As he sinks deeper into dementia, why are we letting Trump stay in power? Couldn’t we offer him something to get him to resign? It’s not a job he covets—he just wants its spoils. With his not being able to stay awake to even maintain a facade of competence, I could see it being a relief to him to find a way out.
It is perilous:
From The Times of Israel: There exists a doctrine within the Israeli strategic playbook that is as feared as it is misunderstood—a doctrine veiled in ambiguity and born from the nation’s darkest fears. Known as the Samson Option, it refers to Israel’s implied readiness to resort to nuclear weapons if it were ever facing the prospect of annihilation.
(This is from Geoffrey Deihl’s brilliant rundown of what’s going on. Goeffrey is my head hero in the collapse world, and I highly recommend that everyone subscribe to his Sane Thoughts for Insane Times to stay on the edge of where we are.)
If we freed Trump from prosecution for past deeds, let him keep all his grift, and threw in making him the first recipient of the Behavior that Saved the World medal, to be awarded at a dinner in his honor, couldn’t that perhaps get him to fire all his hires and resign? Do we care if he even becomes the richest person in the world, if that gets him gone?
A way to go that’s chancier would be to make him an irresistible offer to submit to a course of mind-bending therapy. Even one dose of MDMA could give him a jolt of what it feels like to love. Omg, Trump wakes up would be a story for the ages!!!
Or we could bypass him. I’ve been posting this: How about a coup to install a presidential team? Let’s say Heather Cox Richardson, Joyce Vance, Anne Applebaum, Michelle Obama, and Marianne Williamson. Among other great women, I follow them, and it could be more or less than five. Just picture such warm, intelligent, human-loving human beings leading the way. If they state that they are taking charge, so many millions would flood Washington’s streets I bet they couldn’t be thwarted.
Now, picture a future where the devastation that’s happening now cleared the way for a cooperative civilization to emerge. That idea is in the air now. It’s a good one to live into. Poking around Substack last week, there wereexpressions of it like these:
Osprey Orielle Lake Fire Seeds: What Might Grow As the Old World Burns
So, what if what is happening now, in this moment of horrific polycrisis, is not a wildfire spiraling out of control, but an opportunity for a prescribed burn? Not the kind we would have chosen, and certainly not one carried out with the wisdom of Indigenous firekeepers whose knowledge has been systemically silenced, erased, or co-opted. But it is a burn, nonetheless. It is a blaze that is clearing the ground whether we are ready or not, leaving us raw and exposed, yes, but also perhaps newly prepared. In the wake of a prescribed burn, after the air clears and the smoke disperses, there is potential and there is space. The soil is now rich with transformed memory, lessons, and nutrients, capable of holding something new…The institutions we have been operating in, our so-called justice system, our schools, our healthcare, our government, our borders, were not built on justice, equity, empathy, truth, or care for the Earth. They were designed by colonization and patriarchy, instilled with greed, perpetuated by genocide, and made efficient by racism and domination…A system that does not reward hoarding and hierarchy, but nurtures reciprocity and reparations. A society that does not center control at the top, but collaboration. An economy based not on endless extraction, but on mutual care and collective well-being. A world where justice means repair and where land is not owned but honored. A way of life that welcomes a living Earth...Maybe the new world we long for and are calling forth cannot grow without the fire that has swept through us. Perhaps the visions, the values, the wisdom, and the possibilities waiting inside us have been locked tight by years of injustice, denial, disconnection, and oppression...We are unlearning the ways of domination and relearning the art and practice of tending.
Samantha Sweetwater The Kinship Journey
But just because our world is breaking apart doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world. Our planetary crucible offers a real-time, whole-planet rite of passage or trial by ordeal. It’s an initiation for each of us and for the collective human soul. This liminal ceremony for a small planet—a ceremony you can’t not be in—demands a remembering of our place in the larger ecology of things and a reimagining of the meaning of humanness.
I hope these excerpts from what’s not just big, but BIG, will intrigue you enough to read this whole piece. It is the future. It is shocking. It is important.
Matt Shumer Something Big Is Happening
If you tried ChatGPT in 2023 or early 2024 and thought “this makes stuff up” or “this isn’t that impressive,” you were right. Those early versions were genuinely limited. They hallucinated. They confidently said things that were nonsense.
That was two years ago. In AI time, that is ancient history.
In 2022, AI couldn’t do basic arithmetic reliably. It would confidently tell you that 7 x 8 = 54.
By 2023, it could pass the bar exam.
By 2024, it could write working software and explain graduate-level science.
By late 2025, some of the best engineers in the world said they had handed over most of their coding work to AI.
On February 5th, 2026, new models arrived that made everything before them feel like a different era.
The models available today are unrecognizable from what existed even six months ago. The debate about whether AI is “really getting better” or “hitting a wall” is over. It’s done. Anyone still making that argument either hasn’t used the current models, has an incentive to downplay what’s happening, or is evaluating based on an experience from 2024. The gap between public perception and current reality is now enormous, and that gap is dangerous...because it’s preventing people from preparing.
Most people are using the free version of AI tools. Judging AI based on free-tier ChatGPT is like evaluating the state of smartphones by using a flip phone. The people paying for the best tools, and using them daily for real work, know what’s coming.
The next two to five years are going to be disorienting in ways most people aren’t prepared for. The people who will come out of this best are the ones who start engaging now — not with fear, but with curiosity and a sense of urgency.
Also, please read James Fallows about Iran, for what he’s “learned in 45 years of interviewing experts about peace and war, and how it applies to the tumult of these past nine days,” where comments say this is his most important piece. A don’t-miss old-school journalist, he’s another special person I urge everyone to subscribe to. If Trump read this, I even could see him understanding the peril he has put the world in.
The new-world way:
What one person can do:
A follow-up on the new Chat:
In last week’s Open Letter, I invited collapse-savvy people to a Chat about action to take that has started up. I’ve added a link there to Food for Thought: Ideas from the Chat, for things that have been taken from it. The edit function has been left open for the three things that are there now. Anyone can make changes. Could this be a way for separated people to work on documents together? Rolling editing? Be daring. See what happens.
To get immersed in the point of view I argue for, have a look at comments I’ve made in Substack Notes.
HOUSEKEEPING
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Thank you always, Suzanne. Your words and sharing of other brilliant writers' words mean so much to me.
Suzanne, I really appreciate how you connect so many of the forces shaping this moment. The sense that we are living through a kind of systemic unraveling across political, ecological, and technological spheres resonates deeply.
The burn metaphor you shared particularly struck me. My connection to Lahaina and the devastation of the fire has made that image feel very real to me. After devastation, the question is not only what was lost, but what kind of world we choose to rebuild. Fire clears the ground, but it does not determine what grows next.
What I also appreciate about your writing is that you are not stopping at reflection. You are inviting people to think about action, planning, and collaboration in a time when many feel overwhelmed or powerless. That invitation matters.