Dereliction of Duty

Political rant warning. Feel free to click away now...

It's the 4th of July weekend, one of the centerpieces of an American summer. Independence Day. Beaches and barbecues. Hot dogs and hamburgers. Swimming pools and fireworks. Beer and wine and family and friends. Group gatherings.

In normal times. But these aren't normal times. Or even close.

The rampant a$#holery coming out of the White House never ceases, or even slows down. In a couple of national speeches (thinly veiled white supremacist political rallies) this weekend that only sought to further divide us, the current occupant of the White House assured the American people that 99% of Covid-19 infections are "totally harmless". A direct quote. "Totally harmless". An odd statement, one might characterize it, given that we have 129,000+ dead and 2.874 million confirmed cases. So...if you round the numbers to make them slightly better, we have a death rate of 4.4% of confirmed infections. 4.49% actually (or 4.5% to round it mathematically). To say nothing of the other people who get sick and stay sick for a couple weeks or more, some of whom require hospitalization. So I guess that "99% harmless", compared to the actual number of less than 80% "harmless" is..what?...a rounding error? A$#holery.

So we get white supremacist political rally speeches in lieu of Presidential holiday addresses. And we  get flyover parades of military might that would make the Kremlin and North Korea proud. The only thing missing were the convoys of truck-mounted missile launchers trundling down Pennsylvania Avenue to the accompaniment of goose stepping soldiers. Which, to be accurate, the current occupant of the White House has previously stated his desire for. The tanks and armored vehicles anyway. Fortunately, the mayor of Washington DC didn't want her streets chewed up by tank treads.

We have a self-proclaimed "wartime president" who has surrendered and left the battlefield, leaving us all to fend for ourselves. He can say some of the stupidest and most irresponsible things ever uttered by an American Pre$#. And the public health officials won't call him on it because if they do they will get fired. Which is part of the reason we are where we are.

Pravda over on the Fox News Channel barely even recognizes that Covid-19 exists anymore. I'm sure they have more important things to do, like continue to dig into the critical current issue of Hilary Clinton's email servers, or trying to answer the age-old question "why do Democrats hate America so much?"

Large population states with republican governors, eager to appease this person and toe the party line, ignored the science. Florida. Texas. Arizona. They are now paying the price, setting records for new infections every day. Hospitals are at or nearing capacity. To be fair, there are blue states like California that are also going backwards. People need their SoCal beaches, bars and restaurants in the summer after all. We have freedoms.

The rest of the world must be looking on in horror as we spiral out of control. I would say that they are laughing at us, but pity is probably more accurate. Europe is opening up, but not to Americans. Not that I can blame them.

Almost all states are going backwards at this point. A lot of that is driven by pretty much no states meeting the federal guidelines for reopening, but we are reopening anyway. Or we were until just recently, when more and more states have started clamping down again. It's July. We should be reflecting on all the good things we did to flatten the curve and get this under control. Celebrating the sacrifices we made, and the positive impact they had. Instead, we are looking at another round of shutdowns. We are back where we were in March. Although, to be accurate, we are in worse shape as a country than we were in March. Did we do all that for nothing? The numbers say probably, yeah. We made all the sacrifices and reaped little of the intended longterm benefit. Maybe I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong.

I get that people are tired of this. I'm tired of this. More than I can express. But this Covid-exhaustion has made us complacent (if you believed that this wasn't a democratic hoax in the first place). I get it. The only social thing I have done since March 12 is to sit on someones's deck one time with 4 other people, wearing masks and seated many feet apart from each other as we discussed what the marching band season might look like in the Fall. This Covid weariness puts us in a bad spot as much as anything.

Ugh.

Happy birthday, America. Land of the free.