

3. Talk to someone about it, whether they agree with you or not

The next step is to talk about it with someone, whether they agree with you or not, as I did with my wife.

If the person you talk with doesn’t agree with you, that’s OK. As long as you are respectful and friendly, and they are the same, this can help you feel better. It serves as a reminder that the people who disagree with you are neither idiots nor monsters, and that you can still get along with others even when you disagree.

That said, if they do agree with you, that’s great! It is always fun to find like-minded people, especially when you are in the minority opinion about something. That sense of community was key to the formation of the progressive blogosphere back in 2002-2004. Back then, in the conservative national environment right after 9/11, many center-left types were overjoyed to finally have a place to discuss the news with other liberals. Much the same happened with BlueSky after the 2024 election.

4. Accept that you won’t change most minds, but also that you might change some minds

Finally, it is important to accept that most people will still disagree with you. That is just the nature of people: their minds change slowly, if they change at all.

That said, it is also important not to be completely defeatist. You actually might be able to change some minds. Maybe not many, but any amount over zero is worth it in politics.

This “not much, but also not zero” outlook is actually a useful lens to have on personal political activism in general. In a country as big as the United States, with over 340,000,000 people, with rare exceptions the amount of difference that any one person can make is necessarily small. That said, every person can make some difference. A small amount is more than zero, and even a small difference really does matter.

Thank you for reading. I really am honored that you chose to give me some of your time. Please enjoy your weekend, and if you liked this article consider becoming a paid subscriber to Wolves and Sheep and Bowers News Media so you can access all of my Life in Activism articles.

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One question I get from readers—a lot—is some variation on “why don’t Republicans stand up to Trump?”

This is not as hard to figure out as it may seem. Further, the answers apply to more than just Republicans and Trump, and to more than just people in politics. There are just some pretty common and easy to understand reasons why politicians, and humans more generally, do not stand up to the leaders of the voluntary organizations of which they are members.

To better understand how our national politics works, and honestly just to know what you are getting into if you want to spend more of your time engaged in politics, below the break for paid subscribers I provide a list of six the reasons why Republicans do not stand up to Trump.

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During his appearance via video at the flagship No Kings protest this weekend in St. Paul, Minnesota, the acclaimed actor Robert DeNiro made some remarks that I imagine quite a few of the people reading this article could empathize with:

Every morning when I get up, I reach for my phone to look at the headlines of the day, and for some time now, I start every morning depressed about the latest outrage from our would-be king.

First, let me say that I totally understand why DeNiro, and many of those of you reading this article, feel this way. I mean, I also read the news on my phone shortly after I wake up, and I can’t say that I have found that to be a fun experience during Donald Trump’s second term. I strongly disapprove not only of most of what Trump does, but also the bellicose, crass and ramshackle way that he goes about it.

(Note: I do not advise others to read the news right after waking up. In my case, it is necessary to my daily work.)

However, there is one small thing I would like to take issue with in DeNiro’s remarks: that reading the news about Donald Trump makes him depressed. While I entirely understand why someone would feel this way, I have to also advise everyone reading this that no matter your age, your level of political participation, your ideological orientation or even what is actually happening in the world to never let the news control your emotions.

I understand that it may sound very difficult not to be emotionally impacted by the news without just switching it off, but unless you can actually put an impermeable barrier between your emotions and the news then it will mean the news controls you. It will mean that you have granted the news, and whoever reports it, the power to make you happy or sad, angry or hopeful, fearful or relieved.

Do you really want to give the news that kind of power over you? For that matter, do you really want to give Donald Trump that kind of power over you, given how much he dominates the news? I don’t think that you do.

I have worked hard over the last six years to distance myself from the news emotionally without switching it off. This hasn’t been easy work, but it has been worthwhile. In terms of political engagement, it has actually given me the strength to participate more, because I no longer find my political work quite as draining as I once did. Emotionally, it allows me to save the best of myself for my wife and son, as they are the ones who deserve to have the fullness of my emotions, not some news item I read on a screen.

For those of you who are interested in not letting the news control your emotions, below the page break for paid subscribers I describe the two mindsets and that I employ to separate my emotions from the news. I hope that they can be of use to you in your personal journey.

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There are many concerning things taking place in the world right now: wars, financial instability, climate change, technological and social disruption.

However, in a sense all of those concerns have been with us for years, decades, or even longer. They are not actually new.

As such, it is worth remembering how it was not all that long ago—like, maybe only twelve months ago—that a different set of concerns were widespread among rank and file Democrats in our country. I’m talking about four concerns specifically: Trump not leaving office; a lack of checks on Trump’s power; the end of free and fair federal elections; and dissent becoming illegal in the United States.

Maybe you don’t remember holding any of those concerns yourself, or think I am exaggerating when I write that these fears were widespread. However, I am really not pulling this out of thin air.

As part of my work at Bowers Kerbel Media, which is the two-person organization that runs Wolves and Sheep and the Bowers News Media news and activism email list, I read every single reply to every single action email and newsletter I send out. Since we launched in June 2024, this has entailed reading roughly 20,000 emails, all of them sent to me by regular people who had recently taken some sort of action (signed a petition, contacted their elected officials, or donated to a center-left cause). Let me tell you, one year ago this group was absolutely freaked out by the possibility that Trump was now an all-powerful dictator for life, and about the imminent end of dissent in the United States.

You can read a sample of the emails I was receiving one year ago by reviewing our very first edition of “Ask Us Anything” here at Wolves and Sheep, which was published on April 12, 2025. The questions I answered in that inaugural edition were very much a representative sample of the emails I was receiving at the time, expressing fears such as Trump seizing lifetime power via a military coup in the coming days and government agents arresting people who contacted their elected officials on behalf of center-left causes.

While they have not stopped entirely, I do not receive many emails expressing those four concerns anymore. These days, I get far more email wondering about how Democratic primaries and the 2026 midterms will go than I do about whether there will be any elections at all. There are still a lot of folks concerned about voter suppression and the influence of big donors, but those are not exactly new concerns, to say the least. From my vantage point, it seems that center-left citizens in the United States are increasingly weathering the initial storm of Trump-caused chaos, and the regular world with its regular problems is starting to come back into focus.

Whether or not you are at that point yourself, I wanted to use this edition of Life in Activism to argue how none of the four fears that dominated progressive America this time last year seem likely to materialize anytime soon. There are many problems in the world, and we should always be active and vigilant in the defense of our democracy, but the core tenets of our democracy—checks and balances, free elections, free dissent, and no kings—have not disappeared.

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This is a little embarrassing to write, but I have been feeling a bit discouraged over the last three days.

The cause of my discouragement is neither the state of the world nor some major setback in my life, but instead just an accumulation of smaller frustrations. My business is slowing down a bit, as digital business often do in the spring as the weather warms up and people turn away from their screens. Also, my family and I have not done a good job of sticking to our household budget over the last couple weeks. Beyond that, I don’t feel like I am making much progress with my hobbies, such as chess and foreign languages. Like many other parents of busy kids, I’m finding it more difficult to spend time with my almost-teenager as his homework, music, sports and social activities take up an increasing amount of his day. (Maybe you know how that can be.)

The reason why it is embarrassing for me to write this is because part of the way I make a living is by writing practical, encouraging advice for politically engaged activists and concerned citizens like you. If I can’t even keep my own spirits up, then what business do I have writing advice for others?

To try and snap out of my funk, since yesterday I have been turning to a series of five practices I have long employed to climb out of troughs such as these.

Today for my lLife in Activism, below the break for paid subscribers, I thought I would talk about those five steps that I take when I am trying to chase away the blues. Hopefully, when you need an emotional boost, you will find some or all of them useful in your own life.

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Optimism is a real wonder drug. Optimism has been shown to have numerous health benefits, including longer life, better cardiovascular health, stronger immune function, lower levels of day-to-day pain, faster recovery from surgery, higher survival rate from severe disease, and improved ability to cope with stress and trauma.

However, optimism and political activism sometimes seem like oil and water: they do not mix. Generally speaking, Americans seem to have a tendency to check out of politics when they are optimistic, and to engage in it when they are pessimistic. You can see the phenomenon play out over the last 140 years of Americans politics in how the party in control of the White House almost always, outside of world-changing historical events like the Great Depression of the 9/11 attacks, performs quite poorly in midterm elections. It seems that supporters of the party inside the White House are relatively happy and pacified, while opponents are relatively angry and energized.

I can tell you from extensive personal experience that small dollar donations to Democratic and progressive candidates, as well as the audience for center-left media operations, both soar when Republicans are in power. By contrast, during Democratic administrations, it’s layoff time at progressive organizations. You don’t really need to take my word for this, either. Instead, you can just look at the regular, enormous anti-administration rallies that we saw during the Bush years, the first four Trump years, and now again during the second Trump administration. There was nothing really like these rallies, at least not on the same scale, during the Obama and Biden administrations.

While this tendency may be natural—some even suggest it is baked into human evolutionary psychology to pay extra attention to things we perceive to be threats—given the broad health benefits of optimism, it is definitely not good for us as political activists. It seems plausible that the same feelings that push us into activist engagement—anxiety, anger, pessimism about the future, a sense of impending disaster—are all actively bad for our health. In fact, in an attempt to encourage and harness the anxiety and anger that come from being in the opposition, many progressive organizations may be unwittingly hurting the health of their members and audiences.

I, for one, to not think this has to be the case. Or, at least I refuse to believe that it has to be case. It just seems like it would be much better for the health of everyone involved if civic engagement came from a feeling of optimism about the future, rather than a sense of impending and unfolding doom. Getting to that place may be an aspirational goal that goes against human nature itself, but making some sort of progress down that path was one of the ideas I had in mind when Matt and I founded Bowers Kerbel media two years ago.

So, in the interests of finding ways to help you reap the health benefits of optimism without experiencing the political disengagement that often seems to come with an optimistic outlook, below the break for paid subscribers I present four ways to cultivate your optimism without disengaging form politics.

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I have heard from some folks that it feels like the second Trump administration has been going on forever. They can hardly believe that it has only been less than 14 months, and aren’t sure how they can deal with another two years, 10 months and 10 days of this.

Personally, I don’t feel that way. Instead—perhaps because I have a child at home—it feels as though the time is rushing past. It feels like last week that I went out trick-or-treating with my son for what was probably the last time on October 31, 2024 (this year, he went out with friends, no parents allowed). I can’t believe it has been nine months since he graduated from the elementary school that he attended for seven years. I certainly can’t believe that he will actually be a teenager soon!

However, no matter whether you feel time has been dragging or flying by, I assure you that not only will the second Trump term really come to an end, but that it will do so before you know it. This is not because I believe that it will end prematurely—I do not believe that, as I made clear last March in my article “There Is Only One Way Out of Trump’s Second Term.” It is because I think that you simply will not believe how quickly the time will fly between now and January 20, 2029.

To help convince you of this, below the break for paid subscribers I have listed four reasons why the Trump administration really will be over before you know it.

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In my 22 years in politics, I certainly have had my share of times when I wanted to quit and figure out some way to do something else with my life.

As I am sure you can imagine, politics is often … very unpleasant. Even outside observers can probably imagine this. The outrages can at times feel overwhelming. The candidates you are trying to support can sometimes be maddening. Media coverage can be frustrating. Public opinion frequently seems contradictory, fickle, and uninformed. Power appears to be wielded according to the whims of the rich and powerful.

What’s more, there is also a lot of stuff that you don’t see. For one thing, if you are in public-facing politics, you receive a lot of nasty comments from people, most of whom you don’t even know. Occasionally, these comments are more than just nasty, and you are required to call the police or take personal safety measures. Further, if you work professionally in politics, some of your colleagues and peers are ready to dump you to the side of the road, or even under the bus, if you step out of line. And yes, sometimes you do have to compromise some of your personal beliefs in order to stay in the arena and make progress on other things you believe.

Despite all of this, what I have never found in my 22 years in politics is a compelling reason to give up. If I am being honest, part of the reason is that I am in my 50s now and at this point changing professions would be challenging. However, the main reason is that even in the face of all the difficulties, dangers and frustrations, in the end there are just no good arguments for giving up on politics while you are still capable of engaging in the public sphere. Every argument for throwing your hands up in the air and walking away collapses under even cursory scrutiny.

Consider the following:

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As I have aged, I have grown slightly (and I want to emphasize, only slightly) less interested in the question, “what is the best way to run the country?”

At the same time, as I have aged, I have grown a lot more interested in the question, “what is the proper way for a person to live their life?”

As I have grown more interested in the second question, I have come to notice how many behaviors that are almost universally considered poor ways for an individual to act are actually rewarded by voters. That is, behaviors that you would never urge your child to adopt, characteristics that would turn you off of any potential friend or romantic partner, and ways to act that no religion or philosophy would advise people to adopt are, in fact, things that a lot of voters seem to really like in candidates for public office.

This is … probably not a good thing. Granted, I accept that it is possible that public officials need to behave in different ways than individuals act in our day-to-day private lives, but I am skeptical.

Prominent politicians almost universally have net negative favorable ratings these days. Even the very concept of “a politician” has been viewed in a negative light for generations. Given this, I can’t help but wonder if part of the problem is that voters are repeatedly rewarding behavior that they pretty much know is bad and then are unhappy with the results they get.

Below the button for paid subscribers, I list five behaviors that are almost universally considered poor ways to act, but which the majority of us seem to reward in politicians.

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If you have not already done so, please consider becoming a paid subscriber to Wolves and Sheep and Bowers News Media for $8 per month or $80/year. You will receive access to two paid articles per week, invites to our monthly briefings, opportunities to ask us questions in our Ask Us Anything series, and the ability to post comments on our articles.

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If you ate nothing but potato chips, cake, sugary cereal, and deep fried bacon, and then washed it all down with a bunch of soda, what condition do your think your body would be in after a few years?

OK, so let me ask you this: if the only information you consumed about the world was about wars, the latest news about kidnapping and murders, the absolute worst things your political opponents said, destructive storms, new crises you had never heard of before, and vile social media posts, what do you think your mental picture of the world would be like?

Yeah, exactly.

Just as our bodies are what we eat, are minds are the information we consume. The digital age has brought with it an historic decline in the cost of consuming information, as well as an unprecedented democratization of content production and distribution. And those are good things! However, the digital age has also created structures that incentivize and reward negativity to a degree that has perhaps not been experienced in anyone’s living memory, if ever.

Even though we live in an era with the lowest poverty rate in American history, the highest inflation-adjusted median household income in American history, the lowest crime rate in American history, the longest average lifespan in American history, the greatest tolerance in American history, and the greatest technological advancement in American history, for twenty years running a supermajority of the American public has been convinced that our nation is on the wrong track. This is even though over 80% of that same public has been consistently satisfied with their income, their job or work, their standard of living, their education, personal health, family life, the community they live in, the amount of leisure time they have and the way they spend that leisure time.

I submit that the reason for this gap between how we collectively believe the nation as a whole is going and how broad measurements of standards of living and personal life satisfaction are going is due primarily to the overwhelming and unrelenting negativity of our contemporary information environment. We have consumed a never-ending diet of negative news and, as a result, we now always think that everything kind of sucks no matter what our personal lives or broad-based empirical conditions would indicate.

In some ways, Donald Trump is the perfect president for our current times, as he is personally an unrelenting and seemingly overwhelming wave of negativity both in how he describes the world and in how he personally acts. However, this is a problem that predates Trump, and which is likely to persist long after he leaves the national scene. The truth is that the vast majority of people and institutions who can command your attention when it comes to the news—politicians, journalists, advocates and pundits/influencers—are feeding you little but horror and negativity, and have little reason to do otherwise.

The problems this relentless negativity creates are manifold. Relentless negativity makes it difficult to distinguish real problems from fake ones, or to appreciate the magnitude of the problems that we have. For the purposes of this article, however, I am mostly concerned with how relentless negativity needlessly amps up the anxiety levels of millions of ordinary Americans who are simply trying to understand the world better by consuming the news.

If you are going to prevent the relentless negativity of our current age from making your life worse, the first step is to understand how practically everyone trying to get your attention in the political news world is trying to increase your anxiety. Once you understand this, you can begin to approach political information with a more skeptical eye that can be a real asset when it comes to keeping your anxiety in check.

Below the button for paid subscribers, I offer a round up of how every major grouping in the current universe of American political news, from politicians to journalists to advocates to pundits and influencers, are incentivized to relentlessly focus on negative news. My hope is that afterward, you can start taking what you read about politics with a more significant dose of salt which, given the questionable health value of salt, is perhaps ironically a positive step toward a healthier relationship with political information.

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Liberal gun groups. General strikes. Not paying your taxes. Disrupting law enforcement.

You have probably heard chatter about the rise of some of these more, shall we say, extreme tactics as part of the resistance to Donald Trump. The basic idea is that we are living in an extreme time, under extreme circumstances, and so extreme measures must be taken. The status quo just won’t cut it anymore, right? Let’s break the glass in case of emergency, just like it says on the case!

Except that it’s not true. The standard (some may even think boring) tactics of opposing an administration in the United States are actually working just fine. By this I mean the classics: speaking out, attending peaceful protests, contacting your elected officials, voting, donating, filing lawsuits, and relying on the built-in American backlash against the party in the White House.

All of that really is working. The big political picture right now is that Donald Trump’s power is increasingly curtailed and inevitably on the wane. His party appears almost unavoidably headed for a big defeat in the 2026 elections, and their prospects in 2028 don’t look all that much better.

Trump’s approval rating is at a record low, and dropping. His ability to pass new laws has been overwhelmingly limited, even though he has a Republican majority in both branches of Congress. Republicans are suffering landslide defeats in off year and special elections. The Trump administration is losing in court more often than it is winning. Freedom of speech, assembly, the press, and the petitioning of the government remain not only almost entirely unfettered, but are actually flowering at record highs. The prosecution of Donald Trump’s political opponents has overwhelmingly flopped.

This was all accomplished without eschewing the standard, boring tactics of democracy in favor of the more extreme methods listed at the top of this article. In fact, it was accomplished despite sporadic dabbling in those methods by some in the resistance.

Sure, some scary stuff is taking place, but it is all too easy to get rattled by Donald Trump. This is because he takes appearing menacing, unrestrained, and extreme as his standard strategy to get what he wants. If he can scare you with threats of federal investigations, illegal funding freezes, heavily armed agents on the streets of your city, or threats to annex your territory, then he can extract concessions from you that you otherwise would not have given him. Or, perhaps just as bad, he will goad you into an overreaction that will make you look worse than he does (and that is not an easy accomplishment).

We need to keep our cool and continue to dissent in traditional, democratic ways. This is not only because it is the right thing to do, but because the other stuff just flat out won’t work. We will only defeat Donald Trump with democratic dissent, not with extreme or violent tactics.

Below the button for paid subscribers, I take a look at why some of the more extreme tactics that have been floated to take on Trump—the ones I listed at the top of this article—will not only be ineffective, but in most cases will actually backfire.

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There are a lot of anxiety-inducing events regarding our democracy right now. Election center raids. Protesters getting shot. Government weaponization and political retribution. Swarms of masked federal agents in multiple cities. This is all scary stuff, I will grant you that.

At the same time, it is worth remembering that democracy is a lot more than the latest viral news outrage. Democracy is even more than a series of abstract rights. Instead, democracy is something that needs to be lived. That is, democracy needs to be practiced—ideally, every day—or else it is not really democracy.

When it comes to actually living and practicing our democracy, I honestly think we are living in a golden age. Chaotic, scary, dangerous, and with an uncertain future—I will grant you all of that. However, American democracy is still, in this moment, very much alive.

That may seem like a counterintuitive or even contrarian thing to say. But below the paywall, I will present a case for how, in three key areas that are universally understood to accord with democracy—freedom of assembly, freedom of expression, and free and fair elections—things are actually more democratic in America now than they were at any point in our past. This is because, in the present moment, more Americans are practicing and living democracy than ever before.

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This is an occasional free edition of my Life in Activism series, which I publish every Tuesday for paid subscribers to Bowers Kerbel Media, the organization that runs Wolves and Sheep and the Bowers News Media email list. In this column, I offer practices and perspectives gained from my 22 years in politics to help grassroots activists and concerned citizens stay engaged in politics while leaving their anxieties behind and still enjoying their lives.

If you like what you read here, and If you have not already done so, please become a paid subscriber to Wolves and Sheep and Bowers News Media for $8 per month or $80 every 365 days. You receive access to two paid articles per week (including Life in Activism), invites to our monthly briefings, opportunities to ask us questions in our Ask Us Anything series, and gain the ability to post comments on our articles.

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I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened. – Mark Twain

There has been a concern going around since early 2025—now apparently shared by vocal Democratic members of Congress—that Donald Trump will send federal agents or troops to polling sites to suppress Democratic turnout in the 2026 elections.

Is this a reasonable fear? That is, do we have evidence that this might happen or, if it did, that it would help tilt the election toward Republicans?

No, I do not think it is a reasonable fear. Like, at all.

Let’s take a look at why:

1. It’s based purely on speculation

For starters, this idea is based entirely on speculation. No plan, at least not one that I know of, to send troops to polling places to scare Democrats into not voting has ever been uncovered.

Honestly, if we are going to speculate, based on no evidence, that Donald Trump is going to use federal agents in order to help Republicans maintain their majorities in Congress, why should we stop our speculation at that point?

Why not just say that he will use troops to seize power and declare himself dictator for life? That would certainly be a lot more expedient.

What makes this speculation about troops at polling places better informed than this idea?

2. Elections are always happening, but this hasn’t happened

Because there are always elections taking place in America, there have been thousands of elections in 2025 and 2026, none of which featured armed federal agents at polling places.

No matter where you live, there are always at least two elections a year: a primary election (which take place on varied dates) and a general election in November. Sometimes, there are special or off year elections as well.

Over the past 13 months, thousands of elections have taken place without any armed federal agents at polling places. If Trump is going to do this in November, why hasn’t he done it already? There have been ample opportunities, not to mention clear signs that these elections were going to go almost uniformly poorly for Republicans. (In fact, they almost uniformly did turn out poorly for Republicans.)

3. In person voting isn’t how elections work anymore

In 2024, only 37.4% of voters cast their ballots in person on Election Day. This is part of a long-term trend in the decline of in-person, Election Day voting (although, personally, that is still how I vote, mainly because I just kinda like the thrill). As the years go by, that number will continue to decline.

Further, voters who do cast their ballots in person on Election Day are disproportionately Republican. By a lot. Only about one-third, or less, of Democrats haven’t voted by the time Election Day comes around. So, even if you sent armed federal agents to polling places on Election Day, you wouldn’t be suppressing many Democratic votes. In fact, you would be disproportionately suppressing Republican votes.

Even if you think “oh, well Trump will only send the armed federal agents to heavily Democratic areas,” you need to keep in mind that places like that are not actually where the 2026 battleground is taking place. The vast majority of battleground House districts are in the suburbs where, once again, two-thirds or more of Democrats will have already voted by the time Election Day rolls around, and most of the people showing up would be Republicans.

4. It would backfire spectacularly

Back on Tuesday, there were armed federal agents swarming St. Paul, Minnesota (although, as far as I know, none of them were at polling places). On that day, there was a special election to fill a vacancy in a heavily Democratic district that Kamala Harris won by 71 points–that is, 84%-13%--back in November 2024. So, this is actually pretty close to the kind of “armed federal agents suppressing voter turnout in heavily Democratic areas” scenario that seems to have a decent number of people worried.

The result? The Democrat won the election by 91 points, 95.28% to 4.36%. As David Nir points out, even dictators who make up fake election results don’t usually “win” by margins quite that large.

The presence of armed federal troops caused the Republican vote share in St. Paul to crater, not the Democratic vote share.

So, there is no evidence at all that sending armed federal agents outside of heavily Democratic polling places would even work, were Trump to try it. By contrast, there is a lot of evidence that it would backfire—and result in an even bigger blue wave in 2026—if he were to try it.

Donald Trump will not successfully use armed agents at polling places to swing the 2026 election to Republicans. There is just no evidence of that happening, and no way to make it work even if there was.

I have to say, with fears like this it seems like people are letting their anxieties get the best of them. Also, it’s a bit of a bummer to see pundits who I respect with significant audiences—and even powerful members of Congress—fuel those fears. I wish more people with big platforms would consider the anxiety externalities they can inflict on others.

Don’t live in fear, and certainly don’t be afraid of speculative doomsday scenarios like these. Enjoy your weekend and, if you are interested in more articles like this one, please take advantage of our New Year’s Sale to become a paid subscriber to Bowers News Media and Wolves and Sheep for only $60/year. Today is the last day of the sale.

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The events of this past month, particularly the shootings of two protesters by federal agents in Minnesota, have left large numbers of center-left activists and concerned citizens with a sense of being emotionally overwhelmed. Many of those activists and citizens are now expecting that same sense of emotionally-charged moral outrage from elected Democrats and journalists or media figures who are reporting and producing content on the subject.

I wanted to let you know that, even in times as intense as these, I am a longtime Democratic activist who can offer you something different. Specifically, I can offer you mindsets and practices that can help you keep your nerve and relative calm. These practices worked for me, and I believe they can work for you, too. However, they will only work if that is something you actually want.

Perhaps right now you don’t actually want to separate your emotions from your political activism. If you don’t, then that is OK! I really mean that, too. While that is not a path that I choose to follow, I am not here to tell everyone else how to feel and behave.

I am most certainly not the sort of person who believes that everyone else should act, feel and think as I do. In fact, I know that I don’t usually act, feel and think as most people do. For one thing, I am much more of a facts, details and numbers guy, whereas I know that many folks are persuaded more by personal narratives and emotional appeals. It doesn’t mean that I am right and they are wrong, it just means that we are different.

About ten years ago, in order to make sure that I could continue to take care of my son, provide for my family, and perform well at my job, I realized that it was absolutely imperative for me keep my nerve at all times and my emotions in check as much as possible. There was no room for snapping at people and still being a good husband and father, not to mention keeping my career in political media (and being successful at it). As such, over the years, I developed some practices to help me keep a level head while working almost every single day. These practices work to such an extent that I was able to keep my nerve not only during times like this past weekend, but during all of the tumultuous events of the past few years.

If you are interested, and you would like to know more, below the button for paid subscribers I list the nine practices that I employ to help keep my nerve at all times and separate my emotions from my work in politics.

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“Does any of this really matter?”

It’s hard not to ask that question sometimes, isn’t it? Whether you are talking about voting, signing petitions, contacting members of Congress, sharing political content on social media, making small donations, discussing politics with your acquaintances, or helping to turn out voters or attending rallies, I bet you have asked that question more than once yourself. Does any of this really matter? Is there anything I can do that would actually change the outcome?

Although, let’s hold on a minute here. Even though we often use them interchangeably, those two questions, “does any of this really matter,” and “is there anything I can do that would change the outcome” are not actually the same question, are they? The first question is asking “does what I do in politics matter to any degree at all,” while the second question is asking “is there anything that I can do that would matter to such a large degree that it would change the outcome.”

The answer to the first question is absolutely, undeniably, yes. What you do in politics does matter to at least some degree. To illustrate this point, below the subscribe button, I list seven specific ways your political activism does matter.

The answer to the second question is, disappointingly, probably not. It is highly unlikely that any one of us will be the crucial difference maker in the outcome of an election, the passage or defeat of a bill, or changing public attitudes about any given topic. The reason why is pretty obvious: the country is just too big for any one person who does not occupy an extremely powerful position (such as president, Supreme Court Justice or member of Congress) to be the decisive decision-maker in a matter of national importance.

In order to both be a good political activist and to be at peace with your political activism, it is important to accept the answers to both of these questions, and to do so at all times. A good way to phrase it to yourself is like this: What I do does make a non-zero difference, and that is important. At the same time, there probably isn’t anything I can do that would make enough of a difference to change the final outcome, and that is OK.

Here are seven reasons why.

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Ever since I launched Bowers News Media back in June 2024, I have made a point of reading every reply to every email I send, and of responding to thousands of them.

Partly, I do this to be polite: if I am going to email someone, it seems like common courtesy to read what they write back. Additionally, it seems to me that if you are going to operate a media organization, you should have some way to be contacted, and that you should see what people are contacting you about. Further, given the way the world is changing, I always like proving that I am a real person, and not just some sort of chatbot.

Mostly, however, I do this in order to know what my readers are thinking. While much of what people are thinking changes with the news cycle, there is one thought that remains forefront in the minds of many of you: the desire for some quick fix that would result in a rapid, premature conclusion to Donald Trump’s second term in office.

For all of you thinking this, I have some bad news for you: there is no easy way out. Back in March 2025, I wrote about six possible ways that Donald Trump’s second term might end early. My purpose in doing this was to show how all six ways are either highly unlikely or, in some cases, actually quite undesirable. If you are a paid subscriber, you should go check it out. If you are not, you should consider becoming one during our New Year’s Sale, and then go check it out. At the end of this article, below the subscription button, I have updated and edited that list.

While there is no quick fix for getting out of Donald Trump’s second term early, the way that you actually will get through Trump’s second term is approaching, and approaching rapidly: the passage of time.

How quickly is time flying? Consider this:

• Just one week from today, we will be 25% of the way through Trump’s second term.

• As of today, we are already 29.7% of the way between the 2024 and 2028 elections.

• As of today, we are 59.7% of the way between the 2024 and 2026 elections, putting us well past the halfway marker.

Now consider this:

• Today is the midpoint between January 6, 2023 and the end of Donald Trump’s second term.

• Today is the midpoint between March 21, 2023 and the 2028 presidential election.

• Today is the midpoint between March 25, 2025 and the 2026 midterm elections.

It all seems a lot shorter when you think about it that way, doesn’t it? That’s because, well, it is pretty short. And by “it,” I mean not only Trump’s second term, but life, and even history itself.

I turn 52 next week, which means that when America turns 250 this July, I will have been alive for 21% of the country’s entire lifespan (gulp). If you are 62 right now, then you will have been alive during 25% of our national history. If you are 75, then you’ve lived through 30%. My paternal grandmother, who passed away in 2021 at the age of 97, had been alive for 39.4% of our country’s history at end of her life.

It gets worse. I have been alive for 9% of the years since the printing of the Gutenberg Bible, a little over 2% of the time since Plato’s The Republic, and almost exactly 1% of the time since humans invented writing.

I point this out to provide some reassurance that Donald Trump’s second term will be over before you know it. Additionally, I point this out to help provide perspective on just how short life is. Don’t wish any of it away, no matter who is in the White House and no matter what is happening in your life. Don’t waste any of it either, which you can do by being transfixed by horrifying news, or by hoping for nearly impossible things such as Donald Trump being removed from office early.

You should most definitely do your civic duty by staying informed and taking regular, democratic action, but that is something that you can do in a hour or two every day. The other 15-16 hours that you are awake should be spent living your life well by engaging in healthy, stimulating, meaningful activities. The best time to get started doing that is right now.

Finally, in case you are curious, below is an updated list of why none of the six ways that Donald Trump’s term could end early actually will happen, updated from my original list in March 2025:

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One common feature of life during Donald Trump’s presidency is the frequent occurrence of news so shocking that it can fairly be called a political crisis. Impeachments, shutdowns, attempts to overturn elections, threats against allies, surprise military actions and much, much more. Coping with it can be challenging.

If you work in politics or the news media like I do, you need to develop ways to deal with the frequency of crisis moments under Donald Trump. Still, even I admit that I can get fazed by Trump’s actions from time to time. However, I am able to quickly recover, and today I would like to share with you six steps that can help concerned citizens or grassroots activists like you do the same without tuning out or losing your cool.

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New Year’s is almost upon us, and with it for many people comes the time for making New Year’s resolutions.

If you are looking for resolutions that will help you feel and live better next year, please take a few minutes to consider three ideas I have that I believe will help any political activist or concerned citizen have a more fulfilling and enjoyable 2026 without disengaging from politics or engaging in self-delusion. These resolutions are:

• Stop using insults—against everyone

• Stop getting mugged by the news

• Do the reading

Below for paid subscribers are details about why I think you should adopt—and how you can adopt—these three resolutions.

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