This is the sign I'm putting out on the front lawn.
It's been four weeks since my father died in a nursing home, gasping for breath and not knowing where he was. He was supposed to be recovering from cancer treatments, building his strength back up so he could come home again. He was making good progress until the last week in March when he spiked a fever and his kidneys started failing.
We didn't know it was COVID-19, because there weren't tests and the symptoms didn't match what we thought we knew about the disease. That's why they let me spend much of the final week with him in that dismal little room – he on the bed that was too short, with the steel frame that pressed up through the mattress, and I in a spartan recliner.
I had been so careful not to bring the virus into the facility. Every few days, as I prepared to deliver essential mail from our house, I baked all the envelopes and magazines at 250° F for an hour. (That was probably hotter than necessary.) I wore gloves when I was out and sanitized them when I returned. I didn't touch gas pump handles. Mostly I stayed home.
Someone on staff tested positive in late March. I think it was probably the nurse who had "allergies". She no longer worked there by the time my father started showing symptoms.
In hindsight, I don't know whether it would have helped if I had moved him to a hospital. He would have got better pulmonary support, but they still couldn't have fixed his failing kidneys. Moving him might also have reduced the risk to other patients in the nursing home, but we didn't know he had the virus at the time. The decisions I made then feel very messy now.
This didn't have to happen. Under a different government, tests would have been available earlier. The nurses would have been screened more effectively. Everybody would have had better protective equipment. I wouldn't have been freaked out about the prospect of a shortage of ventilators at the hospital. The president wouldn't have held a rally in the town south of here in late February, exposing his audience members to the virus while telling them everything was fine.
So fuck it. Elections have consequences, and I'm damned well going to make sure my Republican neighbors own their share of responsibility. Particularly the ones who donated to the Trump campaign and who walk their dogs past my house every afternoon.
I've spent the past three years working hard to help turn this suburb blue, and we're making it happen. The Republican state legislator resigned earlier this year because she saw how mobilized we Democrats are. We're contacting supporters and reaching out to unaffiliated voters on a scale that has never happened here before.
Two years ago we won the seat for Jason Crow, and I couldn't be more proud of him. It was a clean blue sweep for county offices too. This year we'll take the state legislative seat.
Thankfully there's less talk now about "finding common ground" with Republicans. More and more of us realize it’s impossible. Trump's party is a cult of ignorance and death, and we need to grind them into the fucking ground during every election and in every legislative body including Congress. I'm done being polite, and I'll keep working my ass off for other Democrats who agree.
No more Third Way. No more Problem Solver’s Caucus. Make the Republicans own their fuck-ups for all time. We have a nation to rebuild, and we’ll do it without them.