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Out of all the issues surrounding Tuesday's election, it's got to be the coronavirus. The generational impact. The lives lost & still to be lost. My wife, working in an ER, experiencing it all first hand.
Here's how I see it...
Here's how I see it...
Plenty of well intentioned conservative governors assumed the best of us. That given freedom, people wouldn't endanger their neighbors, businesses wouldn't risk customer's lives & leaders wouldn't politicize a pandemic.
But we did every one of those things.
But we did every one of those things.
All the grocery stores in my town have done away with directional aisles and capacity controls. Shoppers increasingly wear no mask again despite an ongoing mandate.
The threat hasn't changed, but our desire to not be mildly inconvenienced is undefeated.
The threat hasn't changed, but our desire to not be mildly inconvenienced is undefeated.
The state doesn't enforce its own mandate as cases surpass summer highs. Businesses welcome the maskless. My students are angry that for all the stern emails, nobody is actually being punished for house parties. WE HAD IN-PERSON HOMECOMING! Blind eyes everywhere.
The United States cannot kick the coronavirus because every single preventative measure we set in place is swallowed by our selfishness. The problem is exacerbated by the president and his allies priding themselves on breaking this social contract.
Saying Trump is responsible for 230,000 coronavirus deaths isn't fair. As surges in Europe are demonstrating, even the best laid plans don't entirely prevent a deadly virus.
But here's what the president IS responsible for...
But here's what the president IS responsible for...
President Trump has made flouting precautions a badge of partisan identity.
Politicizing whether to wear a mask or avoid crowds attaches personal risk to political preference. It's reckless endangerment.
Politicizing whether to wear a mask or avoid crowds attaches personal risk to political preference. It's reckless endangerment.
President Trump uses his position of influence to mock masks and hold events that fly in the face of the most basic precautions. It's how he and 36 others at the White House caught the virus!
President Trump getting COVID could have been a turning point for how seriously he took the virus. It wasn't, of course. Getting the best treatment available, he declared he was immune and that we should stop letting the virus run our lives. He wanted to wear a Superman shirt.
President Trump has denigrated scientists in favor of conspiracies. He says frontline doctors like my wife are lying about COVID to make money. Meanwhile his most trusted adviser isn't even trained in the field.
While Dr. Fauci is trying to prepare us for a harsh winter, Trump's chief of staff says they're done trying to prevent spread. Trump himself campaigns on attacking Fauci, claiming focus on "COVID, COVID, COVID" is fake news made to hurt him in the polls. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/fauci-covid-winter-forecast/2020/10/31/e3970eb0-1b8b-11eb-bb35-2dcfdab0a345_story.html#click=https://t.co/8pB6DIQCKv
Well meaning conservatives thought government intervention could be limited. And maybe that could've been true with a president encouraging us to protect our neighbor instead of encouraging us to endanger one another to own the libs.
Early in the pandemic, I suggested we needed two things - (1) to chill on the conspiracy theories and (2) prolonged economic stimulus to keep people from having to make difficult compromises to pay the bills. https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2020/may/31/why-coronavirus-conspiracies-are-thrivi/
President Trump veers daily from favor to opposition on stimulus. But it's clear he's not going to stop dismissing the virus and amplifying whatever potentially dangerous advice benefits him politically.
We need a president who is going to take the virus seriously, encourage us to do the same, work with governors from red and blue states to facilitate solutions, and rebut conspiracy theories instead of fan them.
Why the country is divided on even these seemingly basic public health points says a lot about structures and systems that go well beyond this already lengthy thread. But perhaps after all this is over we can get to work on those.
And that's how I see it.
And that's how I see it.
