Emily Berry

What’s Going On: The Illusion We Were Sold in the ‘70s

Born in 1972, the year that Shirley Chisholm ran for president, raised on Peter Pan, Sesame Street, and Free to Be… You and Me, I never questioned that I could be anything I dreamed when I grew up. I was part of a generation born after the hard fights were won, discrimination was outlawed, birth control and divorce were legal, and by 1973 so were abortions. Gen-X women were fed a steady diet of “you can be whatever you want” while watching Mr. Rogers and The Electric Company, we were raised in the shadow of Watergate but still believed in democracy. Born into the Cold War and witnessing the fall of the  Berlin Wall, we came of age in an era when Madonna told us we could express ourselves, John Hughes movies made us feel seen, and MTV beamed both rebellion and capitalism directly into our living rooms. Maybe it was the blind optimism of youth, or maybe it was the post-civil rights, middle-America idealism of the 1970s, but I truly believed that life followed a formula. Work hard, follow the rules, and success would come. Not fate, not luck, just a path that led to a promised future: good grades, college, a job, marriage, kids, and a life of happily ever after.  We were told that if we just worked hard and stayed out of trouble, life would sort itself out.

That, of course, was bullshit.

As a woman, a mother, someone who has worked in retail, tech, and finance, been married and divorced, I have seen firsthand how the game is rigged. I lived in rural Ohio while Reagan crushed unions, Phoenix when the housing market collapsed, New York City during the pandemic, and LA as Hollywood went on strike and the wildfires raged. I have watched the rules fail us time and again. Gen-X entered the workforce in the age of layoffs and corporate downsizing, took on debt for college we couldn’t pay for, struggled to buy houses just right as the market collapsed, and now witness our children fight the same battles we fought, only with bigger risks and worse outcomes. We were promised a stable future, but what we got was gig work, skyrocketing healthcare costs, and a retirement age that keeps inching further away.

Now, as I watch our democratic republic fall further into the hands of billionaires and the religious right, I see it clearly: there was never an American Dream. There was a social contract, a fragile agreement between citizens and the government, one that is now being unraveled in real time. Religion and capitalism have long sold us an illusion of fairness, but it has always been the people, the ones who build communities, who fight back, who have been the antidote to unbridled power. Gen-X grew up skeptical, calling bullshit, keeping it real, rolling our eyes at corporate slogans, and  now we need to stop being the cool girls on the side-lines. We have the experience, the knowledge, and a stake in the future that can fight the power.

Women, we have played by their rules, we didn’t nag, we wasted our time and money to put on the makeup and wear the tight clothes and to giggle at the jokes. We second guessed ourselves at work while accumulating advanced degrees and earning professional certifications. We did that then so that we can fight now with conviction and capriciousness. It’s time to push back against the tech bros, the finance bros and all the oligarchs ruining our planet and stealing our futures.

Unions and Workers Made America Great: The ‘80s Started the Fire

Growing up in rural Ohio, I was secluded from city life, an hour’s drive from anywhere significant. Our radio and TV stations came from Cleveland, a fact that became painfully apparent when Starship’s “We Built This City” played on repeat the year the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame opened. In fourth grade, 1980, I learned that robots were replacing factory jobs, not a real problem for my classmates, sons and daughters of farmers, writing cursive book reports about A Wrinkle in Time, but we were aware at an early age that technology would replace jobs.

As Gen-X, we were taught by the Silent Generation, those who had grown up during World War II, trained under strict, traditional systems, and believed in the American Dream as something attainable through hard work. For white Americans coming of age in the ’50s and ’60s, prosperity was real. WWII had eliminated industrial competition, making America a manufacturing powerhouse. But by the late ’70s and early ’80s, the competition returned, this time from Japan, with Toyota and Honda leading a quality revolution that reshaped global trade. Ohio, once a stronghold of American manufacturing, became the “Rust Belt.” Reagan and his cronies blamed unions, and the Democratic Party began its slow abandonment of the working class in favor of corporatism paving the way for the populism of 2008’s Tea Party which obfuscated the racism and authoritarianism of MAGA.

“Let’s Make America Great Again” was a central slogan in Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign against Jimmy Carter. As expected, Reagan’s deregulation policies led to the dismantling of government protections, setting the stage for the rise of populism and the current threats to democracy under the leadership of Donald Trump a convicted felon, currently breaking federal laws and violating the constitution.

In 1981, Reagan fired 11,000 striking air traffic controllers, sending a clear message to private employers that mass layoffs were acceptable, and workers were expendable. Companies like U.S. Steel, General Motors, and Ford capitalized on this anti-labor shift, accelerating job cuts and weakening unions. Additionally, Reagan’s relaxation of regulations on the steel and coal industries opened the door for foreign competition to undercut U.S. manufacturers, leading to mass layoffs and factory closures.

Beyond labor, Reagan also reshaped the media landscape, further consolidating corporate control over information. In 1984, he signed the Cable Communications Policy Act, which weakened regulations on cable networks, allowing for increased corporate dominance over news and entertainment. Then, in 1987, Reagan’s repeal of the Fairness Doctrine, which had required broadcasters to present balanced coverage of controversial issues, paved the way for hyper-partisan media, including the rise of figures like Rush Limbaugh and the creation of Fox News, a rapey network notorious for spreading right-wing propaganda and misinformation under the guise of factual reporting.

We All Have Wings but Some of Us Don’t Know Why: Late ‘80s

I moved to southern Ohio in 1986, a straight-A student with Aqua Net hair, blasting Van Halen, Metallica, and Guns N’ Roses. We rolled our eyes at the satanic panic over Slayer’s Reign in Blood and N.W.A.’s Fuck Tha Police. The religious right was a joke and censorship was stupid. Music was a reflection of life, not a threat.

Like most of my peers, I was independent, a hard worker. Babysitting at 12, a “real” job by 14, multiple jobs throughout high school and college. We weren’t slackers, we were programmed to work. Older generations, branded us lazy as we came of age, as is the way of the conservative blamers who see technology and innovative thinking as a threat. Yet, in the 2000s Religious conservatives, always fighting against new and improved and Corporatists, always speculating on the new and misunderstood to make a fortune and squash out the  dedicated workers,(mis)programmed to follow the path of hard work.

My high school, in southwestern Ohio, was filled with Appalachian blue-collar workers, not unlike J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy. My best friend, Tammy, was from Clay County, Kentucky. Her father worked at a factory, buying his cars in all-cash and saving his salary to return his family home to their roots one day. Tammy dreamed of going into the Navy to serve our country but she had chronic health issues and the Navy turned her down. Tammy and I went to college together believing, like everyone else, that a degree meant stability, she majored in human capital, essentially, molding the labor force for capitalism. The month we graduated from Ohio State in 1995, her father committed suicide, not long after Ronda, Tammy’s sister did too. Tammy couldn’t shake the darkness either and succumbed to a fentanyl overdose in sometime between 2019 and 2021. For every other important event in my life, I know whether it was before or after the COVID pandemic but, I had lost touch with Tammy after college. Her wife tracked me down on Facebook a year or so after Tammy died. I was unaware how sad and broken Tammy had been, yet she had multiple rehab stints in southern Ohio under her belt indicating at least a fleeting hope to kick opiods.

In the late 1980s, Reagan deregulated hospitals, paving the way for for-profit healthcare where HMOs and insurance companies prioritized profits over patients. Drug prices skyrocketed as Big Pharma gained control, patent protections stretched longer, and hospitals, once pillars of the community, became corporate businesses. By the time Bush Sr. took office, healthcare was already unaffordable for millions, yet his solution was more of the same: favor private industry over reform, let the market decide.

But what did my cohort, a bunch of 18-year-olds, care about health insurance?

Back then, most of my friends planned to attend Ohio colleges. I never worried about getting in, Ohio State took everyone. I didn’t stress about paying for it, college was cheap, and every adult I knew had managed to pay off their loans and buy a house after graduation. I assumed I’d do the same. My concerns were simpler: fitting in, being cool, going to bonfire parties, working at the mall, and debating whether Natty Light was better than Keystone Light. (It wasn’t. But we all agreed Bud Ice was the worst.)

We graduated in 1990, boys and girls alike, shielded from the AIDS crisis, blind to the shifting economy, and confident that life would unfold as promised. College or military, job, house, family. The white picket fence was inevitable, just a matter of following the steps.

We had no idea what was coming or that we are all workers, regardless of education level. Until we have ownership, our labor goes to the owner. Yadda, yadda my economically trained partner or son could expand on this with real terminology.

Reality Bites: The Early ‘90s Wake-Up Call

The ‘90s were nothing like the ‘80s. I started college at Ohio State in 1990, just a month after the Persian Gulf War began, and graduated the same year Microsoft released Internet Explorer. For me, college was a welcome awakening after growing up in schools with fewer than 150 kids per grade. OSU, with over 50,000 students, even had its own ZIP code. I may have loved college so much because, in that era, we Gen-Xers lived in a bubble where we believed that sexism, racism, and fascism had been settled (as bad). We prided ourselves on being “colorblind,” a notion that, in hindsight, was naive but was then seen as progressive. En Vogue had us “free our minds” (“Be colorblind, don’t be so shallow”), Michael Jackson’s “Black or White” video had the ground-breaking technology merging people of all backgrounds, and grunge bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam eschewed the hairband norm and got serious about rejecting racism, sexism, and corporate greed. Rage Against the Machine shouted the loudest against fascism. I didn’t comprehend the creeping influence of corporatism that would soon reshape everything. (RATM’s 1994 video Freedom showcased the American Indian Movement (AIM) and in 2025 Biden, commuted 80-year-old Native American activist Leonard Peltier’s life sentence and he was released from prison on February 18^th.)

One spring day in 1991, in the middle of OSU’s campus, I filled out an application for my first credit card in exchange for a king-size Snickers bar. It was delicious, I was hungry, and I didn’t understand credit. Even if I had, I assumed I’d be able to afford my bills after graduation. Spoiler alert, I couldn’t. With my minimum-wage job and 20-hour workweek, I barely made ends meet in college, graduating with a more debt than I could cover, including student loans with an 8% interest rate. During the ‘80s and 90s’ tuition at public universities doubled, and, shockingly, federal aid did not keep pace. Bush continued the Reagan-era shift from grants to student loans, pushing students into debt instead of offering direct aid. Under Bush, Pell Grants (which help low-income students) lost value, covering a smaller percentage of tuition costs than in previous decades. By 1992, student loan debt had ballooned, laying the groundwork for today’s student debt crisis.

A recession hit in 1992, and by 1995, the promise that a college degree guaranteed a good job had evaporated. For the first time, it wasn’t true. The landscape was shifting, and I was unprepared.

After graduating with a degree in International Studies, I followed my fiancé, a mechanical engineer, to Indianapolis. Unlike me, he had a degree with a clear career path. Even in college, he earned more than I did, interning at a concrete testing firm while I worked at the campus bookstore doing database entry. After moving to Indiana, I struggled to find a job outside of customer service or sales. Eventually, I leveraged my database experience into a data entry job at a computer manual publishing firm. Two years later, I landed a role as an Application Instructor at New Horizons Computer Learning Center.

I Get Knocked Down But I Get Up Again: The Late ‘90s  

At the time, Windows 95 had just launched. Its “Start” button heralded with the Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up.” Microsoft was poised to dominate, overtaking Novell, WordPerfect, and Netscape Navigator. Apple was barely hanging on. College hadn’t taught these skills; training centers like New Horizons were the only places offering hands-on experience with cutting-edge technology. We instructors had free access to the latest software, surely the right path for forward-thinking young professionals.

Who needed a pension when you were 26 and a technology expert?

At first, the workplace felt like an even playing field. There were men and women in equal numbers as teachers, supervisors, and students. More men gravitated toward engineering and programming, but there wasn’t an obvious shutout. Yet the pay was abysmal, and the benefits were nonexistent. New Horizons was a sales-driven machine designed to churn through employees. Still, I formed lifelong friendships there, including one coworker who helped me move my Smashing Pumpkins and Beastie Boys CDs to my new apartment when I left my husband in 1996. I had fallen prey to the patriarchy, believing I needed to be married at 24. By 26, I knew I didn’t want the prescribed suburban dream, 2.5 kids and an SUV, and a last name that wasn’t my own. No, thanks.

Using my New Horizons experience, I moved to New York City, determined never to marry again. Screw the patriarchy, if I was willing to be alone at 26, I was willing to be alone forever. In NYC, I became a regional technical trainer for an executive recruiting firm on Park Avenue. Back then, executive recruiters, men, women and people of color, still had administrative assistants mostly women, and many professionals struggled with basic computer skills. My job was to teach them email, file management, remote work setups, and, eventually, proprietary database systems. I led in-person classes, developed e-learning, and conducted online training, using Placeware, which Microsoft later turned into Teams. Even in 1998, digital proficiency wasn’t about age; it was about attitude, interest, and practice. At the age of 28, I was promoted to Manager of Education and Training as the company expanded and was acquired by the parent of Monster.com. My new boss, the CIO, was a woman responsible for integrating employees nationwide and I was scared to death about how to do a good job.

In the 1990s and 2000s, a combination of government policies, strategic investments, and regulatory decisions created a robust foundation for the U.S. to dominate the technology sector. The Clinton administration played a key role by fostering an environment that encouraged innovation, with the Telecommunications Act of 1996 deregulating the telecom industry and enabling rapid internet expansion. This legislation allowed for greater competition and expanded broadband access, making the internet more widely available and setting the stage for tech companies to thrive. Additionally, government investments in research and development through public-private partnerships and funding for key technologies, such as the National Information Infrastructure, boosted the growth of high-tech industries. The dot-com boom saw massive amounts of venture capital being poured into startups, many of which became global leaders in the tech industry, from Amazon to Google. Tax incentives, a relatively hands-off regulatory approach, and the promotion of the “New Economy” helped U.S. companies maintain a competitive edge. Furthermore, the internet’s unregulated growth encouraged risk-taking and entrepreneurship, contributing to the U.S.’s early dominance in the global technology market. Through these policies, the government not only created a fertile ground for technological advancements but also positioned the U.S. as the undisputed leader in the digital age.

By my late twenties, the internet had exploded. Every brick-and-mortar business scrambled to establish an online presence. Some people, like Mark Cuban, got rich, but most dot-com startups were built on flimsy business models. When the bubble burst, investors lost fortunes, the stock market plummeted, and jobs disappeared overnight. People took whatever they could get.

Cracks in the System (of a Down): The Naughty Aughties Gave us Napster and the TSA

I lived through the Y2K scare in the East Village of New York City. Computers didn’t crash, and planes didn’t fall from the sky, despite all the doomsday predictions. But I crashed and burned in my own way, struggling as a young manager with no guidance, no confidence, and no idea that it wasn’t my job to know everything. At 29, I didn’t realize that my boss should have provided mentorship, set up regular check-ins, or even defined the goals of my role.

Meanwhile, my personal life was unraveling. This was before the internet had advice on everything, so I didn’t have the words to recognize that my boyfriend was gaslighting me, isolating me from others, eroding my self-worth, and spending money we didn’t have. He convinced me I’d never make new friends. But that’s a different essay.

The joy I once felt in New York City had been replaced by loneliness. I left in June of 2000, pregnant, ashamed, and broken in spirit. I left my boyfriend and his 3 Gigs of pirated music and returned to Indiana to live with his parents, hoping to secure stability as a Visual Basic programmer for a friend’s small business where I could take my baby to work with me, unlike a typical corporate role. That job fell through. The business wasn’t real. Out of shame for being a single-mother, I married the father of my child. Things only got worse. He didn’t work and blamed me for dragging him away from NYC. I survived on COBRA insurance from my old job, with financial help from my parents, when my son was born in October 2000. Baby 2K was perfect, bald, but perfect. Definitely worth all the fuss.

By March 2001, I was back at my old company in Indianapolis as a computer trainer. I was the sole breadwinner, juggling a baby and an unemployed husband while earning a SQL Server MCDBA certification. That certification landed me my next role.

After 9/11, I like most Americans, was emotionally crushed. I thought about it day and night imagining what it must have felt like trying to escape from the World Trade Center. Those people were not political activists, they were working so that they could pay their bills and live the American dream. The silver lining was the fleeting sense of unity in the U.S., but by the time I moved to Arizona on Mother’s Day of 2002, the country was amidst the War on Terror. The justification for the Iraq War was based on false information, particularly the claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and was linked to al-Qaeda. The U.S. government pushed the narrative that Iraq posed an imminent threat to national security. No WMDs were found, revealing a web of deceptive rhetoric used to rally support for the war. The invasion destabilized the region, contributing to the rise of extremist groups like ISIS, while at home, the public’s trust in the government was again damaged. Not one lawmaker ever apologized and the Bush Admin was not held accountable for this lie. And what a sad fall from grace America’s Mayor Guilliani had after being mixed up in Trump’s government coup on Jan. 6, 2020.

The Patriot Act, Bush W’s reaction to the 9/11 attacks, expanded the government’s surveillance powers under the guise of national security. We accepted the erosion of our individual freedoms by  granting law enforcement power to wiretap, monitor, and access private records without checks and balances. The law curtailed our freedoms of speech and protest and undermined our civil liberties.

At the time, I was worried more about my eighteen-month-old and my individual needs. With the promise of a job for my ex, We drove across the country from Indianapolis to Scottsdale, moving into an apartment complex offering 90 days of free rent. Unfortunately, my ex’s job opportunity fell through. Luckily, I landed a contract gig at Intel as an e-learning developer.

This was the era of the “Gig Economy.” Many Gen-Xers were working as high-paid freelancers, no benefits, no security. A lawsuit with Yahoo set a precedent that companies couldn’t indefinitely employ temp workers without offering benefits. Instead of just providing healthcare, corporations found ways to make the system more complicated. Because, of course, they did.

Hot in Herre: SOX in Arizona ‘02

In autumn of 2002, in need of benefits and stability, I secured a permanent role as a courseware developer for an early e-learning company building interactive technology training. My coworkers didn’t discriminate against me for being a woman, though they did make fun of my husband for not having a job. I defended him, liking the idea of a stay-at-home dad so I could focus on my career. That illusion shattered when he took all the furniture from our apartment and moved in with his buddy. Apparently, I had put too much pressure on him to be a partner and a father. Again, this is fodder for a whole different essay.

Much of the technical content we were creating as we listened to 50 cent and Nelly was centered around the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) a landmark law imposing stricter standards on corporate financial practices brought about by the Enron and WorldCom scandals, two of the largest corporate fraud cases in U.S. history, both involving massive financial misconduct that led to the companies’ collapses and sparked widespread reforms in corporate governance.

My career kept expanding. I was promoted to an instructor role, where, for the first time, I felt the sting of gender bias. The tech instructors were mostly men, and they were coddled. At a startup fueled by venture capital, I didn’t question it when I was told I shouldn’t co-teach with the only other woman because “too many female voices would confuse the students.” As if two men teaching together sounded different? One instructor even told me it was amazing that “someone as pretty as me” could teach complex technical topics.

Somehow, even as a single mom (technically, I owed child support in our 50/50 custody arrangement), I believed I didn’t deserve to be paid as much as the men in my department. Where did that idea come from? It was batshit crazy. I’ve been trying to pinpoint what media convinced me that men deserved higher pay, was it the romance novels from junior high? The Weinstein-era movies (he’s a predator, you know?) Something got in my head. Oh! and, I did make a great deal less than the men. When the company was acquired, I was bumped up to a normal pay and for the first time, was able to save money for a down payment for a house.

Interestingly, I don’t recall sexism from male coworkers my age. They didn’t doubt my skills. Tech was a field where anyone willing to be on the bleeding edge could succeed. It was a respectable job, people thought I was smart for being in it. But I did face pushback from male students, especially in my twenties. Not all men felt threatened by having a female instructor, but it was always a man that caused the trouble.

Now, in 2025, barely a month into Trump’s second term, I read r/womenintech on Reddit and see all the blatant sexism these women endure. I wonder if I just didn’t notice it back then, or if I was lucky enough to work with feminists. The world has changed a lot from 2005 to 2025.

I Throw My Hands Up In the Air Sometimes: Boom Crash ‘08

For thirteen years and two acquisitions, I worked at that firm, teaching virtual classes, creating e-learning content, earning over 15 technical certifications, and training more than 15,000 students across 10,000 hours. Eventually, I became a team lead. In hindsight, I realize that Microsoft certification courses were just an extension of their sales strategy. I was essentially a cheerleader for Microsoft products, helping to drive sales without Microsoft even knowing I existed.

During those years, I raised my son, bought a house, ran a marathon, and grew increasingly disillusioned with consumerism. The Kardashians. People taking out home equity loans to buy junk. The difficulty of finding intellectual conversations. Everything felt hollow. Even the music was wrong, obsessed with butts and objectifying women for corporate greed. “SexyBack”, “Shake That”, “Smack That”, “Gimme That”, “Laffy Taffy”, “Promiscuous”, and lets not forget the rise of the Pussy Cat Dolls and the hit, “Buttons”. All great songs, I may add; but we should have been paying attention.

I watched housing prices skyrocket for years before finally buying in 2007. By 2012, most of my friends had short-sold or defaulted on their homes. I did the math, I was so far underwater that I’d need to stay in that house for over a decade just to break even. I hated the house, the remote town, Fountain Hills, AZ, and the life I had. So, I walked away. No short sale. Just foreclosure. Fuck the system.

The 2008 housing crisis was largely driven by a series of deregulatory policies in the years leading up to the collapse. Key changes, such as the repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999, allowed commercial banks to engage in riskier investment, mortgage lending standards were significantly relaxed, deregulation of financial derivatives, credit rating agencies also failed to properly assess the risk of these complex securities, while regulatory bodies, such as the SEC, took a hands-off approach. The housing market ultimately collapsed, leading to widespread foreclosures and triggering the financial crisis.

Citigroup, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo had exposure to toxic mortgage-backed securities. To prevent their collapse Bush bailed the banks out.  The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which allocated $700 billion in financial support and homeowners got nothing. None of the players in this economic collapse went to jail. Further eroding people’s confidence in the government.

The crisis revealed the dangers of unregulated financial practices and highlighted the need for stronger oversight, leading to regulatory reforms like the Dodd-Frank Act  of 2010. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was established in 2011 as part of Dodd-Frank to protect consumers from unfair, deceptive, and abusive financial practices by regulating banks, credit card companies, mortgage lenders, and other financial institutions. It enforces consumer protection laws, provides financial education, and offers a platform for consumers to file complaints against fraudulent or predatory practices. The agency aims to ensure transparency and fairness in the financial marketplace.

I had been willing to keep paying if the bank would refinance, but they wouldn’t. My loan had long been written off but I didn’t know this. I felt like it was my responsibility to make good on my debt. Following the rules, even if my house was sinking me financially. I walked away. I was furious and defaulted.

Fuck the system.

I lived in Arizona at the time or else I would have participated in Occupy Wallstreet. The 99% protests began on September 17, 2011 and gained momentum throughout the autumn of that year but gradually faded out amid police crackdowns and lack of a clear strategy.

In 2012 I moved out of the only house that I have ever been able to afford on my own, losing my downpayment and ruining my credit. I moved back to Scottsdale and set out to earn an MBA, determined to understand finance and never be at the mercy of the system again. I monitored my credit for a few years following my foreclosure. My credit, with no revolving debt, and no mortgage was back in the 700s in a little more than one year.

Trumpster fire and Elon Musk just gutted the CFPB this week. As of January 30, 2025, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has provided approximately $19.7 billion in consumer relief, which includes monetary compensation, principal reductions, canceled debts, and other forms of assistance. This information is detailed in the CFPB’s official “Enforcement by the Numbers” report. An article in The New Yorker highlights that the CFPB has returned over $21 billion to defrauded consumers since its inception.

But Her Emails: We are about to be FUCKED 2016 – 2019

After earning my MBA at 42, it took a year of freelance work and a networking opportunity to finally land a job in finance. In Phoenix, I was hired as a public finance investment banking analyst making $35,000 less than my previous salary as an IT training supervisor. I was truly starting over. I knew nothing, but I had a great boss who taught me the ropes.

The job was a brutal wake-up call. There were no accolades, no pats on the back, only the pressure to bring in business and close deals. It was a sales job disguised as a numbers role. Still, the adrenaline rush of pricing bonds on Wall Street was intoxicating. Every day I walked into that office on Camelback Road, I felt like a success. I had reinvented myself in middle age and was on track for a second career.

Then came Trump’s election in 2016, just months after 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the national anthem to peacefully protest racial injustice.  On the eve of the election, I allowed myself to imagine a future shapes by progressive(ish) policies, with the leadership of Hillary Clinton. It felt too good to be true. And it was.

I toiled in banking for more than six years. I earned four financial licenses and worked for three firms, one in Phoenix and two in Manhattan. By the time I quit the industry at the age of 50, I was burned out, 30 pounds heavier, dealing with a fried nervous system, chronic pain from sitting 10 hours a day, and completely disconnected from friends. It took two years to recover. Maybe it was the toxic work culture. Maybe it was the Trump era. Maybe it was the lack of training, outdated processes, lack of technology, or the narcissistic boss who made my life hell. Either way, I felt like I had time-traveled back to the 1990s.

I don’t recall blatant sexism in my banking roles, but let’s be real, it was always there. The top positions were dominated by men. They would still comment on how attractive women were. Gag. About a third of the workforce was female, and firms claimed they wanted to hire more women and people of color, but somehow, there just “weren’t enough good candidates.” The same excuse applied to people of color. Meanwhile, I worked with plenty of women in finance roles within local governments, women who took lower pay and dealt with stricter DEI policies than their private-sector counterparts.

During the MeToo movement, the men I worked with became paranoid about hiring women. One managing director confided in me that he worried about being “perceived the wrong way.” I told him women know the difference between harassment and basic human decency. I didn’t launch into a lecture about benevolent versus hostile sexism. It wouldn’t have helped my career to get too feminist at a business dinner.

Many boomer women worked in public finance, lifting those behind them, often citing how hard it had been as they were coming up. These women really did pave the way. Also, often citing how the housing recession gutted their savings and thus their retirement would be postponed. Typical Gen-X experience, squished between the boomers not making space and the solipsistic millennials girl-bossing hard. All talented and all self-interested, as is the American way of rugged individualism. Gen-X men varied, but single and divorced ones often leaned more feminist, having grappled with sexual politics. Yet, some still questioned the need for a ‘Women in Public Finance’ group, oblivious to why there wasn’t a ‘Men in Public Finance’ group. To them, women were already equal. Many failed forward into promotions and never had to think deeply about how the system worked. It was exhausting to hold my tongue, to suppress my progressive thoughts, to navigate an industry built by and for them. Millennial men and women, as usual were cool as hell and Gen-Z interns were simply the best.

I never failed forward. I had no family connections. No safety net. No legacy admissions or promotions handed to me. I worked hard for everything. Maybe that’s a universal Gen-X woman experience. Maybe it’s just mine. But I did what I set out to do in banking: I could afford to move back to NYC and I learned how the economy works. I learned what the indicators are, how interest rates, although important, are just one piece of a healthy economy. I learned how governments raise revenue and why functioning municipalities are vital to every citizen’s well-being. Just because someone FEELS their taxes are wasted doesn’t mean they KNOW. Without taxes, we have no schools, police, firefighters, clean water, roads, lights, or parks, I could go on. Opponents push privatization, but they’re full of shit, clinging to a fake middle-class identity. Pooling money and letting everyone vote provides far more coverage than paying fees ever could.

Uptown Funk Gonna Give It to Ya: COVID, Police Brutality, Insurrection (Really)

On March 20, 2020, Governor Andrew Cuomo issued a statewide stay-at-home order, mandating that all non-essential businesses close and urging people to stay home except for essential activities, such as buying food or getting medical care. This order aimed to slow the spread of the coronavirus and prevent the healthcare system from becoming overwhelmed. By April 4, the state reported a record 12,274 new cases in a single day. By April 10, New York had more confirmed cases than any country outside the United States.

During the height of the COVID-19 crisis in New York City in April 2020, the city faced an overwhelming number of deaths. To manage this, refrigerated trucks were used to temporarily store bodies outside hospitals, while mass burials took place on Hart Island for unclaimed bodies or those without family arrangements. Mobile morgue units were also set up at hospitals to further alleviate the strain on local morgues. As of February 2025, approximately 1.2 million US citizens died from COVID-19.

I was working in Manhattan’s Lower East Side in a room so small a queen-size bed wouldn’t fit. Every morning, I got economic updates that made it clear: we were heading toward disaster. The bond market, the system that allows governments and corporations to borrow money, was in crisis. The U.S. government had to backstop the market to prevent collapse. The following year entailed record low interest rates, easy money for borrowers and millions of dollars in refinanced savings. Hard to work while the world was in utter chaos and people were dying but those in debt financing were slammed with work. Another essay is the place for a critique of Trump and MAGAs response to the coronavirus pandemic and to begin to address the global economic and societal collective trauma that still has not been adequately addressed. Too big of a topic to dig into but the government policies are important here.

Unlike the austerity measures of 2008, the pandemic response involved slashing interest rates and injecting massive amounts of money into the economy, which was a global effort. The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act provided direct stimulus payments to individuals, expanded unemployment benefits, and created the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) to support small businesses. These efforts, continued under the American Rescue Plan Act, kept people afloat, preventing a deeper recession and providing crucial support to those unable to work during lockdowns. The government’s intervention kept people alive. Unfortunately, these relief programs, which totaled approximately $5 trillion, also became a hotbed for fraud, with an estimated $64 billion stolen from the PPP alone. The FBI has worked tirelessly to combat this fraud, opening thousands of investigations and charging numerous individuals. However, under the Trump administration, the FBI’s efforts were undermined, and with the current political climate, there’s concern that future enforcement will not hold the guilty accountable. The scale of the fraud was unprecedented, with fraudsters spending stolen funds on luxury cars, real estate, and lavish vacations, while the American taxpayer, already burdened by the government’s borrowing, will ultimately foot the bill.

The human brain can’t deal with so many pointless deaths on the scale that we experienced during the COVID pandemic. Nor can it deal with the single and brutal murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin on May 25, 2020. Chauvin knelt on George Floyd’s neck for nine minutes and 29 seconds ignoring Floyd’s desperate pleas:  “I can’t breathe”, “Please, please, please, I can’t breathe”, “Mama, mama”, “They’re gonna kill me”,  and “I’m about to die”.

In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, a profound shift occurred in the United States. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, already established, gained unprecedented momentum as millions across the nation and globally took to the streets, demanding justice and systemic change. This surge in activism led to significant policy discussions and, in some cases, reforms aimed at addressing racial injustice and police brutality.

Finance firms scrambled to appear as if they cared about diversity. They poured money into DEI initiatives, formed internal groups to promote equity, and touted these efforts in business proposals. Some executives genuinely wanted change. Others just wanted to check a box. Another progressive opportunity wasted by corporate America.

The response from then-President Donald Trump was divisive as always. He characterized the BLM protests as “toxic propaganda” and criticized related educational initiatives. Making shit up as usual and leading to the grossest and most racist people using the terms “woke” and “critical race theory”  as dog whistles for racists to break down our education system, defunding it and banning books. Now, under Trump’s second presidency, those initiatives along with people’s actual lived stories have been erased and are cause for mass firings and removal of grant funding.

I can’t even believe that timeline that we all lived through. Next up: Trump’s attack on the Capitol and the Republican insurrection of January 6, 2021. Source: Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, a bipartisan committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, formed to investigate the events leading up to and during the attack on the Capitol.

Attempting to overturn the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory, a mob stormed the Capitol after attending a rally where Trump urged them to “fight like hell.” Rioters carrying confederate and nazi flags violently breached Capitol security injuring more 140 police officers. This assault on democracy, led to Trump’s second impeachment and numerous arrests and convictions of those involved. One of Trump’s first acts in his second term was to pardon all the traitors. As of February 2025, three of the individuals where were pardoned have been rearrested on separate charges.

I can’t even. How did Trump get re-elected. How are we in this predicament. How are we going to move forward.

This is fascism. Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian political ideology characterized by dictatorial power, extreme nationalism, suppression of dissent, and strong government control over society and the economy. It often emerges during times of crisis, exploiting fear and division to consolidate power.

Anger is a Gift: Call to Action

Rage Against the Machine warned us in 1992, but we didn’t listen. We went to work, joined the military, had kids, bought houses, lost houses, bought more. Retirement is a decade away, and we don’t have enough to retire. Our bodies are breaking down, and we still don’t have universal healthcare. Our kids are drowning in student debt we can’t help them pay.

Work is miserable, either we’re exhausted and bored, trapped in outdated technology like Excel and Word that hasn’t improved since the ’90s, or we’re unemployed, stuck in the black hole of LinkedIn, Indeed, and recruiters demanding perfect matches. It’s terrifying. The planet is burning, flooding, drying up, depending on where you live. No one is coming to save us.

Know your enemy. Take it down. We are not powerless. We have guts, knowledge, and experience. Our enemy is fascism. Fight it.

Rage Against the Machine

Know your enemy

Come on
Yes, I know my enemies
They’re the teachers who taught me to fight me
Compromise, conformity
Assimilation, submission
Ignorance, hypocrisy
Brutality, the elite
All of which are American dreams
All of which are American dreams
All of which are American dreams
All of which are American dreams
All of which are American dreams
All of which are American dreams
All of which are American dreams
All of which are American dreams

Vote. Organize. Mentor. Disrupt.

Scholar Gene Sharp reviewed thousands of instances of nonviolent struggle and catalogued 198 different methods that were used in those encounters. At one point he called these methods “weapons,” to emphasize that they are used in conflict situations. He listed them and gave historical examples of each in his 1973 book The Politics of Nonviolent Action. He grouped them into three broad categories: protest, noncooperation, and intervention, and then he further broke those into smaller classifications. The following link lists Gene Sharp’s classification of 198 methods including extra information gathered after his book.

Browse Methods | Global Nonviolent Action Database

Simple Outline to fight fascism

1. Strengthen Democracy

• Vote in every election: Support candidates who uphold democratic values.
• Defend free press & institutions: Call out attempts to undermine journalism, courts, and elections.
• Hold leaders accountable: Pressure representatives to reject authoritarian policies.

2. Educate & Expose

• Learn history: Fascism thrives where people forget past mistakes. Understanding authoritarianism helps prevent its rise.
• Call out propaganda: Fact-check misinformation and push back against conspiracy theories.
• Teach critical thinking: Support education that fosters independent thought and civic awareness.

3. Organize & Mobilize

• Join grassroots movements: Support organizations fighting for democracy, human rights, and social justice.
• Protest & demonstrate: Peaceful resistance, strikes, and mass movements have historically stopped fascist regimes.
• Build local power: Engage in community organizing to create strong, resilient opposition networks.

4. Protect the Vulnerable

• Stand with marginalized groups: Fascists target minorities, immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, and others. Be an ally and defend their rights.
• Stop normalization: Don’t ignore or downplay fascist rhetoric; call it out early and often.
• Support independent media: Fund sources that expose corruption and authoritarian tendencies.

5. Resist Economically

• Boycott fascist-aligned businesses: Avoid supporting companies or industries that fund authoritarian leaders.
• Support ethical alternatives: Invest in businesses and organizations that promote democracy and equality.

6. Build International Solidarity

• Learn from global movements: Anti-fascist struggles worldwide share strategies and lessons.
• Support democratic allies: Engage with international organizations that promote human rights.