It’s the Negativity, Stupid

That’s the play. Don't play into it.

Not the issue.
Not the policy.
Not even the latest outrage.

The negativity.

That’s what Trump, Vance, Bannon, Noem, Bondi, Blanche and the rest of the cruel bandits want us to feel.

A steady drip of frustration. A constant hum that everything is broken. That the system is rigged. That nothing works. That the other side is unstoppable. That collapse is just around the corner.

Keep people agitated long enough and they either burn out or lash out.

That’s the strategy.

And I feel it.

You can feel it in my rural county. Fundraising is down. Civic groups are thinner. People who used to lean in now lean back. They’re not apathetic. They’re tired. They’re frustrated. But ask them who they’re frustrated with and the answer floats. Washington. Raleigh. The courthouse. “All of them.”

When frustration doesn’t have a clear target, it becomes atmosphere.

That’s the negative in the air.

But here’s what they don’t want you to notice.

We’re not losing the whole thing.

The courts are holding. Not perfectly, but they’re holding. Judges across the ideological spectrum are ruling based on law, not noise. Guardrails have bent. They have not snapped.

We’re electing new people in places that supposedly don’t swing. That’s not supposed to happen, according to the experts. But it is happening.

Assumptions are cracking.

Even institutions that once seemed immovable are adjusting. Enforcement priorities shift. Federal footprints change. ICE out of Minneapolis would have sounded impossible to some people a few weeks ago. It’s happening now.

The noise says everything is collapsing.

The facts say the system is recalibrating.

That’s not collapse.

That’s pressure working.

And here’s the part we don’t talk about enough:

We have to visualize the wins.

Not pretend everything is perfect. Not deny setbacks. But deliberately notice where the ground is moving.

If you consume only the noise, you start to believe you’re losing everywhere. You brace. You shrink. You react.

But when you step back and look at the board — really look — you see motion.

Courts holding.

Unexpected elections flipping.

Policies shifting.

Institutions adjusting.

Those are wins. Not fireworks wins. Structural wins.

Movements don’t just win on strategy. They win on morale. If you believe you’re collapsing, you act defensively. If you see momentum, even incremental momentum, you act with confidence.

Visualization isn’t fantasy.

It’s discipline.

It reminds you that attrition works both ways.

Outrage burns hot. It also burns out. Movements built entirely on escalation eventually exhaust themselves. Constant fury is not sustainable energy.

But steady motion is.

So what do we do?

We keep moving.

Motion matters. Forward motion matters more.

If you’re tired, take a breath. Recalibrate. Fatigue makes people sloppy. But don’t stay in neutral. Neutral is where negativity wins.

We keep building. We keep organizing. We keep litigating. We keep governing. We keep electing people where we weren’t supposed to. We keep insisting that competence matters.

Because here’s the truth:

America has a habit of correcting itself. Not cleanly. Not quickly. But stubbornly.

The air feels heavy right now.

But heavy air clears when enough people refuse to inhale the panic and instead choose to walk forward.

So visualize the wins.

Notice the movement.

And keep at it.

That’s how this turns. That’s how we turn this ship towards shore.

David B. Wheeler is President and Co-Founder of American Muckrakers and a candidate for Clerk of Superior Court in Mitchell County, North Carolina. His views are his own, and written directly by David, with spell checking and minor edits with the the help of his AI buddy. An essay or story is never independently generated by AI and posted. That would be just stupid.

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