There is plenty to do with crises mounting. After a local militia burns Black businesses, you help a local businessman who had a bomb placed in his car and believes he’s the primary target. Each case is a lot of work and painful — nobody wants to be uprooted from their home. But many people don’t have the resources to go to a new place. One high-profile case tests you — a relatively high-ranked EPA whistleblower releases a trove of confidential and unflattering documents about the inner chaos and bureaucratic fights of Trump’s presidency. She is fired and repeatedly doxxed after being outed by a confidant.
At this point, you decide to go public. You’re inspired by a conductor on the original Underground Railroad named Jermain Loguen. He was a fugitive slave. Even after the Fugitive Slave Act was passed (which meant anyone could accuse him of being a slave and send him back south), he printed his address in the Syracuse, New York newspapers and told any fugitive slave they could come to him for help. You like that kind of openness. While some of today’s conductors choose to be that open, many have remained anonymous for fear of harassment. You decide to risk the consequences. You pen an op-ed to the local newspaper about the general nature of your work, keeping all the appropriate things secret. Within days, more work comes your way.
That work feels meaningful. But it does feel small. Your work feels like barely a dent amidst the national scene. Despite lower poll numbers, Trump continues filling the government with his loyalists. The courts eventually approve his Schedule F reclassification — 50,000 government workers are now being systematically replaced by Trump loyalists. Bureaucratic fights rage across many institutions. Trump installs judges across the country who gerrymander election maps in multiple states to give Republicans long-term power. But your heart tears as you see the language of fear and violence growing: immigrant communities terrified by right-wing militia patrols, increased violence against peaceful protestors, attacks on emissions standards, and exaggerated calls for political arrests.
