Two months ago, a little over a week after Trump’s inauguration, I asked a favorite professor who’s currently supervising my independent research paper (and shares my politics) “How does one do research when the world is on fire?”
His response was perfect: “As if your sanity depends on it.”
And that’s the approach I’m trying to take not just to research, but to life in general.
One of the reasons I stopped working in politics is that I really didn’t want politics to feel like my whole life anymore. During the first Trump administration, I often fell into the habit of thinking about it all day at work by necessity, then coming home and doomscrolling on social media. I’d wake up on a weekend and see the latest insane thing Trump had tweeted, and lose time thinking and reading about it instead of doing chores, taking care of myself, or having a fun weekend. I wanted a life outside of all of that.
Between August 2023 and November 2024, this was actually going pretty well. I have a group chat with friends I’ve met through politics where we’d talk about it regularly, and I’d read the news daily, but other than awhile in July 2024 (between the Biden debate debacle and his decision not to run for re-election, with a backdrop of some awful Supreme Court decisions), I didn’t feel like it was all I could talk or think about. I was studying for my classes, working my summer internship, making new friends. Things were good on that front.
And then, uh, a thing happened, and politics has been occupying significantly more of my mental energy ever since.
I’m trying to be aware of my tendency to lose time thinking about what’s happening and resist it by doing other things. Part of the problem, though, is that politics seeps into the things I care about most.
I’m in UConn Law’s Asylum and Human Rights clinic, which has been an incredible experience that I plan to write about in more detail (while still protecting my client’s confidentiality) after my client’s hearing in May. But ever since Trump won, the whole clinic has had to deal with the fears about what he’ll do. ICE has stepped up enforcement, and while my client is legally allowed to stay in the country until her asylum hearing, ICE has detained and tried to deport other immigrants in the same situation. Immigration judges are losing their jobs and Venezuelan migrants are being accused of being gang members and sent to a prison in El Salvador simply for having tattoos. (The gang the administration is fearmongering about doesn’t even use tattoos to signify membership.) Several of our clients have been granted asylum despite all that’s happening elsewhere, and I’m hopeful that my clinic partner and I are putting together a strong case that will earn my client asylum as well, but the political climate is never far from my mind when I work on our case.
Not long after Trump’s inauguration, I got a text from a friend who very likely voted for Trump. It wasn’t about politics, just wanting to chat, but at the time they reached out, I was counseling my client on how to handle reports of ICE activity near our clinic. She was afraid that they would take her into custody and not give her a chance to show them that she has a legal right to be here, and I did my best to give her guidance on what to carry with her and what to tell them if an ICE agent questioned her or attempted to take her into custody. I was so upset about what she was going through that I couldn’t answer the friend’s text for a day. I was angry and afraid I would yell at them.
Politics seeped into other things, too. Many of my friends were worried about losing jobs, either directly with the federal government or that depend on grant funding. I’m in a labor law class which, for a few weeks, started every week with a rundown of various court cases on the subjects of “can Trump fire officials like National Labor Relations Board members?” and “can DOGE gut the entire NLRB staff?” (I’m unsure if we stopped because it was taking too much class time, because it was too depressing for my professor, or both.) And in my infinite wisdom, I chose this semester to fulfill my upper-level writing requirement…with a research paper on police unions and police reform. Sigh.
And yet, I’m still finding things here and there that aren’t politics and that are making me happy. Some of it’s been sports. I love college basketball (both men’s and women’s), and even this year when upsets have been few and far between in March Madness, it’s been a pleasure to watch. As I write this, I’m watching Sarah Strong’s phenomenal performance against USC in the Elite Eight and rooting hard for UConn. I also adopted Washington Capitals fandom while living in DC and I’m enjoying seeing Alex Ovechkin chase Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goals record. Really hoping he can break it before the end of the season!
Even better, living in Connecticut has given me the opportunity to spend more time with family, and I’ve taken advantage of that this month. My dad is a sighted coach and volunteer for the Hartford Braillers, a blind hockey team, and they did a demonstration of blind hockey during intermission of the Hartford Wolf Pack game a few weeks ago. I got to go cheer them on during the game and they did great!
My sister Mary has also organized some really fun things this month. Her parents-in-law brought the family to a Quinnipiac hockey conference tournament game and I was able to go along, and it was wonderful to see the Straubs. The next weekend, my stepmom and I cashed in on her Christmas present to us: a visit to Providence Perfume Co’s studio to make our own custom fragrances! I learned a lot about perfumes and how to make scents, and we all had a wonderful time together.
I’m very grateful to be able to do things like this with my family, and it’s a useful reminder that life goes on, even when awful things are happening.
And being involved in politics in a productive way is good, too. I decided to participate in the Tesla Takedown protest in front of their Milford showroom this past Saturday. I didn’t have time to make a sign (definitely have to do that if I go again) but I was proud to come show my support and lend my ability to really project my voice to some chants and singing. Plus, it was good for the soul to see a couple hundred people coming to speak out against Elon Musk and DOGE…and a couple of idiots across the street attempting a counterprotest with a Trump flag draped across their gas-guzzling definitely-not-a-Tesla giant truck. (The funniest part of the day was when a cop came to talk to them. You see, their truck was blocking the parking lot to a psychic business, and they had to move it and set up their Trump flag on the curb strip instead.) I only stayed for about an hour before leaving to set up shop in a Starbucks and get work done, but I’m glad I went.
My labor law professor co-wrote the “casebook” we use with another labor law professor, and they’ve very kindly given it to us in Word document form instead of making us pay hundreds of dollars for a casebook. Freed from the restraints of publishers, this semester they decided to call it “Labor Law, In Spite Of It All.” It’s an excellent title and how I’m feeling about a good many things right now.
A life, in spite of it all.