Not doing politics is a political act

You do politics every day, whether you realise it or not.

Every time you ‘set the world to rights’.

Every time you make a choice about what you support, and what you don’t.

Politics is about what you are allowed to do in your life. And what others are allowed to do to you, with you, and around you.

Politics right now is extremely stressful.

And our wish to turn away, to pretend it isn’t happening, is understandable.

The world doesn’t feel safe.

For many people, the world hasn’t felt safe for a long time.

But in Britain and America, we’re used to it being reliable. We know where we stand. We know that while we have personal struggles, our own government, or someone else’s, isn’t going to suddenly turn it upside down.

Now, that certainty is crumbling.

Rights are coming into question.

People are being shot in the street in America by people said to be acting for their own government.

Children are being separated from their families.

People are being disappeared on deportation flights.

And the US government is blatantly lying about Renée Good and Alex Pretti. Who they were. And how they died.

If you feel reluctant about speaking up now… If it doesn’t feel safe now…

It is going to get less safe the longer this carries on.

Posting this is stressful. I admit I’m scared doing it.

But the Trump administration has been pushing to see how far it can go before we squeak and say they have gone too far. It’s called the Overton Window. At what point do we say: “enough”?

And they have managed to do a lot to dismantle democracy in America before we hit the events of the past three weeks.

I don’t know how to enact change in America.

But I know that being silent is being complicit in a regime which goes against the values that country is meant to stand for.

And if you can’t speak publicly, you can speak silently.

Money talks.

Those bankrolling this regime are people whose products and services you use every day.

Switch. Stop paying them.

If you have a pension or investments, who is getting your hard-earned savings? Are they companies whose values align with your own? Are they supporting a government whose actions you support?

If not, take your cash somewhere else.

However you voice your rejection of this regime, now is the time.