Life of Wry

There are so many aspects to this pandemic worth crying over. The whole thing, all of it, is just incomprehensible. Today was a milestone day as we passed the 100,000 mark for deaths. A hundred thousand people. That number could have been far less if we’d have had steady, thoughtful leadership (which we’ll never have as long as he’s in the White House).

Though he whines and shifts blame and turns every appearance before the press into a eye-rolling grievance session, I believe that 100% of the blame for the federal government’s lack of a cohesive, humane response rests with his erratic, incompetent leadership (“leadership”).  Ridiculousness Every Single Day.  First it was nothing, then it was something but it’d be disappearing very quickly, then he was a war-time president, then he got bored with the facts (and terrified of the no-end-in-sight reality and the prospect that he’d have to really roll up his sleeves and work at this), then it became the states’ problem, and now, having “prevailed,” (we haven’t) we can aggressively reopen the country and begin our transition to greatness. “Transition to Greatness” = fancy, repeatable slogan designed for the merch market. Hypocrisy, incoherence, desperation from a fool who just cannot stay focussed for two seconds on anything that matters to humans. This whole shit show just keeps jerking along as he goes from one self-serving message to another … and it would just be another in a continuing list of things he’ll never get right, except that people are dying — 100,000 of them — families and lives are destroyed, and he cares not a wit because for him it’s about propping up his fragile ego, poll numbers, stock market and ensuring his reelection. Only.

Like I mutter to myself every single day.. I just cannot believe this is really happening. Our president (not my president), not a healthy man (he is not a man), is a slave to his pathological need to appear strong, to win every battle, to be the unquestioned supreme leader of the universe, and, of course, by any means necessary, to be a two-term president. MAGA.

We are living a tragedy.

The uncertainties — on every front — are kinda overwhelming. The deep anxiety so many of us feel to be in the hands of such spectacular incompetence… I just don’t know.

Every part of this is bad, but what’s really gotten surreal is how he’s managed to turn a life threatening pandemic into a partisan culture war. Between US.

My biggest beef from the moment he was elected (“elected”) is that he has never been the president for the whole country; he is the president for his supporters only. He thrives on division. He always needs an enemy, so we are the enemy–dems, the elite, anyone who didn’t vote for him.  He’s not a unifier, so this business about the virus attacking everybody and we’re all in this together and he’ll lead our entire nation through this crisis… yeah.. not his thing.

It didn’t take long for him to be at odds with the scientists; they were complicating things. He likes easy, pat solutions — get in, get out — but pandemics are hard and require patience, sacrifice.  He loved the idea of being a war-time president (when he saw how popular the daily coronavirus task force briefings were, he placed himself front and center and delivered each day’s alarming news himself, though couldn’t handle the press questions, but didn’t give a shit because he just lied his way to provocative headlines because headlines are all he cares about anyway) but needed the virus to run its course quickly so he could take credit and move on to juicing the economy in time for his reelection. The scientists were delivering terrible news, not advancing his reelection goals. So he began to discredit them and establish himself leader of the resistance (resistance to his own administration, oddly enough). I’m not entirely sure that was his game plan, but once he sparked some real energy on the part of angry, frustrated, newly unemployed people who were suffering financially through the stay-at-home orders, he was only too happy to go with it and turn this whole thing into a war.

And that’s what’s really killing me right now.. he actually said today that wearing masks is about being politically correct. Fighting words for his people. We, the mask wearers, are weak. We’re afraid. And here we go…

Yesterday he made a big, very tough guy announcement about how he was ORDERING all the churches and synagogs (and because he had to include them, the mosques) to reopen. (His numbers are dropping among evangelicals.. so, stage a fight on their behalf!) He said he’d use his authority to overrule any governors who’d fight him. He practically yelled this. His press secretary accused democrats of hating religious people and said we never wanted houses of worship to be reopened. One shocked and insulted reporter strenuously challenged that. Dems also want to see more people die because it makes him look bad. His demented children love this talking point.

All that. Stoking division. As always. Making himself the hero for the working class (he is not), getting them back to work and making the economy work for them again (it never will under his policies).

Back to the masks. He won’t wear one. First of all, that’s about vanity. He thinks he appears weak if he puts a mask over his face (more like it smears his make up and musses his hair). Masks have become a symbol of the PC crowd, elites, dems, anyone who wants to see this prolonged, which ruins his chances for reelection. Mask wearers are now the enemy. We and our masks (and our inflated statistics) undercut his message, masks validate the message that the virus is still around (it is), it busts his myth that we are back, TRANSITIONING TO GREATNESS!

This is bonkers.

Seriously. Masks reduce transmission. Period. I can’t believe I live in a country where half the people are buying his snake oil, are willing to risk their own health, our health in partisan protest. WTF. Do they know that on social media, half the posts about masks being a plot to deny their freedom are bot-generated? Do they know they’re being used? Again, just like in 2016, they’re being manipulated to act against their own interests (and in this case, their health/lives).

Freedom! Don’t tread on me!

Did the president (not my president) talk about the 100,000 deaths milestone today? (No.) Did he offer, has he offered, condolences for families who have lost loved ones? (Nothing beyond perfunctory.) Has he challenged the death figures and/or tried to keep them from public view? (Yep.)

Maybe he’ll have the last laugh. It’s possible, I suppose–though not what the epidemiologists say–that we’ll continue to level off (despite shocking displays of f**k you togetherness all over the country during the Memorial Day weekend), maybe drop a little for seasonal reasons (nobody knows), and by fall, as the campaign gets into full swing, maybe the numbers won’t look as bad, the economy will show signs of coming back, he’ll declare victory over the virus and, of course, he’ll convince people that we need to stay the course with him at the helm, lest the dems take the country back to the failing policies of Obama (they were the opposite of failing) and we lose our economic momentum. He is a very convincing liar. Thing is, the virus WILL come back, but maybe not in force before he’s been reelected. That’s his bet. He just has to lie and say that he’s lead us to victory over the silent enemy with his nobody’s-ever-seen-anything-like-this-before response, that we are transitioning to greatness and will have an even better economy than before, and convince people that Biden is mentally unfit (how ironic), corrupt (how ironic), abuses women (how ironic).. and whatever else he’ll throw out. 2016 redux. And it might work.

Long as he can keep us totally divided and hating each other. Cuz that’s what good presidents do.