Shortly after Donald Trump was elected President, Amy Siskind took one of her occasional trips to Val-Kill, the Upstate New York home of former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

“I needed a Zen moment,” Siskind, who had campaigned for Hillary Clinton, told me. “And that is a place that inspires me.”

Soon afterward, Siskind began keeping what she calls the Weekly List, tracking all the ways in which she saw America's taken-for-granted governmental norms changing in the Trump era.

The project started small, read by friends and with only a few items a week.

By Week Nine, though, the list had gone viral.

“It blew up - I had 2 million views that week,” she said. “People were responding like crazy, saying things like, 'I'm praying for you.'”

As time went on, the list grew much longer and more sophisticated. Here are three of her 85 items from mid-June:

“Monday, in a bizarre display in front of cameras, Trump's cabinet members took turns praising him.”

"AP reported that a company that partners with both Trump and (son-in-law) Jared Kushner is a finalist for a $1.7bn contract to build the new FBI building.

"Vice President Mike Pence hired a big-name “lawyer with Watergate experience to represent him in the Russian probe.”

Now, in Week 32, every item has a source link, and rather than just a few items, there are dozens. (Her weekly audience usually hits hundreds of thousands, she said, on platforms including Medium,Facebook and Twitter.)

The idea, she said, came from her post-election reading about how authoritarian governments take hold - often with incremental changes that seem shocking at first but quickly become normalised. Each post begins with: “Experts in authoritarianism advise to keep a list of things subtly changing around you, so you'll remember.”

She's not the only one to have this idea; on Twitter, for example, designer Laura Olin created @_rememberbot, where frequent tweets begin with the words “It is not normal” and catalogue the oddities of TrumpWorld. (“It is not normal for US Presidents to criticise federal judges.”)

But Siskind may be the most dogged and systematic. One follower even made a searchable database of her lists.

“It's scary to look back on the early weeks and see what we've already gotten used to,” she said. Examples: a secretary of state who rarely speaks publicly, the failure to fill important positions in many agencies, a president who often eschews intelligence briefings in favour of Fox & Friends.

“We forget all the things we should be outraged about,” Siskind said.

Jay Rosen, a New York University journalism professor and author of the PressThink blog, called Siskind's efforts “a service that is thoroughly journalistic and much needed.”

The lists “help people experience the history that is being made and keeps them alive and alert to the dangers of eroding norms,” Rosen said.

In their user-friendly format, he said, they are “one way of dealing with an overload of significant news, a surplus of eventfulness that allows things to hide in plain sight simply because there are too many of them to care about.”

It's also, Rosen said, something that journalists can't - or don't - do, as they pay attention to the political dust-up of the day and don't always provide much context or seem to remember what happened last month or last year. (“Since taking office, Trump has been at one of his properties every 3.5 days,” Siskind wrote this month.)

From Siskind's point of view, an experiment has become a mission - one that sometimes competes for attention with bringing up her two kids and running a pro-women nonprofit organisation that she founded.

“It has required stamina that I've never had before,” Siskind said.

Her followers appreciate the effort, if not the disturbing content. Kate McCreedy wrote on Twitter: “I read this every week. Absorb it. Get a stomachache.” And Jake Orlowitz, on Medium, called Siskind brilliant for compiling a “terrifying collection of horribles.”

She posts the list on Saturday on Facebook and Twitter, and Sunday on Medium, after working on it for 15 or 20 hours a week.

Siskind, who lives just outside New York City, left Wall Street in 2008. Over a 20-year career, she'd become an expert in distressed debt trading and, at one point, co-headed the trading department at Morgan Stanley and became the first female managing director at another firm.

She founded the New Agenda to focus attention on issues affecting the success of women and girls, including pay discrimination, sexual harassment and sexual assault on college campuses. She is also an LGBT advocate.

Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Show all 33 1 /33 Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first 100 days in office were marred by a string of scandals, many of which caught the eye of the Independent's cartoonists Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Trump's first 100 days have seen him aggressively ramp up tensions with his nuclear rivals in North Korea Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has warned of a "major, major conflict" with the pariah nation lead by Kim Jong Un Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump dropped the "mother of all bombs" on alleged ISIS-linked militants in Afghanistan, amid an escalation of US military intervention around the globe Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has been accused of falling short of the standards set by his predecessors in the Oval Office, including Franklin D Roosevelt Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The tycoon's ascension to the White House came at a time when the balance of power is shifting away from Western nations like those in the G7 group Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Western politicians, including the British Conservative party, have been accused of falling in line behind Mr Trump's proposals Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Brexit is seen to have weakened Britain, reducing still further any political will to resist American leadership Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump's leadership has been marked by sudden and unexpected shifts in global policy Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Trump's controversial missile strike on Syria, which killed several citizens, was seen by some analysts as an attempt to distract from his policy elsewhere Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The President has also spent a large majority of his weekends golfing, rather than attending to matters of state Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Though free of gaffes, a visit from Chinese president Xi Jinping spotlighted trade tensions between the two states Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons One major and unexpected setback came when Mr Trump's Healthcare Bill was struck down by members of his own party Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has been a figure of fun in the media, with his approval at record lows Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons A string of revelations about Mr Trump's financial indiscretions did not mar his surge to the White House Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Outgoing President Barack Obama was accused of wiretapping Trump Tower by his successor in America's highest office Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The alleged involvement of Russian intelligence operatives in securing Mr Trump the presidency prompted harsh criticism Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The explosive resignation of Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who lied about his links to 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How long does she plan to keep up the list-making? “Until he's out of power,” she said, which she believes - and fervently hopes - will happen before the end of the first presidential term.

“I don't have a grand plan,” she said. “I just want to be able to trace our way back.”