The US is falling apart: Collective grief, privilege, and surviving the Trump regime

A Messy Liberation podcast episode hosted by Becky Mollenkamp and Taina Brown.

What this episode is about

This episode sits inside two overlapping forms of grief: personal loss and collective unraveling. Becky names the destabilizing grief of watching U.S. power erode on the global stage — and what it means to confront the loss of privilege, safety, and certainty in real time.

Taina shares the complicated aftermath of her mother’s death, including the anger, relief, and dissonance that comes from being told a story about someone that doesn’t match your lived experience. Together, they explore grief as a political and embodied experience — without rushing to fix it.

This episode is for you if…

You’re looking for a practical framework like resource mapping to help you return to baseline when anxiety, despair, or political overwhelm makes you want to retreat into your recliner and opt out.

Discussed in this episode

• The grief of losing global privilege — and why it still matters even when privilege is complicated
• Why awareness without action or guardrails keeps us stuck
• Seasonal depression, political despair, and “who gives a shit” energy
• Resource mapping as a tool for emotional regulation and capacity
• Healthy anger vs. destructive anger — and why movements can’t survive on rage alone
• Parenting, power dynamics, and what under-resourcing does to relationships
• Complicated grief after the death of an abusive or estranged parent
• The dissonance of hearing glowing stories about someone who harmed you
• Relief as a valid response to death — and why that doesn’t negate love
• Dehumanization, polarization, and why systems benefit when we fight each other

Why it matters

Grief doesn’t only live in our personal lives — it’s shaped by systems, power, and material conditions. This conversation offers language, frameworks, and permission to stay human in a moment that makes numbness and cruelty feel easier than care.