I have been living in fear for months and last night my fears were realized.  Here’s what I fear is coming:

The climate change accord rejected.

Planned Parenthood defunded so no more cancer screenings and birth control for low income women.

The ACA repealed.  Millions without health care once again.

The nuclear agreement with Iran revoked.

A new Supreme Court that may well overturn Obergefell granting gay people the right to marry.  What happens to those couples and their children?  And will they finally get their wish to criminalize abortion?  There was a girl in my high school who died from a botched back street abortion.  Is that again in our future?

An abandonment of NATO, an organization that has kept relative peace in Europe for seventy years.  Putin has been massing troops and supplies on the borders of eastern European countries.  Will he move on them?  And what will we do it he does?

Families torn apart if this deportation force is actually created and sent into the streets.

Stop and frisk being used against minorities.

All morning people keep asking me what can we do? I don’t have a lot suggestions, but here are a few. Make donations to Planned Parenthood so they can keep the doors open. Think seriously about the candidates for House and Senate for 2018 and give them early support. If we can retake at least one branch of government perhaps we can mitigate some of what will come. And in a very small, personal way we can protect vulnerable people in public places– religious minorities, LBGTQ individuals, Hispanics and African-Americans.

And here’s a guide on how we can do that.  Protecting Against an Aggressor  While it was created to primarily deal with Islamophobia it can be used in any situation where a person is being threatened and abused.