Travel
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness” – Mark Twain.
Make a plan to spend time in another country if you can. Even a lunch trip to Canada will help remind you that our nation didn’t always feel like this. If you can’t risk a border crossing, or can’t afford international travel, plan a trip inside America. Whether you take a roadtrip or fly to a very different place for a long weekend, get out and meet people a little different from yourself.
How to do it:
If you live in a border state and are a citizen in good standing with no particular risk factors, consider driving across for lunch or a long weekend. It’s valuable to remind ourselves that the world outside fascism still exists, and establishing a habit of crossing the border is valuable too.
If you have the budget, consider a longer trip to any nation that isn’t our own. There are a hundred ways we’ve become accustomed to encroaching fascism: reset your baseline to push back. Read news and talk to people seeing America from the outside—most feel empathy for us.
If international travel isn’t an option then plan a trip to an area near you, but different. If you live in a large blue city, spend a long weekend in a rural area. (If that makes you nervous, pick a college town.) If you live in a red state, spend some time in a blue one where you can let your guard down. You might have friends willing to put you up over the next big protest weekend.
