What is one to do while President Trump jeopardizes America’s role in the world? Do we watch with indifference or try and avoid the news? As the saying goes, “Misery loves isolation much more than company.” Thus, remaining isolated and unconnected from other humans in your everyday life is not a remedy and will result in more anxiety.

California is very much isolated from the rest of the country. Millennials in California are even more isolated; millennials that are students even further isolated from the consequences of the political fallout that is taking place. School occupies a lot of time and attention. College students have yet to be affected by political and economic decisions that affect issues such as job market and income or tax legislation.

For most the president of the United States has never posed so much of a threat to one’s mood or disposition

However, it serves no one to become complacent or simply accept that locally your leaders might represent your political leanings more accurately than President Trump.

What should be happening is a social awakening on many levels. We are starting to see already evidence of the recurring pronouncements of truths being told and people doing personal inventory cleaning of their consciences’ as it relates to the issue of sexual assault., at least by victims.

College students should be more engaged in this environment. It is therapeutic and healthy for students to apply what they are learning to solving a social problem or figuring out how they can improve the quality of life in their community through their major or area of interest. Experimentation and taking risks during one’s college tenure can inspire or even inform future business plans, patents and public policies.

Those of us in college need to pay close attention as the future is shaped by decisions being made now that seem not timely enough to warrant our suspicion. However, before our eyes now more than ever the American dream is slipping away from us. The future is not so bright and some suggest that it is nightfall in America rather than morning.

Rather than letting our policymakers off the hook because they are not Trump, we should be harder on them. We should scrutinize their work even more now that the Trump travesty is in full effect. There is a need for clarity and truth in this “trumped up” environment of doubt, disfavor and division.

Locally, we must achieve what we cannot nationally. We should begin to demand honesty and integrity from ourselves and others concerning our affairs. We must make certain we invest in the future to assure that there is one for us and that there is a sufficient amount of opportunity to go around. We have got to begin to transform our community to fit a more sustainable condition that can be the example that motivates the world. The Silicon Valley has to capability to be pivotal in exemplifying a fundamental transformation toward sustainability in the modern world.

We have reached the pinnacle of cynicism in America where the legitimacy of our founding principles are challenged and assaulted by a monolithic coalition of those disposed to having an enthusiastic ear for combative and hateful Tweets “from the Donald” toward all he demonizes and a larger group who have always felt very overburdened by tolerance and diversity.

President Trump has made a conscious choice to entertain his “base” and not make any efforts at unifying divisions in America. This is a dangerous trend and the uncertainty he thrives in is not an appropriate way which to govern, much less lead the world.

Instead, let us be reminded that “Our problems are manmade–therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man’s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable–and we believe they can do it again.”

The words of President John F. Kennedy always pertinent throughout our history—and the polar opposite of the cynical messaging we have allowed to become the new normal.