My Country

I'm really worried about the good 'ole U.S. of A. The amount of disinformation, lies, falsehoods etc that's spreading is astonishing. It really shouldn't be though right? I think we've always had an anti-intellectualism faction in this country. Not only that, there's a lot of tribalism going on, especially with folks on the right. And to be fair, there's a lot of liberals that are taking things to the other extreme.

What I would give to have George W Bush as President right now. I'm confident he would be a calming voice and do his best to look out for the health and safety of the American people. He probably wouldn't make all the right decisions but he would be working with the states to accomplish goals. And he would calm the fears about government that so many on the right have. I bet his approval rating would be 80%. Obviously, any President other than the blustering idiot we have now would be better. He's so terrible in so many ways. And I see this whole situation getting worse. The comparisons to the "flu" and other things that kill Americans each year are starting to be talked about. And to be honest, a few months ago you may have seen me talk about the virus in that way.

They're now saying Covid-19 will "only" kill around 60,000 Americans. I guess that "good"? I still think the death toll is going to be much higher when it's all said and done hopefully a year or so from now. Conservatives are throwing out all these numbers about how the flu, or pool drownings, or car accidents all cause comparable amounts of death. Well, sort of. The problem with all those other things is that they can pretty much be avoided with reasonable precautions (yes, I'm aware they ALL can't be avoided). But with Covid-19 unless we're all in this together it really can't be avoided. If we hadn't done any mitigation deaths would be in the MILLIONS. And even if you don't die, many people get really sick. And even if you don't get sick, you can spread it to innocent people that are more vulnerable than you that might die. If you had a bad flu, would you visit your Grandma? Probably not. If you were drunk, would you take your Grandma for a drive? Probably not. If you had kids, would you let them swim by themselves? Probably not. But without mitigation this is the more realistic comparison.

Now there are "protests" spouting up in many states. And they are being fomented by Trump. This is beyond disgusting. Chances are no one is going to get hurt, but it's a pretty ugly sight when you see all these small dicked (an assumption) white dudes with they're guns walking around "protesting" that they want to work. I'm sure some of them actually do work, and work hard. But imagine if thousands of black men and guns were doing the same thing to a female Republican Governor? I think a lot of them would be dead.

What's going to happen over the coming weeks and months? Who knows. The drumbeat on the right is getting louder though. I don't think they even know what they want. We're not going back to "normal" that's for sure. Even if we tried there's plenty of cautious people out there that just aren't going to go to large public gatherings anytime soon. That world we lived in is gone.