addiction and crime are way up where I live, in a big way. not sure about suicides - maybe the OD’s are intentional? dont care much if brainsick folks want to off themselves, doesnt affect me at all - well, the ambulances sometimes delay traffic, but thats about it. the crime does though - lot of shootings and arsons in my area - a house on my block was set on fire midsummer of last year. my car was stolen from right outside of my house in December, local police told me flat out “we’re understaffed, there’s nothing we can do, here’s your case #”. we need way more police officers that we have, most of the experienced ones left when defunding became politically acceptable during the last local election cycle. but at least Big Daddy Inslee isnt forcing us to wear masks everywhere any more, not that they ever did any good.

for me, life has gotten somewhat better since 2020, excepting the crime issues - stable job (I worked all through the pandemic, mostly at home). inflation made it expensive to buy groceries so I changed my diet, lost a bit of weight. I personally am not registered to vote in the state I live in - registering to vote comes with a lot of downsides that I dont wish to subject myself to - and I’m in a “vote blue no matter who” state, so there really isnt anyone to vote for. electoral college decides the presidential race so I dont bother with that either. fun to argue about it with folks though.