The Guardian in John Scalzi’s advance reading copy pile

I should say up front that this post is a book plug. But it’s also an honest account of what’s been going on in my head since the orange menace was elected and the stock market graph of human progress took a sharp dip.

Three years into the Trump administration, I’m learning how to manage my emotions around the fact that a narcissistic man-child is systematically dismantling everything good about our country (human rights, environmental protections, voting rights and fair elections, a relatively good standing in the international community, etc.), while simultaneously worsening our preexisting national issues (racism, gun violence, massive wealth inequality, expensive healthcare, etc.). It’s an awful situation that has negatively impacted my own well-being (and I’m a relatively wealthy, privileged white male, with plentiful resources; most have it much worse).

There are two sides to my coping strategy. The first is trying to be proactive. I openly criticize Trump and his policies, I support political candidates who I think can do a better job, and I try live and represent the values I believe in. My personal actions and words probably don’t make a big difference, but it’s better than being passive and indifferent.

The other aspect of my coping strategy is long-term thinking, and that includes my science fiction writing. In the future worlds I write about, we see the consequences of climate change, short-term economic policy, nationalism, and other human foibles. These are baked-in, as far as I’m concerned. It’s too late to avoid many of the long-term negative effects of a fossil-fuel-based economy, poorly regulated capitalism, and global populism. Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Jair Bolsonaro, and others are digging us a deeper hole even as waters rise.

But there are possibly (hopefully) thousands of years of human history yet to be written. In my new novel The Guardian, I imagined a mostly depopulated, environmentally pristine 28th century Earth, ripe for humanity’s second chance. Though it took some mental gymnastics, I did my best to make the events leading up to such a scenario plausible if not likely.

It’s one of an infinite spectrum of possible scenarios for our collective future that realistically incorporates the damage we’ve inflicted upon our planet and ourselves, while also celebrating that we’re a self-renewing species, capable of bouncing back from terrible lows and finding (and creating) hope even when conditions are grim.

Maybe this makes me part of the hopepunk movement, or a post-dystopia utopian. What I know for sure is that this present-day clusterfuck of terrible global governance won’t last forever, and that the graph of human progress is still trending upwards, corrections notwithstanding.