Muffin Madness: Working At Capacity
Notes from last summer: my experience surrounding the 2024 Republican National Convention and Cheri Honkala's experience marching in protest against the Republicans and Democrats.
by Barbara Dahlgren, 11/25/25
Republished with permission from https://politicalhomemaker.substack.com/
Homemade Lemon Blueberry Squash Muffin
Perhaps, like me, you are contemplating the last year or two, or maybe four. I am only now realizing that I may have been in the fog of new motherhood in which the only goal is the survival of yourself and the baby. After that, conducting some semblance of normal life, usually by returning to regular meals and work. This is where the madness comes in. The caveat is that when the fog lifts isolation may have set in. Oops. Anyway, here is the testimony from my past self who was recounting a time of madness. It was a time of double the trouble and half the naps in the middle of an election season, but maybe you will feel it applicable during the hustle of the holiday season as well.
Even the sunniest summer days do not take the edge off the constant grind. Most summers are a bit quieter, but it is an election year, and the RNC came through my town. The DNC was only 100 miles south, so I continued to be part of the movement there too. What’s more, it is the wettest year I have ever seen. It rained outside, and sometimes, unfortunately, it has also rained inside. My husband and I have spent many hours repairing leaky areas in our house, and I can already tell we are not done yet. The creeping entropy can be suffocating.
In 2024, the act of scrolling is, ironically, a coping mechanism for overwhelm. The algorithm magic to the struggling brain seemingly must have the answers in its infinite wisdom. “It’s not an addiction.” I lie to myself while watching 20 seconds of another cute animal compilation or Olympics clip. After all, what is the use of attempting to handle any of the to dos, when they keep piling up? When each day requires 50 tasks, and I can only realistically get to three, what is the use of doing anything? Of course, this only makes me feel worse because not only am I not getting anything productive done, I’m not properly resting either. It is hard to convince the tired brain that inspiration will never strike during the endless scroll, or that it is the act of starting that leads to motivation. Starting into another Twitter thread is not going to help. But sometimes we spiral into yet another loop of madness sliding a thumb over the pretty, blue light.
I have swapped out one form of madness for another in dealing with this mad world. I baked so much this summer that I ran out of baking powder. I had MUFFIN MADNESS MORNING in which I baked 4 different kinds of muffins to share with the march (and my local Greens).
English Muffins
Cinnamon Raisin Muffins
Cherry Muffins
Lemon Poppyseed Muffins
I work at capacity a lot these days. I do the absolute most that I can do everyday, and I have been keeping a log of this productivity because my accomplishments are often eaten in 30 minutes, and it is like I never accomplished anything. I certainly recommend keeping a log like this in general because it has improved morale. Working at capacity, sometimes called “rise and grind” is highly praised in American culture, but it is inhuman long-term. It leads to burnout and depression.
But what do you do when every day seems to slip away? What do you do when you have a large home maintenance issue and only 2 weeks before your only babysitter goes back to work for the school year? What do you do when the kids, the home, the garden, and other commitments require many more hours in the day than physically possible?
Internet meme from 2011
This summer, I also committed to helping the Poor People’s Army take a 100 mile journey from Milwaukee to Chicago, helping the Green Party with its campaigns, I took a landscaping job in my neighborhood, I committed to multiple large-scale projects including how to repair plaster walls in my home, plus a few things I didn’t even list.
Perhaps it is only in my bubble, but it seems like so much in this world is completely out of hand: our food and water is full of poison, millions of people are homeless, our foreign policy is permanent war (that is ever closer to nuclear), the stock market is crashing again, some people feel like the low birthrate will ruin social security and end the species while other powerful people are obviously trying to cull the human population. There is no illusion that what Americans like me were taught in school was propaganda. “Of the people, by the people, and for the people” is meaningless to us as we watch hundreds of millions of our own dollars go out the door to Israel and Ukraine, while we watch the coronations this election year, and while our permanent security state sets up cop cities.
One of several groups of police for the 2024 RNC Convention in Milwaukee biking down Water Street, the week leading up to the event.
This summer when the RNC came to town, I mistakenly drove through the downtown area with my children. It was a horrible look into the reality of the police state we already live under. Every few streets I had to make a turn and was still cut off by police barricades. Some streets had those cement blocks, wooden horses and traffic cones. Others had these horrific cages that stretched from the buildings on one side of the street to the buildings on the other. These were checkpoints in which the police could choose whether or not to let pedestrians through on our city streets. It frightens me that at a moment’s notice, any city could be like this due to the massive police budgets and infrastructure.
Imagine a city shutting down several blocks and being so heavily policed for a Green Party or Libertarian Party convention, or really any other convention for that matter. But for these parties, not even written into the Constitution, the permanent security state reveals itself completely.
One of the caged off streets I ran into driving around Milwaukee prior to the 2024 RNC.
The city denied marchers permits to reach the front of the RNC building, or get within blocks of it. Not only did Milwaukee spend obscene amounts of money on locking down our city to host this event, it also brought police from cities across the Midwest including a group from Ohio that shot homeless residents, Samuel Sharpe, at least 23 times, about a mile from the convention center in King Park the day after the Poor People’s Army marched from that location. I marched from Red Arrow Park and even spoke at that event. Unfortunately, by the time of the 4PM march, my children needed to rest, so I took them home. The first march was led by the March on the RNC Coalition, but it was too friendly to the Democrats, and actually allowed some speakers to champion Joe Biden (the nominee at the time). There were truck billboards surrounding the park advertising ol’ genocide Joe. Before I spoke, while I participated in the march, I talked with other marchers who were planning to vote blue no matter who anyway. Other Greens were able to take up the mantle for me at the afternoon protest.
Cheri Honkala after recounting her story. The group was gathering for the first day of the march to Chicago. My baby crawling around her to get what looks like a muffin wrapper.
Cheri Honkala, a leader in the Poor People’s Army recounted her experience:
The purpose of the march she helped to lead was to serve a citizen’s arrest to the Republicans (and the Democrats at the DNC in Chicago a month later) for crimes against humanity. When she went through the barricades to do this, she was arrested. She was handcuffed in a police vehicle that sent her to a warehouse that looked to her like an old Staples for booking. They transported her in multiple vehicles including one that looked like a Shawshank style prison bus. After quite a while in transport and booking, she and the other people who were looking for her at the time think she was at the Community Reintegration Center Prison in Franklin, WI.
This was a kidnapping and disappearance that could have easily been permanent. She was transported in a confusing manner in handcuffs for hours. She was not given a phone call or a bathroom during the many hours she was arrested or made to sit still on a cold floor in wet clothes. She was also not put into any system so other people could find her and get her out. Other Poor People’s Army volunteers were calling all of the various police stations and jails she could have possibly been sent to. Ultimately, the Secret Service leading the security allegedly said they could not release information because of national security. Cheri’s alleged charge was a misdemeanor of obstructing a road, which does not track with the secretiveness or amount of force in holding Cheri.
At the main building she was held in, Cheri noted at least five different uniforms of various military and police branches, and there were over two hundred officers, all men, in the room with her where she was the only prisoner. After hours on the cold floor, they drove her in another vehicle to an old and desolate industrial area. It was storming and dark, she was still wearing her wet clothes that were suitable when it was about ninety degrees during the march. She had no phone or money. She just had to pick a direction and walk, at night, until she came across a bar that would allow her to use their phone.
Cheri Honkala is in her 60s. I think she’s a little bit taller than me, which is to say, not very big. She was always unarmed and merely performing a peaceful act of civil disobedience. What reason other than to terrorize her would there be to put her through all of that for a simple civil disobedience arrest? This should shock every American who would like to live in “The Land of the Free.” This is not it. Not even close. The RNC and DNC advertised ad nauseum for two candidates who intended to enrich these police agencies of domestic terror even further. They want to track us all with digital IDs and watch our money through digital means. The Republicans are sold on these IDs by way of blocking immigrants on the southern border. Democrats are happy to get them along with the next vaccine. Voting for either was an approval of our own highly surveilled society in which billionaires rule without any laws for themselves. Our police have strong connections to our military. Many who were soldiers, trained to kill combatants, are now policing us. They are often given military weapons with which to use in our city streets against us. Some have an exchange program with Israel’s IDF, which has been showing the world that it is a genocidal and torturous police force. I do not want my children to live under this type of rule. Therefore I simply cannot ignore what is going on. But for any one person it is a lot.
I was happy to be involved with the Poor People’s Army march last summer even with the “excuse” of having a toddler and a baby at home besides all of the other things I was taking on at the time. Even though I am only just now, in late 2025, feeling like I am able to get myself together in terms of organization. I am proud that I could help get many of the items the group needed for its journey from Milwaukee to Chicago. That I was able to participate in a teach-in about my involvement in the local Green Party and a People’s First Convention. I helped to feed everyone on the long journey. I can’t work at capacity all of the time for obvious reasons. But I’m glad I was able to do something.
My first batch of English Muffins
Maybe you’re also trying to decide what you can do. Maybe you know of someone who could use some muffins:
Pumpkin Muffins about 18 muffins, 350 F, about 15 min cook time
2 Cups Whole Wheat Flour
1/3 c flour
1 pint of pumpkin puree
1/3 c honey
2/3 c brown sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
5tbsp melted butter
1/3 c milk
1.5 tsp vanilla
1 c chocolate chips
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp cloves
Banana Blueberry Lemon Muffins same oven time/heat
2 eggs, beaten
2 old bananas
1/2 c sour milk
1 tsp vanilla
2/3 stick of butter
1 1/2 c flour
1/2 c wheat flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3tbsp lemon juice
1 cup frozen blueberries
Cherry Muffins 15-18 minute bake at 400 F
1 1/2 c flour
1/2 c sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 c rolled oats
1 c milk
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/3 c melted butter
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
7oz. can of cherries
