Hugs

so much to say, and yet I think a hug says it best... *hug.....

Vix

It will be a bleak few years and a lot of people will suffer the adverse effects. While it's good to remain informed, it's okay to turn off the firehose of bad news sometimes. We may not yet know the specific details of exactly what kind of bad things will transpire, but nothing should come as a surprise. Fixating on the fear and sadness will wreck your mental health.

I didn't set out to write a rant and I apologize if it is unwanted, I understand if it goes unread. But in the interest of providing context...

The upcoming changes may look severe but it's continuing a well-established trajectory which both sides have been pushing for decades. I would never diminish the struggles of the LGBT+ community. My family and I enjoy immeasurable benefits and comforts from the social gains that have been hard fought and won. But we should not lose sight of the way that those culture war issues have been latched onto as a loud distraction from the economic and ecological injustices being wrought on us all equally.

Education has long been fragmented, stratified, and commodified. Adding fairytales to science books is very bad, but funding schools by local property taxes ensures only the students fortunate enough to have been born in the right zip code even have a chance to excel. It chases away high quality teachers to the few districts capable of paying them anywhere close to resembling a livable salary while deterring countless others from even pursuing the field of education. Forget college, that's another industry to saddle people with lifelong debt for trying to climb the economic ladder.

All of us are working more hours for less effective pay, just to scrape by. Prices of everything continue to rise. The companies increasing those prices throw out every excuse their focus groups can dream up, to distract from the fact they're shoveling unfathomable piles of money to their executive parasites who have never worked a day in their lives.

The appearance of regulatory progress on the environmental front is even more farcical. Rolling back emissions and efficiency standards is objectively bad, but so are the myriad of loopholes included in the implementation of those standards to allow polluting industries ways to change as little as possible while maintaining profits. The pivot away from fossil fuels is stymied because standards are raised so gently, with so many exceptions provided, while goals are set so far in the future so as to not upset the ones raking in money from the old ways of doing things. The only substantive progress we get to see is when a shiny new business shows up and makes a pretty buck selling the "solution" without disrupting the underlying paradigm.

LGBT issues and climate change wasn't what lost Harris the election. She lost because she's just another in a long line of pathetic token characters curated for network television. She wasn't going to address those kind of things any more than the democrats who ran before her. She and her wealthy corporate backers hoped that being a woman of color spouting empty platitudes and social window dressing would be enough to get people to vote to keep them in power. Next time it'll be mayor pete peddling the same tired marketing drivel while desperately avoiding discussing the underlying issues which brought us to this point.

For what it's worth, I voted against fascism and I wish more people had. But when the alternative they toss at us is so milquetoast and uninspiring, dripping with cynical marketing and shallow tokenism, I can see why people stayed home. This cycle plays out the same way time and time again, like they're following a script, and people aren't blind to that. They see things going in smaller and smaller circles around the drain and wonder what's the point.

This wasn't a fluke or an accident. Hopelessness and pessimism kept people home. Don't let hopelessness consume you.

Always keep in mind the things that we have in common, embrace and explore the things that bring us together. Our differences may seem intimidating but we are more alike than people have been led to realize. In the short term, focus on the things that keep you going. Take things one day at a time. Take care of yourself and your loved ones. In the long term, strive to always have a positive impact on the people around you. Interact kindly with one another. We're all passengers together on this planet.

We as a species will get through this dark period and we will emerge better on the other side of it if each of us chooses to play a part, however great or small, to make things better for those around us.

I wasn't sure how to end this so I'll just apologize for the wall of text. Feel free to disregard it, or to share if it resonates. I've gotta head to work now.

Peace and Love.

Democrats disconnected their party from the economic issues while still in power by insisting that the economy is doing "great" (at a time where lots of people are struggling). They also drove people away with years of othering, bullying, and exclusion over things that the average voter seems to have trouble connecting with. We see this same behavior in the fandom.

I wish the Republicans had fielded somebody else. We'll dig in for 4 years and hopefully survive well enough to learn some critical lessons. I'm irked by the same changes and political appointments that you noticed, but there's no real way to reset the clock. Seems like a lot of favoritism in action within their party. :/

Wishing you peace,
Plum