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.

> I don’t understand why that particular thing works so well, even on some people you would not expect.

When you engage these sorts of people and ask the right follow-up questions, there's some common underlying concerns that underpin the polite fictions.

I've found that for men, they are scared that the next woman they look at covetously might have been AMAB. Even if they understand that there is a difference between sex and gender, they are scared that their acquaintances aren't, and are terrified of the prospect of being "tricked" into being attracted to someone who they see as a man. For women, I've found that they see men as biologically and intrinsically dangerous, and that a tiger doesn't change its stripes just because they are alienated from masculinity.

Not that I agree with either viewpoint. Being worried about being "accidentally gay" speaks more to underlying insecurities surrounding masculinity, and "men are inherently dangerous" is just misandry. But I'm no longer surprised by TDS.

I don't think this is happening organically. Trans people are such a small percentage of the population but we've been getting a ton of media coverage. There's a concerted effort on the right to demonize us and that filters down into the culture.

I can't speak to men but women are so much more comfortable around me since I came out. Most of my partners and friends have been cis women. One of the best parts of transitioning is random women will come up and talk to me when I'm running errands. This started happening early in my transition when I was very much visibly trans. People can be weird around me if they haven't met a trans person before but the people who are hostile tend to be terminally online.