Month: October 2020

Categories
Politics

Pee-Wee Herman Politics

During my sons’ tween-age years, Pee-Wee Herman, a character played by actor Paul Reubens, was frequently on the screen in our house; so my sons adopted Pee-Wee’s favorite retort to an insult: “I know you are, but what am I?” For example, “You’re an idiot, Pee-Wee.” Pee-Wee’s response: “I know you are, but what am I?” Mr. Reubens’ career ended after an incident that just begs for an off-color joke; but moving along, the saying remained one of our favorite humorous comebacks for quite some time.

Never could I have imagined I’d see the day when a comedian’s schtick would go to the mainstream political arena, but here we are. Donald Trump’s first notable “I know you are, but what am I?” moment came during the third presidential debate of 2016. Hillary Clinton confronted Donald Trump about the campaign help he was receiving from Russia, saying Putin would love to see Trump elected, because Putin would then have a puppet in our White House. Trump shot back, “No puppet. No puppet. You’re the puppet.” No one would be surprised by that comeback in a fifth-grade classroom; but on the stage of a presidential debate, we expect more: counter-arguments supported by facts and examples.

Sadly for all of us, real arguments based on facts are now only a dim memory, replaced by Pee-Wee Herman Politics.

Our national intelligence agencies have clearly established the fact that Russia conducted coordinated, widespread efforts to influence our 2016 presidential election in favor of Donald Trump. Witnesses presented compelling evidence to prove Donald Trump–in a phone call made from the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office–attempted to enlist Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s assistance in finding “dirt” on Joe Biden that could be used to discredit him with voters. All of these incidents are well documented with fact, yet they have become part of the narrative reversal that is driving the 2020 presidential race.

The list of pending litigation against Donald Trump–much of which he will be forced to face when he no longer has the shield of the presidency to protect him–is pages long. His shady business dealings, both before and during his tenure in the White House, are well known and documented. What we have seen so far of his highly classified tax returns holds enough damning evidence to insure he could die behind bars. He has never divested himself from his businesses, while he has encouraged and required that they be used by government personnel, enriching himself by misusing his office for personal gain. And that doesn’t even include the times he and his family have used their official positions to hawk everything from beans to apparel.

Current figures estimate that $141,000,000 has been spent during the last almost four years on Trump’s golf outings, yet the faithful band of supporters praise his supposed donation of his $400,000 annual salary for being president. Even if he’s telling the truth about donating his salary, it would take 352 and a half years of that salary to equal what you and I have paid for his entertainment and negligence of his duties. That doesn’t exactly earn him a halo.

The Hatch Act of 1939 “prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activities while they are working in an official capacity,” but that law didn’t stop Donald Trump and the R.N.C. from using the White House as a venue for parts of their 2020 convention–most notably Trump’s acceptance speech, which included the requisite dictator-style balcony scene. At any other time in our post-1939 history, such theatrics would have been nixed in the planning stage; but the current unique combination of unhinged chief executive and corrupt, complicit political party have rendered complaints against abuse of power futile.

A prime example is the way Mitch McConnell goes stone-cold deaf any time his hypocrisy is pointed out; for example, his ramrodding Senate approval of a Supreme Court nominee in the middle of an election after denying so much as the courtesy of an interview with a candidate nominated eight months before an election. All of the righteous rhetoric of 2016 by McConnell and accomplices simply evaporated in 2020, and none of them seemed to notice or feel any sense of shame.

In true Pee-Wee Herman fashion, however, it’s Joe Biden who is now being portrayed to voters as a criminal, a would-be dictator, a person worthy of being locked up. Pee-Wee Herman’s “I know you are, but what am I?” is a more modern twist on the line my classmates and I used on the school playground: “I’m rubber, you’re glue. Anything you say bounces off me and sticks on you.” And the narrative reversal technique is on full display everywhere I look.

In a quick scan of some rabid Trump supporters’ Facebook pages, I found these claims about Joe Biden:

A post exclaims that both the CIA and the FBI have been covering for the Obama/Biden administration by redacting evidence against them and that because of this tweet from Donald Trump, the forementioned folks will soon be going to jail. Hashtag OctoberSurprise. The Tweet:

“I have fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax. Likewise, the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal. No redactions!”

Another post excoriates Democrats for putting the country through four years of “bullshit and lies” about Trump’s Russia ties, while lo and behold, it was actually Hillary Clinton who was doing the colluding all along.

Narrative reversal: It is Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton who should be investigated and prosecuted for their complicity in Russia’s interference–not Donald Trump, who was “completely exonerated” (NOT) by the Mueller report. The problem with this narrative is that it is based on no credible evidence. Robert Mueller did not absolve Donald Trump of guilt; he simply declined to pursue prosecution against a sitting president. And no credible evidence has been presented to support the claim that members of the Obama administration colluded with Russia. So this tweet amounts to nothing more than a diversion from the facts and an attempt to retain the support of those gullible enough to believe anything Trump says and dismiss any facts to the contrary.

A September 9, 2020, headline in the conservative rag National Review reads:

“Bombshell Allegation: Hillary Orchestrated Collusion to Distract from Her Emails, According to Russian Intel.”

The article goes on to state, without evidence, that Hillary Clinton “signed off on the plan.”

A Twitter user, responding to Trump’s tweet about declassifying all documents relating to Russian election interference, says gleefully:

“When all of the documents are finally declassified, and all the redactions removed from reports, the nation will see that the FBI and CIA not only knew the Russia ‘collusion’ allegations against Trump were a political dirty trick, but they were in on the trick.”

Hashtags currently trending include #BidenCrimeFamily and #BeijingBiden. If those labels sound vaguely reminiscent of claims against Donald Trump and his family, you win the Pee-Wee Herman award for identifying “I know you are, but what am I?” ruses.

Aside from being a sign of desperation as polling numbers show a wider and wider gap in favor of Biden, the “I’m rubber, you’re glue” narrative reversal undermines the truth and serves to diffuse righteous indignation which should guide voters’ choices. Making “both sides” guilty of the same “crimes,” or attributing allegations against one side to the other, serve to neutralize the issue, and facts lose all relevance. When there is no authoritative source of truth, truth becomes whatever one chooses to believe; hence, confirmation bias (believing only that which supports one’s preconceived ideas) has become common among many of all persuasions. When we as a nation can no longer agree on what is true or credible, voters are left to choose according to visceral preferences, biases, and hearsay.

The New York Times, our nation’s oldest and most respected newspaper, is now a joke among those who have bought the “failing New York Times” and the broader “enemy of the people” epithets. Snopes and other fact-checkers are similarly scoffed at as liberal-leaning and untrustworthy. When the FBI and CIA are accused of being political operatives, we’re deep into dangerous territory. These are apolitical agencies whom we have always trusted to guard our national security, yet corrupt politicians have tarnished their credibility for personal gain and power. When our Justice Department is used as the personal legal team for the president, we’re equally at risk. We’re no longer kids on the playground, using silly retorts to deflect criticism. “Rubber-glue” narrative reversals have dire real-world consequences.

During this year’s final presidential debate, when Joe Biden attempted to press Donald Trump on the 545 children still held in cages by our government while no one knows where their parents are or how to find them, Trump offered no explanation except the lie, “They’re being treated very well.” Says the man who s*&ts on gold toilets. Trump’s only comeback was “Obama built the cages,” repeated several times. For once, he was telling the truth: President Obama did build the facilities, and I’m not even going to try to completely absolve him from guilt in the larger debacle.

What I do want to focus on is the way this narrative reversal enabled Trump to skirt the issue and deflect blame. President Obama built the facilities for a different reason, one that was relevant at the time; but he did not kidnap the 545 children in question, and he did not place the children in those cages, while making no attempt to keep track of their parents. Donald Trump alone is responsible for the kidnapping and imprisoning of these children, and no amount of narrative reversal can change the fact. And what has he done to end those children’s suffering? Sent his wife to visit, wearing a jacket that essentially said F you.

Even if Obama had placed them there (and he did not), Donald Trump has had almost four years in which to undo the damage, four years to show a glimmer of humanity and release those children either to their own parents or to caring people who would give them loving homes with beds in place of concrete floors; soft, warm, cozy blankets in place of mylar covers; a yard and fresh air in place of confinement; and a loving embrace to help ease the pain in which they have lived for three years. But what has he done about it? Nothing. Except blame Obama.

Possibly the most damaging effect of Pee-Wee Herman politics is that many voters seem confused about who is the incumbent in this election. Donald Trump has made it popular to counter every claim and campaign promise Joe Biden makes with the comeback, “You’ve had 47 years. Why haven’t you done this already?” Such an inane question doesn’t really deserve a response, but for those in the back row, Joe Biden has served as a senator and as a vice president. Neither of those offices is endowed with the same power or allows the same opportunities for unilateral action that the presidency does. One senator or vice president can effect change within the scope of their own office, but that scope is limited. Although Biden’s positions on issues can be discerned from his record in other offices, what he would accomplish in the office of president cannot be.

Donald Trump, on the other hand, should be called to account for what he has accomplished or failed to accomplish during the almost four years he has been president–something he has deftly avoided by employing Pee-Wee Herman Politics and flipping the narrative. Trump has for four years, five including his campaign, been promising a wonderful, beautiful health care plan that we’re all going to love. His efforts to strike down the ACA, now in the middle of an out-of-control pandemic, have been based on the promise of a better system. But where is it? He’s had four years. Why are 545 children still imprisoned, with no clue to their parents’ whereabouts? Why is he still “going to” make America great again? He’s had four years. Why does his campaign use images of this year’s civil unrest to show what life would be like during a Biden administration? This is what life has been like during a Trump administration. He’s had four years to be the “law and order” president. What has he done to make us safer?

In a typical election, the incumbent has the advantage of being able to point to achievements of his/her first term, on which he/she would like to build if given the chance for a second term. Who’s the incumbent here? Joe Biden is being held accountable for 47 years as a senator and vice president, but Donald Trump is not held accountable for four years as president. Does anyone else think that’s backward?

Pee-Wee Herman Politics trivializes a process that has life-and-death consequences; presidential elections are not child’s play. I close with an excerpt from a powerful speech by Senator Chuck Schumer, delivered on the eve of Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, but I think perfectly applicable to the Republican Party’s last four years as a whole: the nomination of a reality-TV star for our highest office, the continued enabling of that “president’s” reign of chaos and his degradation of the office, allowing and repeating his lies, blocking his well-deserved impeachment, doing nothing to stop foreign interference in our elections, and allowing more than 230,000 people to die while they told us things are getting better and will magically go away at any moment.

“I want to be very clear with my Republican colleagues. You may win this vote.  . . . But you will never, never get your credibility back.  . . . You may win this vote. But in the process you will speed the precipitous decline of faith in our institutions, our politics, the Senate and the Supreme Court. You will give an already divided and angry nation a fresh outrage, and open a wound in this chamber that may never heal.

You walk a perilous road.

I know you think that this will eventually blow over. But you are wrong. The American people will never forget this blatant act of bad faith. They will never forget your complete disregard for their voices, for the people standing in line right now voting their choice, not your choice.

They will never forget the lack of consistency, honor, decency, fairness and principle.”

You know what to do: Vote like your life depends on it. When my grandchildren are older and living the results of our choices, I want to be able to tell them I stood on the right side of history. Your vote will have consequences far beyond your lifetime. Vote like your children’s and grandchildren’s lives depend on it. They do.

Categories
Politics

It’s Almost Midnight

The recent chatter about Donald Trump’s declining mental state and increasingly erratic behavior has me thinking of the legend of Faust. Isn’t everyone? In the classic German legend, an eminent scholar, Faust, becomes bored with his life, unable to sate his desire for something beyond the scope of his studies. Enter Mephistopheles, servant of Lucifer, who grants Faust 24 years of unlimited knowledge and pleasures of the flesh. In exchange for Mephistopheles’ favors, Faust signs a pact to surrender his soul to Lucifer at midnight on the last day of the 24 years. The legend, originally written down in the 16th century, has known many retellings, including those by Christopher Marlowe and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Hollywood actor and director Richard Burton.

Although the various renditions change the names a bit–Faust is also Dr. Faustus–and alter the ending, the story has become a metaphor for any situation in which a person is willing to exchange their morals and values, in other words sell their soul, to test the bounds of human limitations and gain a greater share of earth’s power, wealth, and pleasure.

Donald Trump is certainly no scholar, but he shares with Faustus the insatiable craving for more, the drive to overcome human limitation. The title of his niece’s book, Too Much and Never Enough, is a fitting epitaph for his life. Our tragic hero, Trumpus, was teasing the idea of a presidential bid as far back as 1988, bantering about the idea with Oprah and Larry King over a period of years. His hunger for power and prestige led him to leave his home borough of Brooklyn and cross the river into the more glamorous and highfalutin Manhattan, the place his more frugal father would never venture into.

Trumpus’s appetite for the pleasures of the flesh is also well known. Conquests of beautiful women, both willing and unwilling partners, have stoked his ego and caused him to brag to Howard Stern during an interview that sex should count as his Viet Nam and he should be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for having avoided contracting any STDs in his numerous liaisons.

He had money, he had fame of a sort (mostly the supermarket tabloid sort), he had his name in tall gold letters on buildings across the globe, he lived in ostentatious penthouses, he had wealth (though not as much as he claimed), he had success as a reality TV star, he had power as the CEO of the many companies that comprise the Trump Organization, he had the appearance of success as a businessman (convincing enough to dupe millions of people into voting for him to run the business of our country), and he surrounded himself with beautiful women, including Miss Universe contestants.

But, like Faustus, Trumpus’s restlessness drove him to take great risks in his quest for the salve that would soothe his itch for more. Rising to the highest office in the land and wielding the authority of the most powerful position on earth felt to him like the last mountain to be climbed. With it would come the adulation of millions and the opportunity to destroy the legacy of the man he envied and hated; and as the CEO of the country, he could expand his wealth by making his private enterprises venues for government business.

It was the perfect plan, but there were obstacles. He was inexperienced in politics, he was completely uneducated in the constitution, foreign policy, the economy, global alliances, geography, or any other subject that might have given him knowledge and insight needed for the job. Moreover, he lacked the basic intelligence and intellectual curiosity to learn any of those things. He even had to pay someone to sit for his SAT so that he could earn the required score for admission to the Wharton School of business. What to do? Well, he could summon Mephistopheles.

And so he did. In this version of the tale, Mephistopheles is named Vladimir Putin. Putin, with the complicity of the Republican Party, would grant Trumpus the presidency–with all of the glamour, power, wealth, and ego inflation–in exchange for complete control over Trump and freedom from the inconvenient sanctions that would be imposed on him by any real president. I would not presume to make suppositions about Donald Trump’s eternal soul, if he ever had one, but it has been clear to all with eyes to see and brains to process information that he is beholden to Vladimir Putin in ways detrimental to him and to the country gullible and stupid enough to elect him.

There is throughout the tale a sort of madness to Faustus, like the character in Edgar Allen Poe’s story who is strapped down and unable to move while the pendulum that could slice him in half inches its way closer. Trumpus’s base level madness shows itself in his frenetic tweeting, bragging, and lying about such things as crowd sizes and his ability to handle things: “I alone can fix it.” Trumpus knows his time is limited, unless of course he can incite his base to make him the kind of life-term authoritarian ruler he so admires in other countries.

Whether it’s four years or eight years, midnight is coming, and he sees the bottomless chasm opening to swallow him up: that deep pit of legal troubles over which he is dangling, which must be every bit as terrifying as the mythical hell flames. As long as he can remain in office, he will continue to have the immunity to prosecution and unveiling of his deepest secrets that he has so far enjoyed. At the stroke of midnight, however, he will be open to exposure–the threat of which is driving him further into madness, just as Faustus descends into madness during his final moments.

Former CIA Director John Brennan said to MSNBC news anchor Joy Reid, on October 12: “Things have gone from the abnormal to the surreal.”

One reason it’s been difficult to recognize and chart Donald Trump’s descent into madness is that he’s never been sane. Abnormality has been the norm: the lies, the tweeting, the flouting of tradition and norms, the disrespect for his office, the ignorance, the utter lack of compassion for other humans, the refusal to treat his supporters and his critics with equal respect and responsibility, the refusal to condemn white supremacist groups, the inner circle of felons and the lowest level of humanity, the willingness to do anything to boost his ego and retain power and adulation. Tragically, this is the base line.

How could things get worse? When the guy who signed the deed (made the deal with Lucifer) is looking at possible debt collection time (November 3), even the thinnest semblance of control is going to be next to impossible to maintain.

Hence, the infamous tweets appear to be escalating in both number and recklessness. This one, posted on October 5, 2020, could win awards for misinformation, insensitivity, and shameless self-promotion:

“I will be leaving the great Walter Reed Medical Center today at 6:30 P.M. Feeling really good! Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago!”

Yes, misinformation, insensitivity, and shameless self-promotion are his primary characteristics on his best day; but this tweet hits a new low.

In the most inane report of the week (so difficult to single out just one), it’s been widely reported that he had cooked up this stunt and discussed it with several people as he was preparing to leave Walter Reed Medical Center. In his always-delusional, now drug-enhanced extra-delusional brain, he saw himself walking out of the hospital in his usual button-down shirt and suit coat. Then at just the perfect moment, he would rip open his shirt, revealing a Superman T-shirt underneath. Really. This was his fever dream for demonstrating his strength and virility. With 210,000 Americans at that same moment having lost their lives to the disease he claims to have beaten, he wanted to do a Reality TV stunt to show how strong he thinks he is.

His scattershot efforts at voter suppression expose the desperation which drives him. Tampering with the postal service, raising unfounded alarm about mail-in voting, putting up roadblocks to make voting more difficult, and lying about ballot fraud are all aimed at suppressing votes for his opponent and creating enough doubt about the legitimacy of the election to set the stage for the Supreme Court to decide the winner. And he’s orchestrated, with his complicit Republican senators, the greatest sham hearing in history to railroad through a SCOTUS nominee, to be sure he has a majority on the bench when the election case is presented.

In a move typical of banana-republic dictators but not of the republic to which Americans pledge their allegiance, he is using the power of his office and of our government agencies to attempt punishment of his political rivals. During the week following his release from Walter Reed, he launched a series of tweets demanding the imprisonment of Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton, and excoriating his own Attorney General Bill Barr for not acting fast enough. The tweet storm culminated in an all-caps scream:

“DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS, THE BIGGEST OF ALL POLITICAL SCANDALS (IN HISTORY)!!! BIDEN, OBAMA AND CROOKED HILLARY LED THIS TREASONOUS PLOT!!! BIDEN SHOULDN’T BE ALLOWED TO RUN – GOT CAUGHT!!!”

I’m trying to imagine what congressional action would have been taken against any other president who made such an unhinged demand.

To prove he’s an equal-opportunity employer, he also attacked his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for not having declassified and released all of Hillary Clinton’s emails (groan!). CNN’s Jennifer Hansler reports:

“’She said she had 33,000 e-mails,’ Trump told Fox News on Thursday. ‘They’re in the State Department, but Mike Pompeo is unable to get them out, which is very sad actually. I’m — I’m not happy about him for that, that reason. He was unable to get — I don’t know why. You’re running the State Department and you get them out. But they’re in the State Department.’”

My mother always said, “Any port will do in a storm.” And Trump’s storm is rising, so he’s frantically throwing out whatever might appease the storm gods and find him safe harbor.

So what is it that may await our tragic hero when his days in the White House end? What does he see in that chasm that is slowly opening beneath his feet? Among other things, exposure of his crimes and misdeeds and most embarrassing moments, a wave of lawsuits, and if justice prevails, prison time.

Parts of the Mueller Report which have so far been redacted could be made public, further information about his tax fraud may be published, whatever Vladimir Putin is holding over his head may be exposed, evidence may be revealed to substantiate parts of the Steele Dossier, more aides and administration officials may feel free to tell what they know and write more tell-all books, he could face even more lawsuits than are already pending against him from families of COVID patients who have died, and worst of all to his narcissistic mind he will stand naked before the world as the thing he hates most: a loser.

Individual lawsuits are already too numerous to list, but they can be organized under a few general headings: finances and taxes; violations while in office, including the Hatch Act, the  emoluments clause, and using White House property for political gatherings; possible lawsuits arising from the Mueller Report; campaign violations; sexual misconduct and assault, of which he has been credibly accused by 20 women, including one who was only 13 years old at the time of the alleged assault; and contractors whom he has refused to pay money he owed. This is just a small sampling of what he and his family may face when he can no longer retreat to the safe harbor of the White House.

Our job is to be sure midnight comes on November 3, 2020–not November 5, 2024. As Senator Amy Klobuchar so passionately argued during the confirmation hearing for Amy Coney Barrett,  “This isn’t Donald Trump’s country, it is yours.” I’m ready to take it back. Let Donald Trump pay for the bargain he made, and let us restore our country. By 2024, it may be too late.

Categories
Politics

All Lives Matter, but Some Matter More

It was a grand spectacle. It could have been staged by a Hollywood producer. The helicopter landed on the lawn near the majestic staircase, the COVID patient emerged dressed elegantly in a suit and tie, he ascended the staircase in the fashion of dictators and strong men everywhere, and like dictators and strong men everywhere, he posed on the balcony facing his adoring public. After defiantly removing his mask and stuffing it into his pocket, he stood at attention for several minutes, basking in the light of the cameras. There were no smiles, no warmth, no friendly gestures, just a posture of strength: his COVID victory lap.

Then he turned to enter his temporary home–also a work place to hundreds of people–unmasked though still contagious and having been visibly laboring to breathe during the entire photo op. But that’s not all. According to reporters, he required videographers to re-shoot the scene of his entering the White House, to be sure they captured just the image he sought to project. All of this time, he was unmasked, in close proximity to those required to assist him and carry out his wishes; but apparently those lives don’t matter. Neither do the lives of the Secret Service agents required to take him on a Sunday afternoon joy ride in a hermetically sealed vehicle.

Hours before leaving the hospital, he wrote these reassuring words: “Don’t be afraid of COVID. Don’t let it dominate your life.”

You heard the man.

Child, don’t be afraid of COVID. The parent whom you loved is gone. You will never again feel the warmth of those loving arms or see the smile on the face you cherished. Your parent will not be present for any of the milestones in your life: at graduations, you’ll see an empty spot in the audience; at your wedding, there will be no celebratory dance with that parent; at every holiday gathering, you’ll see an empty chair where your beloved parent would have sat. You may be forced to live with reduced income, maybe even in poverty, because that parent was a family wage earner. You’ll relive the loss for as long as you live, but don’t let this dominate your life.

Parent, don’t be afraid of COVID. You’ve laid your precious child to rest: the one you brought into the world, maybe nursed at your own breast, tenderly cared for and provided for, and watched in wonder and amazement as they grew. At every new stage of life, the love you thought couldn’t possibly be any greater became even more intense. You fiercely protected your child from every harm, cared for them during sickness, bandaged the wounds of childhood accidents; and then one day, your child encountered an adversary  against which you and your doctors were helpless. All you could do is let the disease ravage their body until there was no breath left in it. But you know, hardly any children get COVID; they’re almost immune to it. Your child’s disease was just a fluke, bad luck. So don’t let this dominate your life.

Spouse, don’t be afraid of COVID. The person you loved died alone, with only a FaceTime or Zoom farewell, with no loving touch or comforting presence. But hey, thank goodness for technology, right? Imagine how bad it would have been before we had smart phones and computers. This person to whom you pledged your love and fidelity, with whom you were traveling through life with all of its joys and sorrows, for whom you’d have stepped in front of a bullet, is gone. Never again will you feel the warmth of their body or see the adoration in their eyes as they look deeply into yours; never again will you feel the safety and reassurance you found with them at your side. Your financial circumstances may be reduced without their income, and you may have to raise alone the children you brought into the world together. That gaping hole in the middle of your chest will never completely close over, but don’t let this dominate your life.

Friend, don’t be afraid of COVID. That person you shared life with, laughed with, cried with, danced with, got into mischief with is gone. They died alone, without you or their family members physically present to give comfort and a farewell kiss. The empty chair, the ghostly vision, the heartful of memories, the boxes full of photos are all you have left to remind you of the special love you shared. Your friend may be one of the tens of thousands who didn’t have to die, who would still be alive had there been competent national leadership to get this virus under control as all other nations have done. But it is what it is, so don’t let this dominate your life.

Uninsured and underinsured Americans, don’t be afraid of COVID. If you test positive, no helicopter will land on your lawn and whisk you off to the world’s premier medical facility. You won’t be looked after by a dedicated team of doctors, you won’t be given expensive cutting-edge treatments, you won’t have a private suite of rooms. In fact, you’ll be lucky to get any treatment at all, because the person gloating in front of the cameras about having conquered his own illness, through expensive cutting-edge treatments which you and I paid for, has consistently attempted to strip you of the insurance which might have provided you a basic level of treatment and has lawyers in court now arguing to leave millions of you without any insurance. But don’t worry; he’s fine. He beat it, thanks to you and me. So don’t let this dominate your life.

Business owners, don’t be afraid of COVID. Your business may have gone under because of the shutdowns and the economic downturn caused by the pandemic, or maybe you’re struggling to hold onto the last shreds of what was your livelihood. You’ve had to watch your employees apply for unemployment because you can no longer write the checks by which they have provided for themselves and their families. But you’ll find something else, and so will your employees. Just get out there and live the American dream. If you work hard enough, you will prosper. Times have been tough, and they’re going to be tough awhile longer, but don’t let this dominate your life.

Unemployed workers, don’t be afraid of COVID. You’ve lost your job because of a pandemic and the reckless, irresponsible handling of it, but thank goodness for unemployment checks, eh? And how about that one stimulus check you received? You remember, the one that came months ago, with the “president’s” signature. You can’t pay your rent or mortgage payment, you worry every day about how you’ll feed your family, you struggle to make the car payment and buy insurance and fuel for the vehicle. But be creative, man! Consider this time a gift: learn a new skill, take a trip, write a book. Whatever you do, don’t let this dominate your life.

Essential workers, don’t be afraid of COVID. You’ve been out there every day since the beginning, ringing up sales at grocery stores, home improvement stores, banks, and gas stations. You’ve been verbally and physically assaulted by frustrated, angry customers who don’t want to wear masks or who can’t understand why they are limited to purchasing only one package of toilet paper. You’ve gone home every day with the knowledge that you may have been exposed to the deadly virus and if so are exposing your family to it as well. But be grateful you have a job, and don’t let this dominate your life.

Exhausted health care workers, don’t be afraid of COVID. You’ve been the ones in direct contact with the more than 7 million Americans who have contracted the virus, and you’ve witnessed the deaths of the more than 211,000 Americans who were not so lucky as our “president.” You’ve worked extra shifts, often without proper equipment because our national leadership did not use all of the available resources to produce sufficient PPE for both you and your patients or the extra respirators and other equipment you needed to provide the level of care your patients required. You go home every day bone weary, praying you’ve protected yourself well enough to avoid infection and praying you’re not taking home anything that might endanger your family. You struggle to suppress the scenes of trauma dancing in your brain so that you can go to sleep and be renewed for another day of the same–with no foreseeable end. You push aside dark thoughts of ending your own life, as others in your field have done, because the stress and the pain have become unendurable. But hey, don’t let this dominate your life.

Precious wife, whose husband died of cancer in March, don’t be afraid of COVID. Your husband didn’t have COVID, but the skilled care facility where he was being treated had to be locked down because of the pandemic, so he died alone. In his mental confusion, caused by dementia and the drugs he was receiving, he thought you had abandoned him. You who were married to him for over 50 years, you who walked beside him, you who worked with him during the years you both served marginalized people and anyone else who needed your help, you who loved and cared for him throughout his life and during his illness. In the end, you had to say goodbye on the phone, with him not understanding that you were still there and still loved him.

Dear cousins, who were unable to visit your mother, my aunt, during the last few months of her life, don’t be afraid of COVID. Your mother was one of the most loving and giving people I’ve ever known. Her home was always open to family, and her nieces and nephews knew we could count on her to show us a fun time. She, of the twelve siblings, was the one who stayed close by and cared for our grandmother during her final years. She was a leader in her community, taking the initiative to found a library when she learned that the small town you moved to didn’t have one. She didn’t have COVID, but she too was in a care facility that had to be closed to visitors because of the pandemic. So after almost 90 years of living for others, she died alone.

I wonder how all of you felt when you saw the man on the balcony say, “I’m fine. Maybe I’m immune? So get out there. Don’t be afraid.” Did you feel that this man cared about your loved one? Did you feel that he cares about you? Did you feel that this man deserves to live in the People’s House another four years while you and I pay his bills so that he can go on not giving a damn what happens to any of us?

Francine Prose, in a Guardian article, says what many of us have felt and thought:

“We’d like to believe that suffering instructs and ennobles; that our grief, fear and pain increases our sympathy for the grief, fear and pain of others. But again, Donald Trump seems to be ineducable, impervious to shame, guilt, or any sense of personal responsibility, unaffected by anything except vanity, selfishness and reckless self-regard. Certainly, the experience of having his blood oxygen level drop so low that supplemental oxygen was required must have been alarming, and yet the president continues to believe that bluster is the best medicine.”

Our nation is on code blue. It’s our choice whether we pull the plug on our democracy or wake up and work like hell to resuscitate it. We can’t allow these 211,000 lives to be lost in vain. Starting now, we have to elect responsible leaders, and then we have to be responsible leaders and followers. Our lives and our children’s and grandchildren’s lives depend on what we do in the next 28 days and beyond. Voting is only the beginning. Our new president (please, God!) is going to need our cooperation and support. It’s up to us to put the “United” back in “United States of America.”