I still find it hilarious (but at the same time very depressing) that otherwise reputable universities in the US offer degree courses in something called ‘political science’.
A classic oxymoron, if ever there was one…
I normally don’t talk about politics, primarily because my blood pressure isn’t the greatest and I’ve already had enough howling rage for several lifetimes, but I’ll make an exception for this.
It sucks. Not as much for me as the minority groups in much more vulnerable parts of the country, of course, but it really, totally sucks. I’ve been at the mercy of assholes for a big chunk of my life, to the point where I will never willingly abide them. Oh fuck yeah I’d rather live alone in a cave than have assholes for “friends”. And now a majority of voters have given the biggest asshole in the country near-absolute power.
I don’t know what the fallout is going to be. Maybe democracy is dead. Maybe the rest of the world is done with our bullshit and our economy goes into the septic tank. Maybe it all turns into another massive clusterfuck with lots of violent clashes and mass shootings and the generalissimos unable to agree on anything. I’ve never been happier to live on a little bitty rock in the middle of the ocean where the people realize that everyone’s a weirdo to someone and you need to make friends and not enemies if you want to survive. I’ve never been much of a fighter at the height of my youthful indignation and I’m absolutely in no condition to get confrontational now.
I’ll survive. My heart goes out to everyone who won’t. I’ll continue helping people in my role in a federal institution designed to help people. It’s all I got.
Will stop reading this thread before I get completely depressed.
In fact, as you know, many did much better after the collapse of the empire. With no imperial taxation and the collapse of the latifundia system where landlords grew mostly wheat to export back to the centre, local populations diversified agriculture, kept what they produced, fed themselves better, and were healthier.
As for the Dark Ages, as noted above, this is a myth. Two recent books sum up the reality in their titles: The Bright Ages and The Green Ages. This is not new revisionist history but the accepted view of the period now. Of course, being a peasant anywhere anytime has been problematic, and still is.
I just want to say that a majority of voters did not vote for Trump, a plurality did. So, there is still hope that we can win the house and the senate in '26 and stop the Maga madness, since most did not vote for it.
I think that media is doing a bad job of explaining this.
“Hope” will not get the job done. Too much of that is what got Trump elected.
I think they are obfuscating on purpose.
It’s not “free at point of procedure” for American woman anyhow. So not that big a difference, if there is any at all.
Good old fashioned starvation got us from Hoover to FDR…