A fine Politico article today describes the fracturing of IMPotus’s ‘MAGA movement’ over coronavirus and its ramifications. It’s somewhat surprising considering how that bunch always seems in lock-step, insulating him from consequence for any statement or action.
“The president’s red-capped followers were united against a socialist candidate. And they had economic winds at their backs to propel Trump toward reelection. Now everything is suddenly scrambled.”
More below.
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Of course, we’re only just at the beginning of this terrible health crisis, so it’s difficult to see where things will go. Part of us hopes we’re seeing dramatic over-reaction, but the costs of not taking dramatic steps would be so high, no alternative appears viable.
We all want the outbreak to be mild (though he is sure to say we Democrats are hoping for a catastrophic outbreak to cause him political harm #ofcourseitsallabouthim ), but only time will tell how bad it will be. WaPo has a terrific simulation of an infectious disease acting under four different scenarios. The mildest of them depicts 1/8 of the populace as being mobile, everyone else hunkered down. The infection curve in that scenario varies. (It’s different every time you run it.) One run had, in a population sample of 200 (so, 25 socially active), only 4 infections! But two other runs, with 25 socially active, saw over 50% infection rates. A moderate social isolation paradigm, with a quarter of the population mobile, averaged much worse. It’s fascinating to watch the possible scenarios, but it also gives an idea of how bad COVID-19 could be.
In my personal experience, this is a crisis like no other. I was live during the Cuban Missile Crisis, but it was nothing like this. I was too young to have picked up all of what was happening, then, but we did live in Florida, and there is no question that tensions were high. But, I didn’t notice substantive alterations in how folks conducted their lives. Yes, some people stockpiled supplies and built ‘fallout shelters,’ but I think stores were open and stocked, schools continue instruction (with drills for getting under desks, etc., but no ‘active shooter’ concerns), the Flintstones still aired. Too, it was resolved in 13 days.
Now, I see very little that is unaffected by the crisis. Many people stay home. Work processes (at my place of employment, certainly) are dramatically impacted. ‘Rules of engagement’ are very far from normal. Sanitation options abound, instructions about sanitation and interaction with others are nearly constant. Schools are closed, some businesses are closed, almost all businesses have reduced hours, product availability in stores is reduced, if stock is available at all. There is no direct correlation between the out-of-stock items and the threat. Toilet paper is gone during most visits.
While driving, some cars stay well away from other cars. I told them their car couldn’t contract coronavirus from another car, but it’s possible they couldn’t hear.
Most of all, everyone just acts funny. We can’t relate as we always have, we can’t engage as we always have. There is precious little we can do like we always have. And it’s all so new that no one has had opportunity to adapt to whatever the ‘new normal’ winds up being.
Even so, my experience has been that people are very invested in cooperating in the face of this threat. They adjust schedules if need be, the accept and observe the processes, they don’t hoard (that I have seen), they’re polite, they respect personal space. After all, the threat is basically the same for all of us. It isn’t a human agent threatening us, it isn’t a party or an out-group. The ‘enemy’ doesn’t discriminate, it doesn’t care about us, it doesn’t care about our morals, it doesn’t care about our relative wealth, it doesn’t care about the beliefs we hold.
For me, that’s the greatest threat coronavirus poses for our conservative adversaries. It is a unifying threat. A threat that helps us understand that … we’re all in this together. Of course, many surely want to profit. Many want to achieve advantage. But it’s a difficult ‘sell’ in these hard times. Tennessee is hardly a bastion of liberalism, yet that state cracked down hard on two brothers with a price-gouging scheme for hand sanitizer they bought. Good.
We’re all in this together is the last thing that conservatives want to see. Unfortunately for them, experiences like this tend to last for a long time. Even if the threat turns out to be milder than forecast, I know I won’t forget it. And neither will you.
And please take a moment to read this fine poem by Lynn Ungar, Pandemic. It really touched me.
On to tonight’s comments! Formatted by brillig!
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From elenacarlena:
I nominate wgreview's comment in Dartagnan’s Trump admin now seeks to 'relax' rules intended to curb spread of viral infections in nursing homes. Because we need to think about the long term. Difficult as it is to contemplate, probably all of us will need some help in old age. And the current system isn't working and hasn't worked for a very long time.
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