Fractals and Fascism:

Repeating Patterns of Chaos and Suffering

There is a relentless barrage of bad news that fills our social media feeds and inboxes. Pundits, content creators and a tsunami of Substack publications screech for our attention, seduce us with clever titles, numb our senses and overwhelm our central nervous systems. It turns out that the twenty-four hour news cycle that we can access at our fingertips can be unhealthy for us.

As an author of a Substack publication, I struggle with what to write and how often to post. There is no shortage of news or ‘calls to action’ and I don’t want to just echo the stream of bad news nor continually ask my readers to ‘do something’ in response to the daily atrocities of the MAGA forces. The landscape of independent media and grassroots activism has exponentially expanded since we launched H4D over two years ago.

I am exhausted. My colleagues and team mates are exhausted. The faces on the live stream videos of my favorite authors and journalists look tired, their voices sometimes hoarse. Like Jon Stewart recently said, presidential terms are supposed to age the person holding that office, not the citizens.

Getty Image/LordHenriVoton

Did You Know:

On Sunday, April 25, 2026 the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, D.C. was interrupted by a shots-fired incident. Trump, Vance and others on stage were hurriedly escorted out of the room while those seated on the floor ducked under tables. Later, video footage showed Erika Kirk fleeing the room sobbing that “she just wanted to go home”. The video image of her crying face was a ironic reminder that her deceased husband, Charlie Kirk, killed by an assassin’s bullet in 2025, had boldly proclaimed at a Turning Point USA event just three years ago this month that:

“I think it’s worth it. It’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God given rights. That’s a prudent deal. It is rational.”

The 31 year old assailant was apprehended. It is suspected that he intentionally was targeting members of the administration. We know that he is an engineer trained at Caltech, that he is a tutor and a self employed video game developer. His social media posts suggest he was disgruntled about the actions and policies of the current administration. He has subsequently been charged with attempting to assassinate Trump.

The MAGA regime is using the incident to promote the illegal, privately funded extravagant ballroom being built in the White House. Some pundits and content creators opposed to this regime initially speculated whether this was a staged propaganda event to distract from Trump’s plummeting approval ratings, the disastrous war, rising prices and and the Epstein files. And so it goes.

Why It Matters:

Take a moment to pause and reflect on this particular event as an object lesson, as a fractal of a larger pattern that holds the ‘whole’ of what we are experiencing.

• Were you aware that there was a WHCA dinner occurring and that Trump was going to give a speech at an event designed to celebrate the press although he considers the press to be an ‘enemy of the people’?

• Were you aware that the event is historically a celebration of the First Amendment while raising money for scholarships and a celebration of excellent journalism?

• Why do you think that the WHCA president, Weijia Jiang, not only invited Trump to attend the prestigious event but honored his unusual request to give a speech? (He has boycotted every other WHCA dinner in both of his terms in office.)

• Have you noticed the language of many of the journalists and anchors of the legacy media as they describe how the Secret Service agents rushed “the president” off the stage as if he is like any other legitimate president? Are their words in fact normalizing his tenure?

• Trump is demanding that the dinner be rescheduled within 30 days because he insists that it “is very important” and that they need to “get it going”. How do you think Weijia Jiang and the board of WHCA should respond?

• What were your initial thoughts when you first heard about the chaos of this iconic event? What did you say out loud?

Ferns are naturally occurring fractals where the fonds repeat a larger pattern. Image by UnSplash, Diago Nunes

What We Can Do:

We must not react to every atrocity, each example of incompetence, the epidemic of corruption, the destruction of norms, the erosion of freedoms and human suffering that are becoming hourly occurrences. We don’t stop caring, we don’t ignore what is happening, but we can’t stay at the granular level of all the destruction and suffering as it happens. However, each singular event is a fractal of the larger chaos, and the chaos keeps repeating! Predictable, consistent, infinite chaos.

We must banish the words, ‘unbelievable’ and ‘unprecedented’ from our vocabularies. It is all believable. It is all to be expected. Corruption, hatred, cowardice and elected leaders abdicating their constitutional oath is precedent. These patterns will repeat until we end this reign of terror by voting the villains out.

It will get worse before it gets better. There is no longer ‘breaking news’. Our country is breaking, our lives are breaking, families are breaking, everything is breaking. That’s the news. Our immediate work is to triage the suffering.

We must limit our consumption of endless commentary, immediate social media posts and doom scrolling. Just because our preferred Substack author or content creator posts something, we don’t have to immediately consume it. Be very choiceful about who and what we give our attention to. Our attention is a valuable gift not to be squandered.

Stay connected to groups who are on the ground doing resistance work. Give the time and attention you can without exhausting yourself. Stay in community. We must learn to stay still in the midst of the chaos.

The Chilean Nobel Prize winning poet, diplomat and politician, Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) instructs us on how to be in times of chaos and suffering:

Keeping Quiet by Pablo Neruda

Now we will count to twelve

and we will all keep still.

For once on the face of the earth,

let’s not speak in any language;

let’s stop for a second,

and not move our arms so much.

It would be a delicious moment

with rush, without engines;

we would all be together

in a sudden strangeness.

Fisherman in the cold sea

would not harm whales

and the gatherer of salt

would look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,

wars with gas, wars with fire,

victories with no survivors,

would put on clean clothes

and walk with their brothers

in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused

with total inactivity.

Life is what it is about,

I want nothing to do with death.

If we were not so single-minded

about keeping our lives moving,

and for once could do nothing,

perhaps a huge silence

might interrupt this sadness

of never understanding ourselves

and of threatening ourselves with death.

Perhaps the earth can teach us

as when everything seems dead

and later proves to be alive.

Now I’ll count to twelve

and you keep quiet and I will go.

This Friday, May 1 has been designated as May Day Strong. It is a day of economic noncooperation, a way to stop moving our arms so much and pause to walk in the shade with our brothers and sisters. Economic boycotts are a strategic escalation of the resistance movement. No School, No Work, No Shopping.

Together we can end this pattern of chaos and suffering and create fractals of love and community.

Together, we will prevail.

May Day Strong!

Debbie and the H4D team