The Find-Out Stage

A year into the sequel, it’s not just political — it’s personal.

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

It’s been a year since the sequel no one wanted — and just like every bad sequel, it’s louder, full of plot holes, and way dumber.

I still remember that night with horrifying clarity. I sat in my living room, watching the election returns come in — tired, anxious, but sure that America would do the right thing. That we’d choose the most qualified candidate we’d ever had. I kept waiting for the numbers to turn, for reason to win the night.

By midnight, I couldn’t watch anymore. I turned off the TV, heart in my throat, hoping that when I woke up, sanity would’ve found its footing again. Instead, I woke up to a text from my daughter at 3 a.m. It said: “The country let us down.”
And that was it. I didn’t sleep after that. Because I knew she was right.

Something inside me — something inside all of us — cracked that night. It felt like mourning. Not for a party or a policy, but for a country we thought we understood. For the belief that decency still mattered. We grieved until we couldn’t anymore, because the world didn’t stop for our heartbreak.

And now, a year into the sequel, we’re watching the consequences unfold in real time.
The noise is relentless — a kind of chaos that hums beneath everything. You can hear it in the grocery aisles, in the news cycle, in the quiet dread that settles between conversations. It’s the sound of democracy unraveling one thread at a time.

Every day, it’s something new. Something corrupt. Something cruel. Something that tests how much more this country can take before it breaks completely.

They told us we were overreacting. They said he’d “tone it down.” They said things would “level out.” But we warned them — they either couldn’t or wouldn’t believe us when we said it would get worse, when we said he wouldn’t stop.
And now the proof is everywhere.

Families are struggling to afford groceries — again. Food-at-home prices keep climbing, faster than paychecks. [1] Tariffs meant to “protect American jobs” have turned into stealth taxes landing right in your shopping cart. Households are now spending thousands more each year because of them. [2] Farmers — the backbone of small towns — are filing for bankruptcy at more than double last year’s rate. [3]
And the safety net we all thought was reliable is being dismantled on purpose. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has been halted, not by oversight, but by obstruction. [4]

Never in U.S. history has the government willingly let food assistance lapse — not during the Great Recession, not during the pandemic, not even during the first Trump shutdown. But now? This Congress did. They looked at forty million hungry people and shrugged.

Even worse, today Trump announced he would defy a court order requiring the release of SNAP funds. The administration is openly denying the authority of the courts and tying the ability to feed families to a political demand.
The message isn’t, “When we fix this.”
It’s, “When they bow to us.”

That’s not governance. It’s hostage-taking.
And the ransom is our dignity.

I keep thinking about how we got here — how a nation that claims to be “pro-family” keeps finding new ways to punish families. How a government that calls itself “Christian” keeps crucifying compassion. How people who speak so loudly about morality can stay silent while children go hungry.

And maybe that’s what hurts most.
Not the policies themselves, but the hollow faith that props them up — the prayers that never make it past the microphone, the Scriptures weaponized to excuse suffering instead of end it.

Because the Jesus they claim to follow didn’t starve people to make a point.
He fed them.
He didn’t threaten to take away healing.
He healed anyway — even when it broke the rules.

And that’s what real leadership looks like.
It doesn’t leverage hunger.
It doesn’t trade mercy for optics.
It doesn’t build power by breaking people.

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A Nation in the Find-Out Stage

The morning after the election, I went to breakfast with a friend — a good man. He’s someone I’ve known for years, long before “MAGA” was a movement, long before politics turned into a personality cult. We’ve shared meals, swapped stories, prayed for each other’s families. I’ve watched him love his grandkids, volunteer in his church, show up for neighbors when it counts.

He’s a good person — but he’s also woefully uninformed. He watches nothing but Fox News and believes every word of the propaganda they feed him. And I don’t say that with contempt — I say it with grief. Because when that’s all you consume, it shapes you. It narrows your world until fear feels like discernment and outrage starts to sound like truth.

We sat across from each other in that small diner — the kind where the coffee burns your tongue and the servers call you “hon.” He was calm. I was not. I remember trying to steady my hands as I stirred cream into my cup, trying not to let my frustration show.

I laid out what I believed was coming. That the chaos we’d seen before wasn’t going to fade — it would escalate. That the guardrails of our democracy weren’t strong enough to withstand another round of lawlessness. That the cruelty wasn’t random — it was a governing strategy. That when someone tells you they’ll dismantle the system, you should believe them.

He listened quietly, nodded here and there, then shrugged and said, “We’ll see.”

And I remember just staring at him — not angry, but heartbroken. Because I knew what “we’ll see” meant. It meant he didn’t believe me. It meant he thought I was being dramatic. It meant he couldn’t yet imagine how much damage a single election could do.

I bit my tongue that morning, holding back the emotion rising in my chest, because I didn’t want to lose him. Not as a friend. Not as a human connection. If for no other reason than to be a counterweight to what he’s consuming — to be one steady voice of reason in the sea of noise he’s drowning in.

But now, a year later, we’re seeing. Except it’s not just him finding out — it’s all of us. They F’ed around, and now the whole country is finding out.

Because this isn’t some political experiment happening in the abstract.
It’s showing up everywhere — in grocery aisles and farm fields and medical bills.
It’s showing up in churches that confuse nationalism for faith.
It’s showing up in courtrooms where rights are rewritten and in classrooms where history itself is under revision.
It’s showing up in the slow exhaustion of people who are just trying to make it to the next paycheck while the powerful gamble with their lives.

We warned them. Not because we wanted to be right — but because we wanted to avoid exactly this.
We said the chaos would be deliberate.
We said the noise would be endless.
We said they’d break everything they could just to prove they could.

And here we are — living in the “find out” stage.

The administration blames immigrants for the economy, corporations for the chaos, and Democrats for the shutdown — all while consolidating power in ways that would make authoritarians blush. They want us overwhelmed. Distracted. Divided.

Because when the noise never stops, it’s easy to miss what’s really happening.
They want us fighting over crumbs so we don’t notice who’s hoarding the bread.
They want us exhausted — scrolling, not organizing.
They want us so tired of the shouting that we stop paying attention to the stealing.

But here’s where they miscalculated: we’ve been here before.
Maybe not in this exact form, but we’ve seen this pattern — in history, in scripture, in the long human story of power trying to outshout conscience.
And every time, it’s the same: the empire always overplays its hand.
Because no matter how loud the lies get, truth has a way of surviving the noise.

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The Long Work of Resistance

History has always been written in cycles — and we’re standing in another one. This moment echoes the same long struggle for freedom that’s played out across generations: from abolition to civil rights, from suffrage to Stonewall. Every one of those movements started with people who were tired, angry, and heartbroken — but still refused to give up.

The long arc of history doesn’t bend toward justice on its own. It bends because people pull. It bends because faith communities refuse to baptize corruption. It bends because workers organize, voters show up, and ordinary people keep saying, “No more.”

We have the blueprint. We’ve seen what nonviolent resistance can do. We’ve seen what courage can change. And we’ve seen what happens when good people stay silent — when churches preach comfort instead of conscience, when communities trade conviction for convenience.

So don’t let the noise win. Don’t let the chaos drown out compassion. Don’t let despair feel like destiny.

Because the work isn’t over — it’s beginning again.

This is the moment to get engaged — not frantically, but faithfully. Feed someone. Write your representatives. Support your local food bank. Show up for your neighbors. Build communities that outlast corruption.

That’s how hope survives. That’s how light pushes back against the dark — not in one sweeping miracle, but in the slow, stubborn work of love that refuses to quit.

It’s going to get worse before it gets better. That’s the truth. But that truth doesn’t get the last word — we do.

So keep going. Eyes open. Heart steady. Hands busy.

We’ve been here before, and we know what to do. We resist. We rebuild. And we keep bending the arc — one act of courage, one act of compassion, one day at a time.

Because love — real love — is still the loudest thing there is.

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Sources

1. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — “Food at Home” inflation data (Sept 2025, +2.7%)

2. Yale Budget Lab — Tariff impact analysis, 2025 (~$2,100 short-run household cost)

3. U of Arkansas / Farm Economy Report — Chapter 12 bankruptcies doubled Q1 2025 vs Q1 2024

4. The Guardian (2025 Nov 3) — Senate Republicans block resolution to guarantee SNAP funding during shutdown