[POTUS] Not gonna lie. Not my best work.

Day 3,359, 17:08 • Published in USA USA • by fingerguns


The campaign for the next Dictator is in full swing, which means my time is up. I gotta say, the December term went really well and in some ways even better than expected. The same cannot be said for the January term. It’s bizarre that this month was so much slower than the month before. We never really seemed to bounce back from the holidays. My working theory is that people took a week or so off and realized they didn’t miss the game, so they just haven’t come back. If I hadn’t already committed myself to being Dictator, I could’ve easily been in the same boat, especially with that Revolution nonsense.

I didn’t have a lot of stuff planned for this month, and sadly the stuff I did have planned just never really panned out. I’ll take the blame for it. Things were falling through the cracks and I didn’t make it a top priority to replace people. I did look around for people, but availability and willingness to jump in mid-term is hard to to come by, especially these days. But what I really take the blame for is not setting the right tone for the month. We lead by example and activity breeds activity. I wasn’t as active and excited about this month as I was last month and I think that played its part throughout my administration. When I couldn’t find replacements, I should’ve done it myself...and I just didn’t. The burnout is real.

Now if there are any feathers to be put in my cap, I will take these- cutting USAF loose to choose their own destiny and starting conversations about our foreign affairs direction. The USAF is a done deal. I didn’t need Congress, or really anyone at all, to make that happen. I just did it, and I think it was the right decision. There was neither cost nor benefit to the USAF being an official MU and its existence as the official MU seemed to be a holdover from a bygone era. It just doesn’t make sense in the current game. The foreign affairs conversations are still in the early stages but I think this must be a priority for our next Dictator and our new Congress. Our situation just seems untenable. We have a very timid foreign affairs policy in reaction to events from a long time ago. There is still fear among the people who were involved at the time and that fear is dictating a policy that certainly keeps us ‘safe’ but may not be worth the cost (see: interest in the game). I’m not suggesting we abandon our alliance or anything, but we need to get out of this position where it is impossible to make a move without sending all the dominoes cascading down.


The activity issue is a major one… arguably the only one... and is something that needs big action and long-term solutions. There’s no single thing that can be done to fix it, as we are fighting an uphill battle against the design of the game itself. There is no contest that will turn this around. There is no single war that will turn this around, even if the narrative is interesting. There is no domestic program or game night or anything we can quickly roll out to keep our active players active, inspire our 2-clickers to get involved and bring back the recently deceased.

Perhaps a bold initiative that combines all of the above things can be executed and that will make a difference, but that surge in activity will last only as long as the leaders are willing to invest so much of their time and energy into it. If we want real change, and the kind of change that will last longer than a single term and carry through to future generations of leaders, we need to start rethinking how we play, from the ground up. The systems we established a long time ago may not be the best systems for where we are now. The processes we have in place may not be the most effective anymore.

Alas, it is extremely difficult to abandon what you know of this game when you’ve been playing for so long and had so much influence on establishing how this nation does business. When you are one of the authors of our laws and constitution or one of the architects of our foreign policy, you may not be capable of the objectivity necessary to see the flaws or the creativity necessary to imagine a new/better way of doing things. This isn’t a call for inexperienced people to be put in positions of power simply because they haven’t done it before. That won’t make any difference at all. We need a paradigm shift across our entire population and that requires a rethinking of all the things. This is not simple, especially when we have citizens who don’t even really play eRep anymore but have a lot of influence over the direction of discussions in Congress- those are ones who cannot survive change. I don’t know what can be done about them.

If I had the answers, I would’ve campaigned on this and done something more as Dictator. I feel like I took some steps to help pave the way, but I’m not sure I even clearly saw the depth of the problems until just a few weeks ago (after a month and a half of beating my head against the wall). I was as guilty as anyone of trying to do what we’ve always done but believing that I could somehow do it better because of my unique perspective of blah blah blah and yadda yadda special snowflake. I end my terms convinced that the problem is that we’re still trying to play this game like it’s 4 years ago. We’re maintaining a system that no longer works as well as intended and no longer applies to the current landscape. We haven’t adapted with the mechanics and we haven’t adapted with the shrinking community. We are suffering from cognitive dissonance, as a government and a nation, because we sincerely believe this game is dead but also seem to be holding out hope that it will magically be restored to the game it used to be if we just wait long enough and don’t change anything. We fear change will kill what’s left, but know deep down that not changing will definitely kill it.


Nobody wants to be the Dictator that ruined everything, myself included, apparently. I didn’t think it really mattered to me and I would absolutely be willing to be the Dictator that just completely ignored Congress and made an aggressive move for the sake of our future, even if that meant the next 6 months were spent cleaning up my mess. But then I look at the other people in my Cabinet and the people in my party and I just didn’t have the balls to do that to them. I worried about the collateral damage short-sighted plans always bring.

I did it all wrong. I gave in to this notion that there are only 2 options- blow it all up or just ride it out until the end. I now think there are alternatives that I just didn’t see before. I don’t think big change can only come about in one grandiose act of treason or one supremely destructive declaration of war. I think a fundamental shift is something people would be willing to support, even Congress, if that’s the plan from the beginning, a clear case is made for a bigger strategy and the baby steps to get there are laid out. It won’t just be a job for the next Dictator, but each that follows into the foreseeable future. It needs to be a legitimate movement.

Maybe it's not a job for the Dictator at all. Maybe we're just not there yet.

I hope the conversations continue. I hope we really start to think critically about where we are, how the game is now, and what we need to do to not merely survive until the inevitable end, but become real players again. I think there is still something left here. There is still a game to be played, it’s just not the same game it was when many of us started. If we can suspend our experience and our histories for a moment to consider how we would set things up if we were just starting out TODAY, I think the government we design would look very different. I think our entire country would look very different, from how many regions we have to how we organize our parties to how we budget our monies and support our populace.

I have declined requests to serve in any capacity next month. I need a break. And I have a lot to think about.

Thank you for giving me a chance to be President. I wasn't the greatest and I didn't have much fun doing it, but it's an honor nonetheless. And yeah...I should stick to what I'm good at lol



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