For the first time in my life, activism is cool. Donald Trump may indeed be making America great again--by forcing white people to realize how prevalent racism is, by getting people who had no problem with surveillance under President Obama to assert a right to privacy, by impelling people to rise up and proclaim that dissent is indeed patriotic. For most of my life, I felt like my interest in changing the world made me a weirdo. Now, you have to be engaged to be cool.
It's wonderful. It's a chance to spur real change in this country. But activism as a trend can become activism as style instead of substance. That doesn't have to happen. Here's how to make your activism meaningful, whether you've been doing it for 30 years or 30 days.
