America has too many spoiled adults for COVID-19.
Over the course of the pandemic, around 80% of Americans report they are very likely or somewhat likely to follow stay-at-home orders. We are the majority.
But that other 20% are vocal. These individuals are often emboldened and inculcated by gun-laden, #MAGA sporting protestors who see no irony in their conjuring of “give me liberty or give me death.” They want to go back to work or, more accurately, many want to send the most economically vulnerable back to work.
We’re all tired. We’re all inconvenienced. Depression is up. Anxiety is skyrocketing. Suicide hotline calls are up 800%. Rites of childhood go missed. Unemployment stands at 14.7% and is poised to go higher. Small businesses fear permanent shuttering. At the time of this writing 83,333 Americans are known to have died from COVID. Excess death rates indicate the real figure is much higher.
America is taking punch after punch. Eighty percent of us are digging deeper. Wearing the mask. Homeschooling. Losing hours. Losing jobs. Not seeing family. COVID is the problem and the solution requires substantial sacrifice. Nurses, EMTs, doctors, cleaners, pharmacists, grocery workers, UPS, Amazon, and the Post Office delivery people are on the frontlines. America the Brave.
America the Spoiled thinks the tough remedies COVID requires are just too damn hard. The Trump administration and too many Republican governors (not all — hey, hey DeWine and Baker), senators, and representatives are telling them they are right. I am struck by how twisted this patriotism is. Wrap oneself up in the flag and then fight against one’s government for the right to send other Americans to their death? For all the machismo, all the bravado, all the weapons, and all the making America great, when the pandemic hit, they lasted about six weeks. Sacrifice for the collective good is their poison pill.
COVID but makes highly visible the ramifications of extreme political polarization, science denialism, and news that but meets and bolsters your biases. The Trump Administration’s response has been to blame others (China! Obama!), lie (anyone who wants the tests can get a test), divide (LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!), and avoid the hard truths and hard prescriptions in favor of what he perceives is in his best electoral interests. He has an easy solution – open things up without massive testing or contact tracing.
And the spoiled rejoice. Dear leader cuts the line and gives the cherry popsicle. They are being duped and willfully swallowing the placebo.
I used to think America was on the path to that more perfect union. Rocky, messy, and woefully hard though that path is — politics is my passion because of what I thought we could perfect. I am now of the mind that our polarization is permanent. If a pandemic still divides us then the greatest generation has truly passed. We are not collectively up to it. Rand Paul said in a hearing this week that “it’s not to say this isn’t deadly, but really, outside of New England we’ve had a relatively benign course for this virus nationwide.” Last time I checked we New Englanders were, in fact, in America. And, lest my geography fails me, Illinois, California, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Texas, Florida, and Maryland – all states in the top 10 for numbers of known COVID cases – are not rich with Red Sox fans. Mitch McConnell does not want “blue state bailouts.” How very, very Jefferson Davis of him. Chris Christie compares the deaths that would result from opening up the economy prematurely to the sacrifices of soldiers in World War I and II.
Americans cannot yet control the novel COVID virus but we can make sacrifices that mean fewer die and we go back to a semblance of our normal lives on a timeline that best curtails the virus. We can harness science and implement its recommendations. Americans, and the American federal government, can make policy choices and massive interventions that deeply mitigate the economic impact on us all. But all that is hard and threatens the economic status quo.
America the Spoiled is not willing. They are ruining it for us all. Everyone wants back to work, businesses open,more economic stability, and community life. Getting there requires a collective will, a call to the greater good that a minority of Americans cannot muster and the Trump administration, and too many of his representational sycophants, do not possess.