“Why do anything? America is cooked.”
My friend made this doomerist statement a week ago. He’s not the only college student thinking like this. Our generation is increasingly more anxious about current events, especially when it comes to the immigration crackdown and national politics. The result is doomerism: The belief that current events are so far outside our control that no matter what we do, we are doomed.
This belief is wrong. We are not doomed. The protests in Minneapolis against Immigration and Customs Enforcement are working. Not perfectly, but in the four weeks since two U.S. citizens were killed by ICE and around 50,000 people marched in -20° Fahrenheit, the largest immigration crackdown in U.S. history is slowing down. The success in Minneapolis wasn’t magic, it was the product of individuals choosing solidarity and selflessness over fear and silence. More than 700 businesses across the state closed their doors. Enough teachers risked their jobs to go on strike that school districts shut down. 60 CEOs wrote a letter calling for the “de-escalation of tensions.” People took action. They knew that they could do something. They trusted that their actions would have an impact, and they were right.
For college students, thinking the future is set in stone is the easy way out. It’s human nature to look for an answer. Thinking we are destined for ruin allows us to get comfortable doing nothing. But when you succumb to doomerism, you are telling veterans who lost their government benefits or families separated by ICE that you aren’t going to try to help them because there's no point.
So how did we become doomers? Social media is the clearest culprit. Doomscrolling isn’t called doomscrolling for no reason. The constant feed of nihilistic news gives the novelty and danger and danger your brain craves. Social media platforms learn from your behavior and deliver you more negative news. When you wake up and go to sleep watching manufactured outrage, it's hard to think the world is any different.
Even worse, you consume the content alone. You don’t take the time to process with your friends or talk to your family. What used to be a conversation is now a 15-second reel. Nobody pushes back, and you just keep scrolling.
Now, I’m not telling you everything is okay. Everything is not okay. But ‘not okay’ is different from ‘over.’ Not okay means you can still act. Over means you have given up.
Getting out of the mindset is hard. It's hard to tell yourself that your words and actions matter when it feels like they don’t. Instead of watching 10 reels on the Epstein files, read an article about who was involved. Talk to your friends about what you’ve read. Heck, even read the files yourself and expose those who were named.
Once you get past your own doomer mindset, it's your responsibility to help others. When you hear your friends talk about how terrible the future is, don’t berate them, help them. Show them Minneapolis. Show them the picture of 20,000 seats filled with protesters at Target Center. Show them border czar Tom Homan saying that the “drawdown is underway.” People of action are all around us, and they have been successful in enacting real change.
So, the next time you type ‘America is cooked’ in your group chat, realize that your joke is more than that. You are giving up on society. You are doing nothing to help and worse, you are discouraging those who might. But just like doomerism, hope is contagious too.
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Mihir Steingard '28 is an Opinion Columnist studying Industrial and Labor Relations. The name of his column, Common Matters, is a play on words and aims to show why common matters in politics, on campus and in society should matter to us, the common people. He argues against being apolitical or apathetic and instead advocates vehemently for empathy and understanding. He can be reached at msteingard@cornellsun.com.
