The thing I can’t emphasize enough about living through the “flooding the zone” era is the exhaustion. It is a cumulative weight creeping in through social media and offhanded, unguarded moments during work. If you are any kind of empathetic person, it threatens to crush your resolve. Things only seem to be getting worse, the weight heavier, and the callousness more justified.
You can’t stop caring, not entirely. But becoming guarded becomes a survival tactic for getting out of bed. Communities ripped apart and kids orphaned by unaccountable agencies? That sounds bad, but I’ve got a 9 a.m. I need to prep for it. Genocide in Palestine? Yes, but I need to get the kids’ sporty clothes washed before games tonight. Has our democratic experiment run its course? I don’t drink, but I’m reconsidering.
Then comes the news that multiple Minnesota state lawmakers were shot and killed in their homes, apparently targeted for their political affiliation. After the suspect was caught, Governor Tim Walz urged for cooler heads to prevail, saying, “The way our nation moves forward is not through hate. It is not through violence. It is through humility, grace, and compassion.”
And yet, if you scan the replies beneath the Reddit thread, what do you see?
- “This is a nice sentiment, but you aren’t going to get anywhere by being nice to fascists.”
- “The other side doesn’t play by those rules.”
- “This is loser talk.”
It’s not that people disagree that these events are a tragedy. They want Walz’s words to be true. But wanting doesn’t mean believing anymore. They don’t see the utility of such statements or how “taking the high road” leads to anywhere better.
Who can blame them? In the face of people who treat cruelty as a strategy, compassion can feel like vulnerability. Grace feels like plugging one’s ears and just accepting all the worst that happens while hoping it doesn’t happen to you. Neighborliness sounds naive when the flag your neighbor started flying promotes further chaos (When did they get a flagpole? Why won’t they lower it to half-mast for the slain lawmakers? And they make DOGE flags now?).
It seems that the choice is either to be kind or to be strong. One or the other. But what if that’s not the choice at all? What if that thinking is a trap?
The False Choice: Kind (and victimized) or Strong (and violent)
There was a New York Times article that circulated several months ago. It chronicled the life of a Mexican immigrant named Jamie, his family, and his father-in-law, Sky. What stands out isn’t just the family tension; it is how Sky’s love expresses itself in a world he increasingly perceives as unsafe:
“He brought along candy for the children and his “go bag” of survival gear, which had traveled with him everywhere for the last several years. It contained all the supplies he thought he might need to be self-sufficient in a power outage or a societal collapse: tourniquets, binoculars, knives, whistles, flashlights, water filters, fire starters, a snakebite kit, a firearm, a slingshot, a Bible.”
As someone described as having “big dad energy”, I have a “go bag” too. Mine’s just… different. My bag is the one with the extra snacks. The monthly book club pick. Band-aids. Wet wipes. A backup battery in case someone’s phone is running low.
Watch enough “everyday carry” (EDC) videos, and you’d think I’m irresponsible for not having a paracord and a fishing hook on hand at all times. But let’s be clear: if I’ve resorted to fishing, things are far beyond what any single “go bag” will fix.
But here’s where things start to twist. For all too many, the instinct to protect - how they express care - gets rerouted to something harder and darker. It becomes a posture of war, not warmth.
Sky’s grandkids don’t need a sniper. They need a babysitter. A calming presence. But he’s showing up like an action hero prepping for a climactic shootout against a world full of threats, including those leftist, pinko… snakes.
As Garrett Bucks said commenting on the situation:
“What breaks my heart about his story is that it’s clear that this is a man who wants to care, who would like to love his family. And his family is giving him direct clues as to how he could show that love and care, but he’s bought so far into a contrary story that he can’t hear them.”
That contrary story? That strength is decisive. Strength doesn’t flinch. Strength wins. It is survival of the fittest. And in contrast, kindness? Kindness hesitates. Kindness pauses to consider. Kindness wants to talk it out. Kindness is taken advantage of.
It’s a tempting narrative, especially when you’re watching cruelty pay off in real-time. When the guy with the loudest voice, the most shameless lie, or the most cartoonishly unhinged podcast keeps winning attention, money, and elections. When one side gleefully TikToks the announcement of “Alligator Alcatraz” and the other side’s tactic is a “very strong letter” it’s hard not to feel like we’re getting lapped by nihilism. (Seriously though, Chuck. “A very strong letter”!?)
It is no wonder people ask: Why should I be considerate and get steamrolled again and again and again when the stakes are so high? Don’t the ends justify the means? What about an eye for an eye?
But what if choosing between kindness and strength isn’t actually the choice at all? What if the entire framing is the trap, a binary custom-built to exhaust decent people until they either give up or give in?
Ask yourself, what’s the best way to neutralize someone who believes in good faith, pluralism, and shared responsibility? Convince them they’re suckers. Turn grace into a punchline. Turn the community into a liability. Make them feel alone.
Because once you believe that kindness is a trap and strength means domination, you’ve already forfeited the idea of working together.
The truth is: real strength isn’t incompatible with grace. It requires it.
Boundaries aren’t betrayals. Clarity isn’t cruelty. And there is a long, rich tradition of people who carried both compassion and conviction with the same spine.
Fred Rogers wore cardigans, sure. But he also went to Washington and stared down a skeptical Senate committee to save public broadcasting, armed with nothing but his words and the steadiness of a man who believed the emotional lives of children mattered more than political posturing.
Grace isn’t the opposite of strength. Grace is strength, practiced daily. It’s the strength to hold the line without becoming the thing you’re holding it against.
When One Side Brings Cookies and the Other Brings a Club
The emotional math that so many people are quietly doing these days looks something like this:
- Why should I keep reaching across the aisle when the other side brings a flamethrower?
- Why am I expected to be tolerant of people who openly say they want to strip away rights, dignity, and even humanity from others?
- Why does grace always feel like it only flows one way?
These are valid - and exhausting - questions. And they fuel the more profound fear that haunts so many people: that we’re suckers for still caring.
But the truth is that when only one side agrees to the rules, there are no rules.
That’s what makes this moment so destabilizing. Pluralism only works when everyone agrees that other people are allowed to exist, that facts are still real, and that winning an argument doesn’t mean resorting to threatening someone’s family or livelihood.
When that compact breaks down, grace becomes a harder sell. It starts to feel like disarmament while everyone else is shopping at the gun show.
That’s why this moment demands something more substantial than “cooler heads” or saccharine calls for “unity”. It requires a moral imperative with clear, precise execution. This isn’t a license to be cruel, but a stark line drawn between those who want to live together in mutual dignity, committed to resolving disagreements peacefully when they occur… and those who don’t. And those that don’t, aren’t allowed a seat at the table.
I’m not drawing lines to exclude people who disagree. I’m drawing them to protect the very possibility of peaceful disagreement. Acting with grace doesn’t mean welcoming everyone to the party. Sometimes, it means saying, clearly and calmly: “If your purpose for being here is to give others a bad time, you need to leave.”
This piece is long enough, and I don’t need another tangent. However, in Ryan Coogler’s Sinners (2025), there is a moment where the main characters inside the jukejoint are petitioned by a trio of vampires to be permitted entry. The metatext - predators seeking entry to a created safe space, only to be denied - makes its own argument. That scene is the essay.
Goodness Isn’t a Transaction
We’ve been trained, be it subtly, culturally, or algorithmically, to see goodness as a currency (and I mean that quite literally, if you read and remember The Whuffie Factor from ye olden Web 2.0 days). It is the belief that if you do the right thing, you get the result you want. Karma. Validation. A like, retweet, or an opportunity that presents itself - some sign that a moral universe is still functioning.
But that’s not goodness; that’s just quid pro quo dressed up in ethical drag.
Real goodness isn’t a transaction. It’s a commitment.
You don’t do it because it’ll pay off. You do it because that’s the only way the world you want has any chance of existing.
You don’t compost because you want an award one day for averting climate collapse (at least, I hope not). You compost because you believe in stewardship. You encourage your kids not to lie, not because it guarantees their employment but because you believe in being trustworthy. You show compassion not because it wins friends and influences people but because the alternative is rot.
In this framing, grace becomes an act of imagination. It is choosing to believe that a better world is possible and that your behavior can help shape it - inch by inch, day by day.
That doesn’t mean being soft. That doesn’t mean tolerating harm. It means refusing to let someone else’s bad faith turn you into someone you’re not.
Or to put it another way: you don’t do the right thing because it works - you do the right thing because it’s right. And identifying and preventing those who would exploit unchecked expression (as defined in the Paradox of Tolerance) is one of those right things.
What We’re Building Together
All of this might sound like semantic handwaving, an exhortation to take on a punishing daily exercise in restraint while the loudest and worst among us run victory laps in bad faith.
But grace with a spine isn’t just about preventing a personal moral collapse. It’s about creating the conditions for a future that’s worth living in and fighting for.
You’re not showing up kind because you’re naive. You’re showing up kind because you refuse to let cynicism evict you from your community. You’re practicing dignity not because it’s guaranteed to work but because it’s the only thing that stands a chance of outlasting the cruelty.
Garrett Bucks (two mentions in the same piece!) wrote recently about this tension. He stated that we can build something beautiful together if we remember what makes us strongest. He quoted Serbian organizers who helped bring down Milošević:
“We simply loved life more than them… Those guys were the preachers of death. Their hatred, their propaganda, their language smelled like death. And we won because we loved life more. We decided to love life.”
That’s it. That’s the whole blueprint.
The point isn’t to beat the other side at their own game of cynicism, ‘gotcha’ hot takes, and noisy spectacle. The point is to play a different game altogether: one where we insist on life, on community, on shared joy, on a future that isn’t designed around crushing each other for scraps. Your proverbial life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
When we choose grace, we’re not choosing to lose. We’re choosing to keep the field of possibility open. We’re choosing to make room for people who want to live together in mutual dignity, even when we disagree.
This is how we win: by refusing to let our souls be shaped by their fear. By loving life more than they love exploiting it for their own gain.
This Isn’t A Race, It’s a Marathon
You might be tired. I know I certainly have my days.
You might feel like the moral high road is just a scenic route to getting steamrolled. You might feel like you’ve been holding the line alone, waving your tiny flag of decency while the rest of the world ammos up.
Here’s the truth: You’re allowed to rest.
Rest isn’t weakness; it’s maintenance. You’re not a machine for moral production. You’re human, and humans need breathers. The work of holding space for grace, of setting boundaries, of refusing to be turned by cynicism is heavy.
That’s why we carry it in shifts.
When you rest, you’re not quitting the field. You’re handing the banner to someone else for a moment so you can return stronger. You’re trusting that this work isn’t yours alone; it is a community’s.
Grace isn’t a solo act. It’s a collective practice.
So rest. Breathe. Touch grass. Netflix and chill if that restores your energy. Go thrifting with friends, play some disc golf, or have a good meal.
And while we rest and reconnect, we can look to those who have shown us how to hold grief and grace at the same time. After the tragedy, the children of Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and Mark Hortman shared a statement that felt like a blueprint for this alternative we seek. Among other things, they encouraged those who wished to honor the memory of Mark and Melessa to:
“Plant a tree. Visit a local park and make use of their amenities, especially a bike trail. Pet a dog. A golden retriever is ideal, but any will do. Tell your loved ones a cheesy dad joke and laugh about it. Bake something - bread for Mark or a cake for Melissa, and share it with someone. Try a new hobby and enjoy learning something. Stand up for what you believe in, especially if that thing is justice and peace.”
Grace with a spine isn’t the easy way. However, it’s the only way forward that doesn’t turn us into what we’re against.
