Overwhelmed!

Exhausted, But Still Here

Some days it feels like the news is not information anymore. It’s weather. A constant, grinding storm system that never moves on, only intensifies. I open my phone the way you open the door in a hurricane—already braced for what’s going to hit me in the face.

I am overwhelmed. Not in the delicate, “oh my, I need a cup of tea” way. I mean the bone-deep, civic-soul, how-is-this-our-life-now kind of overwhelmed.

This week, among the many punches to the gut, was the killing of a woman in Minnesota by ICE. Let’s just say the words plainly, because they deserve to be said plainly: a woman is dead because of a federal immigration operation. A human being with a name, a history, people who loved her. Reduced to a “situation,” a “procedure,” a “regrettable outcome.” The language always shows you the moral rot. Bureaucracy is what happens when cruelty puts on a blazer.

And somehow, even that horror is just one more item in a very long, very ugly list.

Here are some of the things that are breaking our collective nervous system right now:

1. The mass deportation machine.

Not policy. A machine. Raids, roundups, fear in schools, fear in hospitals, fear in churches. Families torn apart not because they’re dangerous, but because they’re convenient. When a government starts treating human beings like inventory, you’re no longer in the realm of “border security.” You’re in the realm of moral collapse.

2. The open contempt for the rule of law.

Judges ignored. Court orders slow-walked or openly defied. The idea that the executive branch is just another strongman operation with better lighting. If laws only apply when they’re convenient, then what we have isn’t a republic—it’s vibes-based authoritarianism.

3. The normalization of political revenge.

Threats to prosecute opponents. Purges of civil servants. Loyalty tests replacing competence. This is how countries stop being democracies: not with one dramatic coup, but with a thousand petty, mean-spirited power grabs that teach everyone to stay quiet and keep their heads down.

4. The economic gaslighting.

You are told everything is “booming” while groceries feel like luxury items and insurance feels like a second mortgage. Billionaires get tax favors, corporations get handouts, and everyone else gets a lecture about tightening their belts—again. The cruelty is not a bug. It’s the business model.

5. The full-throated attack on truth itself.

Scientists sidelined. Journalists smeared. Data rewritten. Reality treated like a suggestion. When a government starts waging war on facts, it’s because facts are inconvenient to the story it needs to tell to stay in power.

6. The steady erosion of basic human dignity.

Trans people turned into political props. Women turned into walking uteruses. Immigrants turned into threats. The poor turned into punchlines. The disabled turned into “cost centers.” This isn’t policy disagreement. This is a worldview that ranks human worth.

And here’s the thing they don’t tell you: this kind of constant pressure changes people. It makes us tired. It makes us numb. It makes us tempted to look away, to say, “I can’t take one more thing.”

But somewhere in Minnesota tonight, a family is missing someone forever. They don’t get to look away. And neither should we.

I don’t have a rousing, Instagram-friendly ending for you. I mostly have grief and anger and a stubborn refusal to accept that this is the best we can do.

Maybe the most radical act right now is to stay awake. To keep naming what is happening. To keep caring even when caring hurts. To remember that a government afraid of compassion is a government that knows it’s wrong.

We are tired. But we are still here.

And that still matters.

Julie Bolejack, MBA

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