Nate Ridderman

@ridderman.bsky.social

623 Followers 316 Following

Politics, loose leaf tea, indie music, software development, Android, Purdue basketball

The great tragedy is that many of the problems Trump identifies are real, and so many of the hurts he exploits demand serious thought and measured action-from governments, yes, but also from community leaders and individuals. Yet so long as people rely on that quick high, so long as wolves point their fingers at everyone but themselves, the nation delays a necessary reckoning. There is no self-reflection in the midst of a false euphoria. Trump is cultural heroin. He makes some feel better for a bit. But he cannot fix what ails them, and one day they'll realize it. I'm not sure when or how that realization arrives: maybe in a few months, when Trump loses the election; maybe in a few years, when his supporters realize that even with a President Trump, their homes and families are still domestic war zones, their newspapers' obituaries continue to fill with the names of people who died too soon, and their faith in the American Dream continues to falter. But it will come, and when it does, I hope Americans cast their gaze to those with the most power to address so many of these problems: each other. And then, perhaps the nation will trade the quick high of "Make America Great Again" for real medicine.
Daffodil in snow
Voting on redistricting bill
Clearly Canadian bottles
Pacers win in a dramatic ending
Screenshot of the major stock market indices being down approx 2% for the day
Screenshot of a paragraph stating "Claude 3.7 Sonnet shows particularly strong improvements in coding and front-end web development"
An ADB shell command to disable letterboxing
A post from Nick Offerman followed by an old photo of him from Depths of Wikipedia
Former President Trump, speaking at a rally in a bright orange safety vest and a deep orange face.
Wild bergamot flower in a field