Probably when they're tried in the Hague after it's all over?

No, that's too real. 90% of that is true about him. I want to see more executive orders where he bans light beer because bud lite used dei to make an ad two years ago. Or an executive order renaming mount rushmoore to mount trump and charging the families of the presidents carved in it advertising rights.

Oh darling, if I had real money, I would use it to sow chaos and undermine the world's financial markets.

But most of all, if I have to live in this bullsh!t cyberpunk reality, we might as well have shadowrunners/Edgerunners/mercs. So I'd recruit as many paramilitary mercenaries as I could find and set them on the task of sabotaging critical corporate infrastructure, kidnapping any oligarchs we could find vulnerabilities for, and doing brazen, overt terrorism kind of stuff.

The idea being if I can cause enough chaos perhaps the people of the world might finally have enough and force change for the ultra wealthy.

Pfft, everyone knows the cool kids use Lynx.

I understand what you're saying and the man himself wasn't directly controlling every aspect of his rise to power. But I think it's a disservice to history and to our present circumstances to deny that it actually does take a certain kind of charismatic sociopath/narcissist to lead a movement like the Nazis or their cover band.

If anyone could do it, it would happen much more often than it does. Hitler (and Trump) is a case of the "right" person, being in the "right" place, at the "right" time.

Maybe I'm too much of an idealist but I just wish for once, just once, someone comes along with a message of unity and mutual understanding and people actually listen.

I'm not in denial, I'm scared shitless and heartbroken. You're probably right. That's probably it for American democracy and any hope trans people have of finding safety and acceptance in American Society in our lifetimes. But it hasn't happened yet.

We've already survived a Trump presidency once, we'll do it again, life's just going to suck more than it already has. I can't tell you how to live your apocalypse, I intend to get back in shape, see what parts of my life can be further downsized, and focus on growing my social support network to include as many other women, people of color, and queer folks as I can befriend.

This is probably one of the more tragic results of the mess we're in right now and there is no good solution. Not killing anyone would be ideal, but not enough people feel that way or we wouldn't be killing each other as much as we do.

You can't change a bigots heart unless they want to change. You could kill them, but what difference would there be between you and a bigot at that point? These kinds of problems take generations to sort out, which is unfortunate for all the dead southern queer people who will be murdered legally in the years to come.

Yes, but also no.

More users would be great for the fediverse, in theory. Right now Lemmy (and Mastodon) can attribute a lot of their users to people unhappy with Reddit Inc. (or X) in some way. Throwing more unhappy people into the user base would probably not lead to good outcomes.

Personally I think Lemmy and Mastodon will never get the critical mass of users needed to maintain healthy communities because the only thing they have to offer is a less bad clone of an existing network.

X is bad because a malignant political demagogue is actively destroying what most people liked about Twitter. Reddit is bad because reddit inc. cares more about profit more than the needs of the user base. But the platforms they created and/or operate aren't designed with a federated model in mind.

If the fediverse is ever going to move out of the technically savvy, early adopter nerds phase I think it's only going to do that through something new and better than what already exists.

I'm sorry you feel that way, but it's not true. All you're missing is self-confidence and self-worth. It may not feel like it, but you are worthy of love and validation. Love yourself because you are alive and trying.

It's not easy, especially if you've built up a lot of myths about how you're broken or unlovable. Find the things you like about yourself and go from there. All you have to do is keep trying.

Enlightenment: calling meetings yourself because nothing you do matters and getting paid to listen to assholes talk isn't the worst way to pay rent.

My spouse became my ex.

That's not a retrofit either. With a multi tool those can be removed with a few bolts. The ones on that bench are single mold cast iron. You'd need an angle grinder to remove those, not that any law abiding good citizen would.

So dumb. They could have spent the extra money helping the people they don't want sleeping on benches not sleep on benches. Most people probably agree, just not in their backyard or with their tax dollars. The amount of work they're willing to put in not to help someone is absolutely astounding.