I was literally just thinking about this before reading your comment. It's a natural cycle though no less damaging as a result of being "natural".

Even Trump and Musk and Bezos and Zuckerberg are traumatized, and mostly represent symptoms of deeper issues, despite also feeding forward as causes of their own. Though the likes of Putin don't care about traumatized or not but rather only more or less useful for the cause. So things like "fairness" have little to do with anything.

Maybe this means that we need to forgive them - or maybe it means the opposite I have no clue, but one thing I am becoming certain of: we need to figure out first what the most important question is, before we can begin to answer it. Like, is ranked choice voting to be prized so highly that all else is worth being sacrificed in order to attain it? Both the Alt-Right and the Alt-Left seem to want to destroy democracy, so is that what it would take to save it?

In the meantime, all an average person can do is try to be a decent folk - like returning the grocery cart even when it rains. So many people, including some who voted for Trump, want to do that, and it's hard but I have to remember that they are my friends, more so than the Alt-Left that is so vocal here yet would really prefer if democracy was no more despite how many people would die in the switch (and switch to what even? straight to some magical utopia? are plans written up for that even or is this a "trust me bro, I got this" kinda situation?).

And it's even odd to think that the people calling for more "Saint Luigi" literal murders might otherwise be decent people, in other ways. It's REALLY hard to figure out what the most compassionate stance is!

But it's amazing to see how much of it comes down to basic decency: all we can really do at the end of the day is take care of what is right in front of us.