There is no question that the Covid-19 pandemic has proved a great test for America. Like a cardiac stress test, it has revealed problems we’ve been ignoring, or hadn’t even suspected. It has been a test of our healthcare system, our economy, our political leadership — and so much more.
Author Lois McMaster Bujold has written a number of novels and short stories; one of the devices she uses to develop her plots is to look at her main characters and imagine what is the worst thing that could happen to them — and then make it happen. She had this to say about such tests:
“I've always thought tests are a gift. And great tests are a great gift. To fail the test is a misfortune. But to refuse the test is to refuse the gift, and something worse, more irrevocable, than misfortune.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Shards of Honour
As gifts go, Donald Trump is a gift I would have forgone, but he has certainly proved to be a great test, one which American democracy may not survive. We are seeing how Republicans are resisting change by appealing to our worst instincts. They will use it to try to keep their grip on power. Elections have consequences and voting as though your life depends on it is no longer a joke.
...Conservative voter suppression has always emerged in perceived crises and necessitated new variations on old lies about the threats of blacks or other marginalized groups to “civilization” or social “order,” or the “liberty” of the powerful. After the 2008 election, the Republicans paid lip service to a new inclusivity; the Obama coalition scared them. But the Tea Party, financial conservatives and Trumpian white nationalism have driven them instead into a spiral of moral panic and voter suppression.
THE GREAT PAUSE
Covid-19 aka the coronavirus is definitely proving a great test. But it is also a great gift in that it is forcing us to confront much in our lives that we have let go unexamined and unquestioned. Julio Vincent Gambuto is a writer and director who has written Prepare for the Ultimate Gaslighting. There is going to be tremendous pressure to try to put the world back the way it was before the pandemic. Gambuto points out that we have a chance to look at what is happening now and think really hard about where we want to go.
Well, the treadmill you’ve been on for decades just stopped. Bam! And that feeling you have right now is the same as if you’d been thrown off your Peloton bike and onto the ground: What in the holy fuck just happened? I hope you might consider this: What happened is inexplicably incredible. It’s the greatest gift ever unwrapped. Not the deaths, not the virus, but The Great Pause. It is, in a word, profound. Please don’t recoil from the bright light beaming through the window. I know it hurts your eyes. It hurts mine, too. But the curtain is wide open. What the crisis has given us is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see ourselves and our country in the plainest of views. At no other time, ever in our lives, have we gotten the opportunity to see what would happen if the world simply stopped. Here it is. We’re in it. Stores are closed. Restaurants are empty. Streets and six-lane highways are barren. Even the planet itself is rattling less (true story). And because it is rarer than rare, it has brought to light all of the beautiful and painful truths of how we live. And that feels weird. Really weird. Because it has… never… happened… before. If we want to create a better country and a better world for our kids, and if we want to make sure we are even sustainable as a nation and as a democracy, we have to pay attention to how we feel right now. I cannot speak for you, but I imagine you feel like I do: devastated, depressed, and heartbroken.
Read The Whole Thing!!! And then consider a few more things.
One is the way that the economy that Trump is so desperate to restore to get another term in the White House is one that is working only for a tiny minority. The New York Times has been running a series “The America We Need”. David Leonhardt and Yaryna Serkez have put together a stunning prediction: America will struggle after coronavirus. These charts show why. A series of interactive charts show how badly America’s economy has raised inequality to record levels.
On health, life expectancy, upward mobility, income — America is failing the majority of its citizens. One example:
One way to think about the rise in inequality is to imagine how different the economy would be if inequality hadn’t soared over the past 40 to 50 years. In that scenario, with the same G.D.P. that we have today but with 1980 levels of inequality, every American household in the bottom 90 percent of income would be earning about $12,000 more — not just this year, but permanently.
In effect, each household in this bottom 90 percent is sending a check for $12,000 to every household in the top 1 percent, year after year after year.
Read the whole thing. Look at the graphs. America has been moving in the wrong direction for decades.
There are 128 million households in the U.S. The bottom 90% is about 110 million. That’s $1,320,000,000,000 every year, most of which goes to the top .1%, fewer than 200,000 families. That's about $6.6 million per family. Every year. And that’s on top of the wealth they already have. How big a factor is that? The late billionaire Paul Allen tried to give away 50% of his wealth in his lifetime. How did that work out?
...In 2010, he pledged to give away more than half his wealth. That goal proved impossible within his lifetime: His investment portfolio grew faster than he could spend it. Allen bought superyachts, estates and sports teams that barely dented his pile. He collected vintage planes, guitars and cars. He threw Gatsby-esque parties. He started a minor space program. He also gave $2 billion away in the fields of education, health care, science and the arts, and appeared on The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s list of the 50 most generous Americans 17 years in a row. Nevertheless, he was worth more at the time of his death ($20 billion) than he was in 2010 ($13.5 billion)...
emphasis added
THE GREAT TEST
What we are seeing is how priorities change in the face of what we perceive as an immediate threat. Thanks to the pandemic Trump’s incompetence has made so much worse, we are seeing who essential workers really are. We are finding out that working from home is not quite as impossible as companies would have us believe. We are seeing how much clearer the air and water are when we’re not burning fossil fuels at a breakneck pace. (This clear!) We are finding what we truly value.
As bad as the pandemic is proving, it is only a mere dress rehearsal for what the Climate Crisis is already delivering. (While not perhaps this time, disease outbreaks are one of the predicted consequences of the climate crisis, because of food supply disruption, economic collapse, and climate refugees.) What we learn from the pandemic can be applied to the addressing the Climate Crisis IF we truly want to make the effort.
It’s not like we don’t have the money, or a plan to get it where it needs to go — the question is who will prevail. Those heavily invested in all the things that got us to this point can’t wait to get back to business as usual. If we let them gaslight us into doing so, it will not be pretty.
As Bujold observes,
“Change is possible.'
(in reply)
'Change is inevitable.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Shards of Honour
There will be change. That’s a given. The only question is what kind of change will it be, and who benefits. Going back to Gambuto,
From one citizen to another, I beg of you: Take a deep breath, ignore the deafening noise, and think deeply about what you want to put back into your life. This is our chance to define a new version of normal, a rare and truly sacred (yes, sacred) opportunity to get rid of the bullshit and to only bring back what works for us, what makes our lives richer, what makes our kids happier, what makes us truly proud. We get to Marie Kondo the shit out of it all. We care deeply about one another. That is clear. That can be seen in every supportive Facebook post, in every meal dropped off for a neighbor, in every Zoom birthday party. We are a good people. And as a good people, we want to define — on our own terms — what this country looks like in five, 10, 50 years. This is our chance to do that, the biggest one we have ever gotten. And the best one we’ll ever get.
Holy Week is a time to contemplate death, revival, and redemption. The Great Pause has given us a chance to open our eyes and truly see. This is our great gift. Let’s not waste it.