Cultivating Sanity In An Insane World
Not as hard as you might think
As I walked the streets of Seville, Spain, over the last few days, I realized how “sane” this place felt. No one was really rushing. No one was honking their horns. People’s faces rested instead of frowning. Clean, well-organized, but above all, beautiful, the city of opera, arts, history, and passionate flamenco, seemed unperturbed, untouched, an oasis of chill in a world of chaos. I am sure they have their problems, too. I wouldn’t know it just by looking at them, though.
No militarized, masked brutality. The police roll calmly around in black vehicles, somehow aesthetically pleasing and elegant, with a string of blue lights on top. I also see them in blue with white and yellow markings, resembling stylish race cars more than law enforcement. One of them stopped and let Lulu and I cross the street. When I turned to wave a “thank you,” I saw the two men inside smiling back and nodding. How polite! How novel for an American watching Minnesota residents dragged, maced, beaten, and killed by American law enforcement in tactical gear, faces hidden, with helmets and gas masks.
In the upside-down world we live in, I have dug my heels in reality and refuse to surrender my humanity. I refuse to normalize asking American residents for their papers and violating their constitutional rights, but most of all, I refuse to surrender my sanity to their military circus.
I believe that the strength to overcome the worst impulses of this Administration comes from a commitment to what we love, not from fear of the people terrorising American cities. We need to stay sane to keep the love alive. We need to emotionally regulate to avoid unnecessary escalation and to outsmart them.
The perspective from high above
Fear kills the prey in the jungle, not just the predator. We are in the jungle now. Our number one job is not to fall prey.
Imagine the advantage of a gazelle in the Savana, if it had a bird’s-eye view of its surroundings. Unlike the gazelle in the Savana, we can access information that gives us a bird’s-eye view if we resist the algorithmic pull that locks our attention and emotional resources.
From this perspective, the checks in the system are holding better than most realize.
Litigation Tracker enumerates 253 active cases challenging the Trump administration’s actions, as of the end of 2025. Fulcrum reports that 530 cases have been filed against the administration in 2025, far exceeding the number filed against previous presidents (as of November 2025). Just Security counted 583, as of Jan 16, 2026.
“,,, significantly more than the 133 multistate lawsuits against Biden across his entire term, and 30 to 40 against Obama in his first year, and fewer than 20 against George W. Bush in his first year.”
According to Just Security’s tracker, there have been 200 wins against the government, so far (Government Action Blocked 51, Temporarily Blocked 109, Blocked Pending Appeal 33, Case Closed in Favor of Plaintiff 7). The Government has won 110 cases in the same period.
That’s a pretty crappy track record for a government with unlimited resources. Among the cases lost by the government are some big ones, like the California redistricting case, the California and Illinois cases about the use of the National Guard by the president, etc. And just a day ago, a Federal Judge restricted ICE’s use of force on protesters because of what is happening in Minneapolis. These cases then become a precedent when other states find themselves in the same position.
Judges fight back in one other way. After the 2024 election, unlike previous post-election periods, fewer federal judges eligible for retirement or senior status moved to create vacancies that Trump could fill. Observers find this to be an atypical pattern, calling it strategic deferment likely driven by concern about who would be appointed as their successor, directly depriving Trump of the ability to fill those seats.
The Fed Chair is fighting back for the Federal Reserve’s independence, too, and the consensus is that it will be an easy win for him if the whole thing even goes to court. At the same time, other “retribution” cases were dismissed, like the James Comey and Tisha James cases. Subsequent grand juries reportedly refused to bring new charges against James after the dismissal.
U.S. senators introduced legislation to prohibit the Pentagon and State Department from using funds to occupy, annex, blockade, or assert control over the territory of NATO members (including Greenland). Parallel legislation was introduced in the House, and a Congressional delegation just visited Greenland to reaffirm the partnership and uphold its national sovereignty. A number of Republicans have spoken out publicly against this. Meanwhile, the European NATO countries and Canada are also standing up for Greenland. This is a developing story, but a good start.
As for ICE, I believe Spring will melt it. They are becoming a liability for Republicans in the midterms and the 2028 elections. Some state legislatures (New Jersey, California, Oregon) have passed or proposed measures to limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, including banning local law enforcement cooperation with ICE under certain conditions. Also, Democratic lawmakers are pushing bills to allow civil lawsuits against federal officers for constitutional violations and keep immigration agents without warrants out of sensitive locations (schools, homes, hospitals). (AP News)
Cities like Seattle and New York are formally organizing their infrastructure and training people on how to productively and lawfully resist ICE. Some are running campaigns to educate their residents on the difference between the local police and federal immigration agencies, and urging them to sign up for ICE alert apps to help protect their neighborhoods.
Meanwhile, Progressive members of Congress have pledged to block or condition DHS funding unless major reforms to immigration enforcement are enacted. They propose reforms, including requiring warrants for ICE actions, banning masked agents, and ending private detention facility use, using appropriations as leverage.
Just like in the case of the ACA Healthcare subsidies, the House eventually passed a 3-year extension because Republicans finally folded under pressure from the public, I believe the same will happen with ICE. The ACA debate is currently in the Senate. Something tells me they will fold, too. Fingers crossed. Maybe, they just need a little more time, so the public will forget how Republicans laughed at Democrats for giving up on the issue just a couple of months ago when Trump declared victory.
Kristi Noem is already going on news stations declaring victory for ICE. She claims that in 2025, more than 2.5 million illegals have been forced out of the country, of which about 600,000 deported and the rest self-deported. The official numbers are not out yet, but independent monitors estimate the actual deportation numbers to be around 340,000. If Miller had his way, at 3000 removals per day, we should have seen over a million by the end of 2025.
Recent reports from January 2026 indicate ICE in Texas has been quietly releasing some detained immigrant families, including children, despite a public “zero-release” policy and without explanations, as per USA Today.
Just like everything else the administration does, they start out with bluster and end up with little progress but lots of self-praise. The point is to capture the news and stay there because impression matters more than facts.
Remember DOGE and the “chainsaw for democracy?” If you forgot, they promised to restructure, cut, and streamline the federal government, and to ultimately save the American taxpayers $2 trillion dollars. After Elon became more of an eyesore, aggravating pretty much everyone, DOGE was quietly dismantled. A government archive entry indicates that by November 2025, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (USOPM) stated DOGE “didn’t exist anymore.” Independent investigations by multiple outlets verified that only $1.6 - $2.5 billion was possibly saved.
DODGE’s failure was not as loudly advertised as its inception. But that’s how this Administration works. Remember the $2000 checks Trump announced he would send every taxpayer to help with the “affordability hoax”? Well, no one is talking about that anymore either. How about the astronomical tariffs Trump announced on “Liberation Day”? Most of them have been rolled back or completely disappeared quietly, which is why, despite prices rising, they haven’t risen as much as they could have if the tariffs were still in place.
Then there were the attempts by the Administration to stop funding for various programs, like SNAP benefits, NIH funding, etc. They have also been reinstated because, it turns out, you really can’t stop money appropriated by Congress. The Administration quietly folded instead of picking a fight.
The Trump administration sought to defund and dismantle the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which includes Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and other international broadcasting entities. Congress appropriated roughly $653 million for USAGM—far above the administration’s proposal—preserving VOA and related services.
NASA’s FY2026 budget is about $24.4 billion, far higher than the White House proposal and nearly restoring science mission funding the Administration previously crippled. The administration initiated steep cuts or rescissions to foreign aid and global health programming like USAID. Congress allocated about $9.4 billion for global health assistance in the FY2026 foreign aid bill, well above the administration’s requested level and signaling bipartisan support for sustained global health funding.
In early January 2026, health officials initially cut approximately $1.9 billion from mental health and substance use programs under SAMHSA to align with the administration’s restructuring plans. After bipartisan outcry, funding was reinstated within a day for most of those programs.
These are just a few examples of many. Even federal workers have been asked to come back after being fired. According to internal reporting, the Trump administration has scrambled to rehire many of these federal workers after recognizing that cuts had damaged core services like weather forecasting, drug approvals, nuclear site management, and many more, and faced legal, agency, and political pressure.
Almost all of the probationary workers fired under DOGE guidance were reinstated or at least placed on paid administrative leave as of March 2025. At the National Institute for Occupational Health, roughly 875 of about 1,000 staff were terminated in April 2025 as part of cuts. In January 2026, the administration reversed those cuts and reinstated nearly all of those employees at the agency after legal and public pressure. At the FDA Office of Regulatory Policy, nearly 50 workers were fired and then called back to work later in 2025. CDC reinstated at least 450 employees previously fired during workforce reductions. Additional rehiring occurred across CDC branches (HIV/viral hepatitis, environmental health, etc.), including over 200 at CDC’s National Center for HIV, STD and Tuberculosis Prevention and 158 at the National Center for Environmental Health.
Again, these are just a few examples across the government agencies.
From this bird’s-eye view, we can see where the predators hang out and how quickly they move from one target to another, but in most cases, their efforts are either unsuccessful, litigated, thwarted, and very unpopular.
The most important thing to remember is that most of what this administration is doing can, indeed, be undone.
They sometimes undo it themselves. Executive orders can be rescinded. Funding can be restored. Employees can be rehired. Trump’s government is making news and breaking norms, but not instituting lasting policy changes. This has been the least active Congress ever in American history, meaning fewer policy changes, laws, and legislation. They are letting Trump do deals, but deals can be redone, too. If anything, Trump and the Administration are exposing the weaknesses in the system and the importance of no longer relying on norms. They are creating an appetite for enshrining in law norms we’ve previously taken for granted.
How to stay sane and keep it together.
Now that you know what things look like from a big-picture perspective, you need to figure out how not to get caught in the newscycle, the next shit storm, the next outrage. Let me tell you what I’ve been doing.
Also, I want to tell you more about Sevilla and show you a few pictures. I have a story about Spain. And, finally, I know many of you are bewildered at how regular Americans can still find it in them to support Trump. I have a gifted article for you from the Atlantic at the end.
