Welfare Check
When I say I’m okay, it’s just nobody’s coming
to save me. I’m out of sight this way.
With my mouth muddled
I’m so safe. I speak most clearly
when I’m dangerous. Step to and the room grows dim,
let my word slip and the whole world turns
fire and hiss under my tongue. I’ll say I didn’t
mean it but I did. You’ll feel better soon, the night
sagging in its silence again. It’s just what you won’t
see: I drift all around me
in the snow our shapes make.
I move through America looking up
at the trees, which are stolen, this land
a vast and stolen thing and I
a stolen thing deposited within it. When I say
I’m okay, I mean I’m just one
black ripple on a black sea.
I hear that sound my shape makes
in your mind’s darkest room.
I am most dangerous
when I speak.
I step in the fire and hiss.
The whole world turns.
Everyone’s looking, but nobody sees.
We cannot back down
We now confront a second Trump presidency.
There’s not a moment to lose. We must harness our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger, to resist the dangerous policies Donald Trump will unleash on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as journalists and writers of principle and conscience.
Today, we also steel ourselves for the fight ahead. It will demand a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis, and humane resistance. We face the enactment of Project 2025, a far-right supreme court, political authoritarianism, increasing inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis, and conflicts abroad. The Nation will expose and propose, nurture investigative reporting, and stand together as a community to keep hope and possibility alive. The Nation’s work will continue—as it has in good and not-so-good times—to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and deep reporting, and to further solidarity in a nation divided.
Armed with a remarkable 160 years of bold, independent journalism, our mandate today remains the same as when abolitionists first founded The Nation—to uphold the principles of democracy and freedom, serve as a beacon through the darkest days of resistance, and to envision and struggle for a brighter future.
The day is dark, the forces arrayed are tenacious, but as the late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”
I urge you to stand with The Nation and donate today.
Onwards,
Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation
