There's nothing wrong with feeling discouraged/scared/depressed at times. There's a lot wrong with getting stuck there.

[highplainsdem]

I'm not going to minimize the forces we're up against. Trump's done more harm in a shorter time than most of us expected. The same thing goes for generative AI (the type of AI being hyped now, not older types of machine learning). The alliance between Trump and the tech lords was something I doubt most people saw coming, though a few people were aware how anti-democratic some of them were.

But if you give in to feelings of hopelessness - maybe even try to convince others our situation is hopeless - you're weakening yourself and others, mentally and even physically. If you think you're feeling bad now, you're likely to feel a hell of a lot worse later.

Do what you need to do, whatever works for you, to make yourself feel better. Exercise, ideally outdoors, is known to help. Watch or listen to anything that lifts your spirits. Spend time with loved ones, including pets. Avoid the news for a while, if you absolutely have to - but please don't do that too long, because no matter how much you try to avoid the news, reality is going to come crashing in, affecting people you love even if you aren't personally harmed, and it's likely to seem even more devastating if it's unexpected. Especially if you see afterward that you might have been able to lessen the impact if you had been paying attention.

It's fine to prepare for what you think the worst-case scenario might be, as long as you still hope for the best and don't let doomer prep consume you.

But if that worst-case scenario includes you taking some violent action, STOP - and especially stop posting about it here, or arguing that it's inevitable.

This is not your board, or mine. It belongs to EarlG, and no one here has any right to post threads or messages on this board that could cause trouble for him.

Our goal has to be peaceful change. That's still possible. And if that ever changes, a public message board would be the dumbest place to talk about it.

Let's leave any talk of civil war to the idiots on the right who want a lawless society, as long as they have power.

It's clear those idiots are not in the majority. If they were, Trump would have a much higher approval rating.

We will get our democratic country back. It's going to take continued pressure from our side as their side cracks apart, oozing obvious corruption and inhumanity that will drive more and more people to our side. Those cracks are already visible, even to a lot of Trump supporters. What's wrong with generative AI is increasingly obvious, too, with AI companies desperate to force their unethical, flawed tech into every device and every corner of society possible, in the hope of finally making some money off this ridiculously wasteful and stupid product before the AI bubble bursts.

We can beat them. We will. But not if we give up in despair.