Spring 2020

There’s an old saw about the Chinese symbols for “crisis” (or danger) are the same as symbols for “opportunity.” (Like many things of little importance, this is hotly debated by people on Google.) In the present crisis, the important thing is to keep the current administration on their back foot and not considering the opportunity.

Because the opportunity is truly horrifying.

The President has tremendous, almost unlimited, emergency powers. He can direct military control over the state actions (see Eisenhower, national guard, desegregation), he can shut down public protest with lethal force (see Nixon, Kent State), he can incarcerate American citizens on the flimsiest of pretexts (see Roosevelt, Japanese interment). 

Speaking strictly for myself, I’m more than happy to stay home and hide out and avoid as much human contact as possible. That’s because 1) I’m a privileged old white guy who doesn’t need to work for a living anymore, and 2) I’m kind of an asshole sometimes who immediately regrets it when I do asshole things, and introversion has the effect of protecting me from myself. Mostly.

By the way, “He’s kind of an asshole, sometimes” is the best student evaluation I ever got. True fact.

Enough about me. Back to the other asshole in the room. If Trump figures out that this crisis is the true opportunity that it seems to be, you can kiss your democracy goodbye. In the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, Nature batted twice – once in the Winter/Spring and again in the Fall. If this pandemic follows that pattern, the second (and worse) iteration of this illness will conveniently occur right smack in the middle of the 2020 elections. Or, as you might imagine, the “temporarily cancelled” elections.

We don’t need to speculate about what might happen in a few months. Things are playing out now in real time. Fundraisers cancelled, public meetings called off, canvassers turned away, voters refusing to leave the house to vote. Local governments all but on lockdown. 

In the meantime, this administration fumbles its way to making matters worse while hiding the ball on all relevant detail. The CDC refuses to provide data on infections, the White House turns down World Health Organization test kits and refuses to admit what is plainly obvious – all manner of medical supplies, including test kits, are in desperately short supply. The one edict that did come from the Oval – an offhand and irrational limitation on air travel from Europe, excepting mother England (?) – was almost certain to turn airports into frantic petri dishes of returning travelers, and has done just that.

THE SKY IS FALLING! Just kidding. Maybe.

Some take consolation in the fact that the Criminal-In-Chief labelled this pandemic a “hoax,” early on, and many of his True Believers are continuing to party like it’s 1999. That would make me a lot happier if I thought they would merely spread the contagion among themselves, but, unfortunately, that’s not how it works. In the final analysis all they’re doing is making matters worse.

Stay home if you can. Forget about buying guns and toilet paper; buy groceries. Tip, lavishly, the people who are still working because they must. 

Cross your fingers, after you wash your damned hands.