I had this whole rant planned about the tariffs that boiled down to: 1. they're stupid 2. a lot of small businesses may not make it — myself included, and 3. it's all about getting cheap labor and snatching up everything that crumbles in the purposefully created chaos.

But I wanna talk about something else. A better future. I know that's corny as hell and cringe but I don't give a f... Call me Cringerella. Somewhere along the line we stopped imagining a better future and we used to do that. If Trump really wanted to bring jobs back to the country, he'd share a plan for that — one that doesn't include pushing us all into poverty. He's lying again. But you know, SOMEBODY should share a plan that takes into account the kinds of work people want to do today in America and we should figure out how to build an economy around that. And maybe that plan should take into account that we only have one planet right now and we should be taking better care of it. We should build an economy that doesn't exploit people in other countries — and maybe improves the lives of people in their own countries. Because I have a feeling that any manufacturing that makes it back to America (if that's even a real thing) will have lower safety standards, longer hours, lower pay. Totally regressive and not where we want to go.

We need to be imagining a better world again. It's one of the reasons why I love Star Trek. That show imagined a universe in which humanity got its shit together and endured. We've let anti-heroes and villains rehabilitate themselves in our imagination and today they're being worshipped.

Americans are creative. Americans think anything is possible through sheer force of will. We should be using that creativity to build a society that gives people dignity and leans into our innovation and tenacity.

(The painting above is "Kingdom" by Amy Sherald)