The key to taking effective action in a Trump world is to avoid perpetuating the autocrat’s goals of fear, isolation, exhaustion and disorientation.

It’s important we squarely face Trump’s victory and what there is to do about it.

Trump has already signaled the kind of president he will be: revengeful, uncontrolled and unburdened by past norms and current laws. I won’t go through the litany of awful things he’s pledged to do, since that’s been well-established with his words, Project 2025 plans and excellent analyses from authoritarian experts.

Looking into an even more destabilized future is not easy. If you’re like me, you’re already tired. The prospect of more drama is daunting. But authoritarianism isn’t going away no matter the election results. So here’s some thinking about ways to orient so we can ground ourselves better for these times ahead.

"Growing up in Georgetown, Ohio, a small rural town on the edge of Appalachia, I learned that there are certain values you’re likely to see in most rural Ohioans. We respect authenticity and can spot a phony when we see one. We take pride in our communities. We believe in the dignity of hard work, yet we also understand that circumstances can force us into situations where we need a little help, and we are always willing to help our neighbors without judgment. We are strongly independent and believe that we can make our own decisions without government interference.

J.D. Vance can spin a lot of things about his life, but we can see who he really is by examining the core values that animate him, and in that respect, J.D. Vance doesn’t look like the people I know from home.

During the 2022 midterm elections, when Vance was running against Democrat Rep. Tim Ryan for an open U.S. Senate seat, I had plenty of conversations with members of my union, the Ohio Federation of Teachers, throughout rural Ohio. These teachers, paraprofessionals, intervention specialists, guidance counselors and other educators love their schools, and they want to elect candidates who will support real solutions in their school districts, like improving career technical education, providing healthcare resources in their schools and improving broadband access. All they heard from Vance were attacks on teachers and plans to starve public schools of funding.

While some of his characterizations could be overlooked, his opportunism is where rural voters will likely struggle with his lack of authenticity. After his book catapulted him to fame in 2016, in part through his lament for the scourge of drug addiction, Vance cynically started a phony charity, Our Ohio Renewal, under the guise of working on opioid addiction, joblessness and broken families. The organization fizzled out after barely doing any work other than help Vance launch his political career—in fact, one of the charity’s lone accomplishments was to send an addiction specialist with ties to Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of OxyContin, to Ohio’s Appalachian region.