pandemic

Low Grade

It wasn’t just that Michelle Obama recently expressed how we all feel these days (… weeks, months, years), but that she articulated the truth with such precision: “some sort of low-grade depression”.  I think that’s how we knew it was/is the truth. There was a universal nod. YEP. 

We are all trying to cope with extreme and constant disruption, even when we are basically ok. We are fearful and angry. We are frustrated and fatigued. We are anxious and sad. Even when we are otherwise ok. We don’t feel ok. Ok. America is not ok, even if individuals are hanging in there. 

We are terrified of the fever out there. Everything feels feverish. The intensity of the fever overwhelms, and the experience for most of us is exhaustion. Low-grade depression. Meanwhile, the POTUS seems to do everything possible to enable the fever’s spread. Whether or not he experiences delusions, he inspires them. 

The multiple contagions afflicting us feel overpowering. The persistence is enervating. How will we be able to live with this going forward? 

When we can’t just breathe, because a police officer is shooting or choking someone, or COVID-19 has consumed one’s lung capacity, we can air the truth. Thank you, Michelle Obama.

I couldn’t help but notice that her choice of words, “low-grade depression”, which seemed to resonate so exactly with our experience, was so perfect for this moment. No one seems to care more about grades than Trump. I’m not aware of any adult who cares about grades (other than being concerned about their kids’ grades). 

When Trump was saying anything to get media attention during the Obama administration, he glommed onto the “Birther” conspiracy theory in attempt to get attention, test the political winds, fan the fires of racism, build his brand, and whatever else explains his disgusting lies. But he also made a point of bringing up (or making up) President Obama’s grades. Even then I thought it was a weird and pathetic attempt to make some sort of point. 

Trump ran for POTUS talking about having “the best words”, and his great grades, and other school related nonsense. Remember when Michael Cohen revealed that Trump directed him to ensure that the College Board and colleges never release Trump’s grades or SATs? What is it with Trump and grades? 

Of course, he projects and lies and is shameless in doing so. 

And we are struggling on every front as a result of Trump’s incompetence, corruption, and shamefulness. He gets the lowest grade of any POTUS. 

Resignation

Why has no one called for Trump’s resignation? His commuting Roger Stone’s prison sentence, despite ample evidence of Stone’s guilt, provided the familiar dyspepsia of horror without surprise.  Trump’s gall is endless. As is Stone’s. (I’m sure there’s a gallstone joke somewhere….)

But even Mitt Romney, who dared to vote to convict Trump, and called Stone’s commutation “unprecedented, historic corruption”, didn’t call for Trump’s resignation. Why bother? Americans can vote him out in November.

We heard that argument before the Impeachment proceedings. It’s too risky. We can just vote him out. Meanwhile, what could possibly be worse than what lead to the Impeachment?

Amidst the heinous policies against immigrants, that includes family separations still, and caging children, Trump has withdrawn from our allies and has continued to cozy up to autocrats. He is unconcerned with the plight of Americans, or those who seek to live as Americans, unless he benefits personally. 

Meanwhile, the only one who has not begun to confront the hideous, systemic racism embedded in our American being, is Trump. As the country is pained and seeks healing and transformation, he wants to restore the statues that glorified the Confederacy—that seceded from the U.S! As statues came down, literally all that’s left is the base.

And yet, while we as a country have been resigned to racism in insidious forms, we are being lead once again by a movement toward dignity—Black Lives Matter. The overt brutality caught on video has been effective in showing what most White people don’t see or experience. There is profound concern that the resignation that has endured for so long in this country will continue without dramatic change. 

And the concern about November….besides a rigged system of gerrymandering that has persisted and expanded for decades disenfranchising voters, especially Black and Latinx voters, we are losing a battle against COVID-19, that has us sequestered to stay healthy.

Trump’s abdication of responsibility to keep Americans safe should have demanded calls for his resignation, but we have been too resigned to his crazy. His recklessness and laziness, not to mention an ability to govern or be a serious human, has actual repercussions. His demand to re-open schools without adequate policy proposals or funding so that they are safe is simply cruel. 

It’s hard to list the top most egregious displays of flagrant abuse, but I still can not wrap my head around the Russian bounty on American troops in Afghanistan. Trump claims to not have been briefed. Still, there has been no effort to do anything about the fact that Russia has put a bounty on American troops in Afghanistan. No calls for resignation. 

Vote him out? We started with Russian interference in our elections. Here we go again. Resignation? Voter suppression. Resignation? A PANDEMIC that makes going to the polls a personal and public potentially life-threatening situation. And he seeks to limit mail-in ballots. Vote him out?

We are the ones who have been resigned. We have been resigned to injustice for too long. We have been believing that institutions and norms are too entrenched and difficult to change, and yet Trump has easily trampled and dismantled. 

We have revered traditions, institutions, and norms, even ones that have outlived their use, and have become afraid of big changes. Yet here we sit at home, if we are able to and are considerate, forced to change our behavior. We can’t be resigned to not take responsibility now. (I know–doubly negative.) We can’t be resigned and await guidance, hope, support from this so-called POTUS. Our representatives should have called for his resignation, but we have all been too resigned. 

Absent calls for Trump’s resignation, we must confront our own. 

Whine Country

Those who whine that the ones seeking personal, racial, societal, economic, and governmental health are impeding individual liberty, are happy to emulate their loser leader. They feign strength while whining. They feign independence while following conspiracy theories and zombie policies, also while whining.  They feign patriotism, while whining, and insist that they are the true representatives of the country. They keep America grate (and sick). 

Those who protest actual injustice, not merely awful inconvenience and discomfort, are thoughtfully, peacefully, and creatively seeking accountability and new direction. What’s the difference between the seemingly aggrieved constituents? 

Protests (and whining) are designed to call attention to some issue. We have all been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, some obviously much more than others. The whiners just want to do what they want to do. Who doesn’t?  Everyone wants to get back to work, socializing,  commerce, entertainment, etc. The #BLM and associated movements’ protestors have taught most of the rest of the country (and the world) that the opportunity for health is upon us. We all want to be able to reengage in healthy ways, and we also can’t ignore the systemic injustices that have yielded so much more pain and suffering and death in black communities in this country.  This isn’t whining. This is growing. This is maturing. Even as a novel virus spreads.

The whino-in-chief can’t stop kvetching. He hasn’t started planning or learning anything. His schtick is a Borscht Belt cadence of whining. The best thing to do is tune him out. (Thanks, Mom!)  And vote him and his enablers out, despite all the obstacles!

And the whiners who expose their noses know that they have everyone’s attention. But that’s all. They offer nothing (but potential germs). They whine that everyone else has ruined it for them. They love upsetting their foes (i.e. fellow Americans, albeit not in whine country), as their loser leader does. They are happy to ruin it for others.

2020 Whines:

Flabby. Not very refined. Minerally—like the taste of concrete on the tongue. Dense.  NOT elegant. NOT complex. A hint of lead—like the taste of a pencil. Also like an eraser.

Unpalatable.