First American pope elected and will be known as Pope Leo XIV

> "Cardinal George of Chicago, of happy memory, was one of my great mentors, and he said: 'Look, until America goes into political decline, there won't be an American pope.' And his point was, if America is kind of running the world politically, culturally, economically, they don't want America running the world religiously. So, I think there's some truth to that, that we're such a superpower and so dominant, they don't wanna give us, also, control over the church."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-pope-could-it-be-american-c...

It’s funny seeing people talk about the decline of America. I can remember the same conversations in the 1970’s, late 2000’s as well.

If we ever hit a point where nobody is talking about America being in decline, that will mean we are entering decline.

I do think we’ve been in a down period when it comes to politics for a while but I am mid to long term optimistic about things getting better. This is not the first time we’ve had crazy massively divisive politics or populist crackpottery. Overall I do not think we are in any kind of terminal decline.

What is happening is that other countries are rising. I think that’s good for us. When America was the only superpower it made us lazy and foolish.

Look at how it works out in the corporate world. Take Intel for instance. They had a near monopoly for about a decade on top performing CPUs and it destroyed the company. Google carved out a monopoly on search and they are complete trash now. Pride cometh before a fall because pride causes the fall.

My optimism for the US is quite limited, because they have kinda knowingly dismantled their own democracy, and are in the process of dismantling it even more, while the president tries as hard as possible to become a Putin-like dictator, and important decisions are made by tech giant owning oligarchs. A while longer and the US might enter a civil war or will simply lose all good will it had directed towards it in the world and will then stand alone, while other countries enable the US' competitors. If Americans do not change something about their trajectory soon, it will not end well for them, and probably not end well for many other countries either.

The US has a history of hitting rock bottom every so often. First constitutional crisis leading to the replacement of the articles of confederation, civil war, Great Depression and the new deal, the Vietnam era, and now the collapse of the post Cold War order.

I am not sure fascism will take here. Americans might think they want it until the fascists start telling them what to do. We are kinda starting to see that.

We will see more. Wait until some stand your ground red blooded American homeowner guns down a bunch of ICE goons doing a warrantless raid on the wrong house. I’m surprised it hasn’t happened yet. I’ve been checking the news for it daily. Then Trump tries to confiscate guns. I’ve been predicting for years that it’s MAGA who will try to “come for the guns.” That will be a hoot as they say a few hours South of where I am.

Of course they still have the culture war card. For some reason trans derangement syndrome (TDS) still has a hold on people. I don’t understand why that particular thing works so well, even on some people you would not expect.

> For some reason trans derangement syndrome (TDS) still has a hold on people. I don’t understand why that particular thing works so well, even on some people you would not expect.

I think it work as good as it does since there are no trans people around most people at all. It is a TV thing.

Outside of big cities I have never seen anyone. Prevalence measures varies but in my 30k pop county there should be like from 3 to <1.

I live in Fargo, ND. Conservative, small city. I work with 3 people who are trans and know another 3 outside of work and regularly see others around town. It does seem like a trend and I doubt most of them have dysphoria, but they're around and visible even in conservative areas.