DAVE, 18 March 2025:

Dave had now been living with the realization there was no way back for three weeks. The felon-rapist-traitor-corrupt business man — and much more … was in command again.

Donald Trump had come back to rule America – with a vengeance.

Sure, David Reese had feared it would come both before and immediately after the inauguration. He voted Democrat and was an avid anti-Trumper. He harbored no illusions.

But the speed and shock of all the executive orders, purging of the bureaucracy and lawfare, and more … had put him off balance.

And the gut punch, of course, came when Musk’s chainsaw cut him out of USAID (and cut the rest of the agency out of existence altogether).

Rest assured, there had been plenty of reasons to fall back into the depression from his youth and begin experimenting with amphetamine and stronger stuff. Again.

But he didn’t.

After all the insurance and other affairs had been taken care of, his income was assured, at least for now. After that, there was a period of aimless wandering about the online paths to more and more outrage. And fear. And more outrage.

He didn’t go out, except for a few groceries, for three weeks. He lived like a hermit.

He doomscrolled and scoured sites almost every minute. It was his new addiction.

But just like days of old, he had gotten the feeling that if he didn’t stop he would kill himself, at least his own heart, before Trump and his cronies ever did.

He had been sitting, for the Nth time, one day scrolling his favorite Reddit group – “Leopards Ate My Face” – about Trump voters with more than a little buyer’s remorse. (“How can they be so fucking unbelievably stupid?! They got EXACTLY what they voted for!”)

Then he got across a gloating post about a frantic woman who had voted for Trump to “own the libs” and now would lose her Medicaid. Or was afraid she would. And her sight, too. Or was afraid she would.

Was it a genuine screenshot from X or wherever? He checked X and there was a dead link, but … apparently a lot of “MAGA ladies”.

Maybe the account wasn’t working, or had been taken down? Or maybe it was fake. Made by some Trump hater to show “told you so”. But why would someone do that? Trump had done plenty of shit to hurt people. His own people. No need to invent it.

Dave didn’t know why he was suddenly so conscientious about investigating this particular “Leopards Ate My Face”-case. Other evenings he had drunk a little too much wine and felt really good about all those idiots feeling bad. It helped him forget the children dying in Sudan right now because Musk had decided they weren’t worthy of the dollars that had to go to tax relief.

But when he saw the post about the frantic lady, who presumably was for real, and her fears of losing her Medicaid, despite having voted for Trump … he just felt hollow.

And then he stopped at one of the comments:

The VA started rolling back all of my gender-affirming care yesterday. My private insurance is expected to drop out next month. The gender marker on all of my medical records has been changed back. I get to watch in real time as my government denies and erases my existence while I frantically make plans to flee the nation that I fought and bled for.

I hope this tweet is real. And I hope she loses more than her vision. May the humor and laughter she found by voting to destroy my life haunt her for the hopefully short remainder of hers.

Thoughts and prayers. None of them are charitable though.

Hatred.

Utter hatred.

And worst of all, Dave understood perfectly.

Not because he was a gay man, but … because of all the hatred being dished out by the new government towards anyone – everyone. Even their voters.

It was a death spiral.

Maybe the woman in the example was fake. Sure. Maybe. But he doubted it.

And there were thousands of others who were very real.

If she was real maybe she deserved going blind for being so … blind.

About politics. About the needs of others.

But he felt dead inside. And he hadn’t even had suicidal thoughts yet.

Dead.

That’s when he decided it had to stop. He had to do something.

But not this.