Preamble: OP asked for optimism. If you reply to this comment trying to kill the vibe, I will burn your house down. Also, I can only really speak about the US; I live there, and don’t know enough to say much about anywhere else.
These dark times are not natural. They are sustained in no small part by a cult of personality and a gigantic propaganda machine, both run by the dark money or evil billionaires.
That sounds rough, but it means some good things! The personality at the heart of that cult is wandering off and shitting himself, publicly letting his brain leak out his ears. It is the destiny of all machines to fail; money is powerful, but it can only buy so much. And those same billionaires are unpopular and insane. I fully believe part of the reason things are so bad right now is because the bad guys know things are going to get much harder for them very soon.
Additionally: much ado has been made about polarization these days. And yes, right wing extremism is incredibly visible and dangerous right now. But, good radicalization is also happening. We had some of the largest protests in the history of this country last year. Things like police brutality and class consciousness are inching ever closer to being mainstream issues among voters. Millennial democrats are getting elected more and more often, and they are getting more and more progressive. The fascists may be behind the wheel right now, but you know what fascists are fundamentally? Losers. Small, simple, evil men and the opportunists & sycophants that throw their lot in with them. They actively select against competence.
Look, things are bad right now. People are gonna be hurt, lives are gonna be ruined, and it’s gonna be a big fucking mess to clean up in the future. But we’re gonna beat 'em, 100%.
So try to help who you can, look out for your mental health, and stick around. A better future is possible!
If I wanted to learn to play piano, I would need to put in a lot of work. Find a used keyboard online or at a secondhand store, watch some YouTube tutorials, and put in lots of time practicing and teaching myself in between work, chores, and other responsibilities.
A billionaire could buy a mansion with a grand piano, have their people take care of moving in furniture and tuning, get someone to hire the world’s best teacher, pay them enough that they drop all their other students and move into the mansion, and spend 12 hours a day learning to play piano while doing no other work & being waited on hand and foot. With the enormous hoard of resources at their disposal, they could teach a chimp to play Mozart.
So when Elon Musk fails to be funny, I have to imagine it’s pride. He could learn stand up, improv, whatever he wanted. He has the time and resources if it’s really that important to him.
But that would mean admitting he is the least important thing in his own life. Anyone else with his resources could do the exact same thing. No talent, no dedication, nothing required from him has a person. He’s not a super genius; he’s an awkward, immature geek who got incredibly lucky. His position has everything to do with his wealthy parents and him happening to get lucky with PayPal. If he had to do it all over again, he would fail.
He is desperate for something that makes him special that isn’t his checkbook, and I think the idea that there isn’t anything like that scares him.
Trump raped kids.
Nothing about the way he has handled the Epstien investigation makes sense UNLESS he raped children.
There is no word in my vocabulary that captures how disgusted I am with Mike Johnson and the rest. They know he’s a child fucker. They’re not stupid enough to believe otherwise.
Soulless, inhuman, evil pieces of shit. Every bad thing that happens to him for the rest of his life will be less than he deserves.
Self-made millionaires tend to have a few distinct qualities. For one, their relationship with money can differ from that of their friends. They might focus more on long-term financial goals and be more stringent about saving.
When Lane Kawaoka became a millionaire by buying rental properties, he realized his newfound wealth was making him feel lonely. Much of it had to do with differing mindsets.
Ah yes, self-made. Generating money from the aether thru the purchase of real estate. Not hoarding housing and leeching off of the value created by others.