from the 2 september 2025 patreon q&a episode of fivefourpod. everybody go subscribe to fivefourpod now.
[on people asking how to deal with feelings of nihilism and hopelessness in the second trump administration, that things are irrecoverable and have gotten too bad and there’s no coming back so what is even the point]
RHIANNON: You know, this question and questions like it, you know my therapist would be proud because I kind of… I’m gonna be honest, I disassociate a lot when we get questions like this, or when people engage with me one-on-one even with this kind of tone and bringing this kind of framework, and so I think my therapist would be proud to say out loud: this makes me angry. It makes me really, deeply angry that people feel like this. And that isn’t meant to belittle the way you’re feeling or to say that things are not bad right now, because they’re incredibly, incredibly bad right now, they absolutely are.
You know, there’s many contradictions within me. Ideologically, and just politically, and how I feel emotionally, that are brought to the surface by questions like this. In this country, in the United States, we’re actually not in the worst political conditions in history ever experienced by somebody. And you’re telling me now that the law doesn’t matter? And also there’s this exceptionalist idea that we are, today, in 2025, in a moment that is so peculiar in how overwhelming it is and how awful it is that we are throwing our hands up and saying things like the law don’t matter anymore. When it’s like, take a step back. Yes, things are really bad right now in 2025. Yes, Trump is doing things with the law and the Supreme Court is doing things with the law that are abhorrent and awful and harmful, deeply harmful, and violent to so many people.
But, note please, take one half fucking step back, that we are in a historical moment. That brick by brick, this current context, the current political conditions that we live in today were built by everybody before. This is not some peculiar, special, Donald Trump and Sam Alito and Clarence Thomas thing. We had concentration camps at the border, we had people being kidnapped for their immigration status, or allegedly, long before this was happening under Donald Trump. Yes, there are aspects of this that are so extreme and continue to be elevated. But this is not new, and in fact should be seen as the resulting output of long projects that got us here. So we need to be in a place where we are not saying the law doesn’t fucking matter anymore, this is all ridiculous. Because what we need right now is actually quite serious engagement with the conditions around you, serious assessment of what’s going on, and serious fucking work.
Mahmoud Khalil was in immigration detention. The government is currently still trying to deport him. He was in immigration detention for over a hundred days. He is out right now, still fighting. He’s out right now, still fighting. On what? On the law, among other things. So don’t fucking say that the law doesn’t matter right now and none of our work matters right now, because it is actually abdicating your role in this.
And so I think this gets us also to like… maybe a general- I’ve already gone off and I’m gonna continue to fucking go off. Because to be honest it really pisses me off and I haven’t said anything for months, and this podcast is not therapy Rhiannon, but I’m gonna keep fucking going. You know, there’s a lot of kind of doomsday questions in here. And I want to say again, and I want people to hear me: things are really really fucking bad, things are really scary, things are really depressing. You must know, as a listener of this podcast, what I have personally been going through. To say nothing of all of the other issues that we deeply deeply care about, that we advocate for, that we’re talking about right now, that are affecting broad, broad swaths of society. Things are bad, I am with you. Things are so bad.
But, these questions about, “Is all hope lost? At what point do I leave the country?” We have a question, “How fucked are we, really? Tell me as graphically as possible. How close to or far past the time to flee the country for targeted groups.” I want to express my frustration with this, because again, this is… people can make reasonable decisions about where they live and their own safety and leaving the country or not leaving the country, but you have a role. You have a role even as a victim of something violent and terrible. You have a role in confronting it. You have a role in changing those conditions. And that role, my good fucking friends, is not to disengage, to throw up your hands, and to leave. We should be stepping up in this moment.
If you are a victim, if you are a member of a targeted group, if you are feeling the heat of repression, of attack, of the harm that Trump is trying to impose on so many, that the cops are trying to impose on so many, think about why it is that you’re a victim. It must be because you are fucking powerful, actually. If you are a trans person right now, my god, how powerful are you. How incredibly strong. Step into that strength. If you’re an immigrant, if you’re Palestinian, if you are gay, if you are a person of color. Why would you be a victim? It’s because you’re a threat. It’s because you represent something that is threatening to fascists. Step into it. Be that.
MICHAEL: Yeah, one thing fascists love is conformity. And they’re scared of you, not only because you don’t conform in a lot of ways, but because you have successfully bent society over the last 20 years to create space for your nonconformity. You’re targeted because of your power, because of your success, your cultural success, your political success, your legal success to date.
PETER: And because you undermine their vision of the world.
MICHAEL: Lean into that.
RHIANNON: So keep doing that. And this gets me also, last fucking thing I’ll ever fucking say for the rest of my life, honestly, is this question about, and maybe this turns us to a little bit more positivity, although I’m not sure my answer is that fucking positive, actually. But we get a lot of questions about what gives you hope right now. What makes you happy right now. What things are you still optimistic about.
And, again, I understand, actually, the inclination to ask this question and to be desperate, desperate, desperate for something to look forward to, for something hopeful. But when I’m asked about what gives me hope, I actually think the author and activist and organizer Derecka Purnell, who wrote the book Becoming Abolitionists, she, having experienced personal tragedy and so much else in her life, wrote several months ago about being asked about what she’s hopeful for…
She said, “I’ve been asked a lot about what gives me hope. I have been asking a different question: What is required of me? This question guides me on my best days and my worst days. It is a question that keeps me accountable to community and to our liberation struggle, so that regardless of whether I feel hope under a genocide, illegal abductions, personal tragedy, and more, I know that through it all I have a role and relationships that inform my role. Some days are hard, some days I may move slow, some days it doesn’t feel like we’ll win, but that does not stop what’s required of me. Our enemies have money, weapons, and the media on their side. Let’s not volunteer the loss of our will.”
I think we really, really need to take this seriously. This inundation that you are feeling, “the law is fucked, the law’s all fake, fuck it, it’s over” — that is exactly what the Trump administration wants you to think. That is exactly the point of the fascist inundation that you are experiencing right now. So don’t just fucking give it to them. Don’t just fucking give it to them. Engage. Keep your mind up. Stay woke, hashtag.
