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Being far from DC, and living in a solidly blue state, the primary vectors for me to feel the deterioration of the empire is in extremely abstract things.

Some late night rantings of a despot. Some forms that have been very awkwardly changed overnight in order to make life harder for immigrants.

People here assuming that we are all living in a state of squalor and dereliction when really the true crime and shame is:

That I live in a city in a state that is so immensely rich that it’s GDP is as large as or larger than one of Europe’s richest countries, and yet is okay to not building housing even as thousands of people are homeless. Where poverty is a moral failing, not a failing of the state. Where there is so much power and no good candidates to wield it.

I don’t feel at all like I’m living in collapse, I feel that I am surrounded by hoarders who hoard money and power and that where I am is the center of all of this excess. There is more stuff here than anywhere else on earth.

But at the same time, also great beauty: of people, nature, care and community. That I have come to care about and become a part of.

I feel greater sense of ability and mobility and solidarity in being able to do something about the things that are falling apart, more than I ever have anywhere else that is so-called ‘better’. And I’m at the point in my life where that means a lot to me.