Growing up, I devoured science fiction and all its idealistic Utopian notions of our ability to overcome our own limitations. Star Trek assured us the future was more or less bright. When I eventually came across the idea that we, as a species, have no business in space until we set our own house in order, I experienced mild outrage. Our DESTINY is in the stars; if we have the ability to leave the cradle, why not push forward with all possible speed?
I have since come to realize the grim and painful truth; the naysayers were right. Until we can feed our hungry, house our homeless, comfort our afflicted, and perform all those other commonsense Samaritanisms Jesus told us to do... We should be ashamed, nay, suicidally humiliated, to meet any race not of this planet, with nothing more than excuses and justifications to explain why we shit in the same place we eat. If aliens were to approach us today with “Take us to your leader” on their lips, what would we say to them? Srsly.
The first Covid wave hasn’t even peaked yet, and owing to chucklehead arguments that THE ECONOMY, the second wave will undoubtedly be worse. And when we finally have a vaccine next year, we’ll be just in time to watch Covid-19 morph into Covid-21 and tell us, “Oh goody, Covid-19 vaccine? Yummy! More please.” When the subsequent ongoing waves FINALLY taper off and we count ourselves lucky to have held the death toll to seven digits and we’re kicking Covid out the back door, the knock on our front door will be a tap from the prow of Coast Guard cutters floating up to tell us that our deforesting, coral-bleaching, ice-shelf melting, garbage-patch generating IGNORANCE has finally reached the 10-count. By that measure, Trump is not an aberration or problem; he’s just the next logical step in our self-destructive rampage.