You decide to open your network to more people and make it public. You secure your personal information and take several digital security classes, to avoid doxxing. You’re immediately rewarded with more volunteers right away and a robust social media profile. When a climate change-fueled fire burns through your city, you are able to provide real-time tracking and data that’s vital for people’s health and safety.
You spend more time coordinating, training, and providing resources across the country for people looking to set up their own environmental testing. Distrust of government is high, and you find people of all stripes interested in participating. You find funding from a university with a small staff and lots of free student interns to help carry out this quiet mission. In small part thanks to your work, the EPA, one of the most recognized and appreciated divisions of the government, is able to continue to do their work effectively.
Over the next year you see small positive changes around you. But it feels like barely a dent amidst the national scene. Despite lower poll numbers, Trump continues filling all of 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 and gerrymanders multiple states for long-term control of Republican power. But your heart tears as you see the language of fear and violence growing: migrant communities terrified by right-wing militia patrols, increased violence against peaceful protestors, attacks on emissions standards, and exaggerated calls for political arrests.
