It’s hard to sustain outrage these days. trump(*) and his lickspittle republican enablers continue to outmatch themselves. Those of us aligned against this utterly depraved and utterly incapable excuse for a human being long ago grew tired. his supporters continue to support him somehow; most puzzling and infuriating are the evangelical crowd, who have sold their souls for the soothing (but ultimately cynical) promises of protection of their way of life by way of appointments of conservative judges.
Somehow we as a country have grown not only tired of trump, but I think in many ways numb to the sheer scope of the madness we are in the middle of. As Jamelle Bouie wrote, trump is a Lovecraftian horror, “too monstrous to be real, but [existing] nonetheless.” We can either “reject [our] senses or descend into madness, unable to live with what [we’ve] learned.”
The pandemic has cast into stark relief how truly monstrous trump and all of his supporters truly are and how sharp the dividing lines are between us and them. On the one side, we have the “party of life” continuing with their infantile impulsive rejection of anything sane and reasonable — promoting courses of action that will clearly result in tens of thousands of more deaths in this country. But human life seems to be cheap to the “party of life” — owning the libs and being able to say “you’re not the boss of me” to anyone that has actual expertise is the order of the day.
I looked up some numbers from WWII (wikipedia), which I think anyone, even republicans, would consider to have been a bloody and enormous loss of life. (**)
- In 1364 days of the war, there were 291,557 combat deaths (KIA) and 113,842 other deaths.
- The average number of deaths per day was 214 combat and 83 other.
- In our most costly battle (the Battle of the Bulge), we lost 19,276 people at 470 per day.
Now, compare that to COVID-19 (from UW IHME(***)):
- In 143 days (plus or minus) since March 1, there have been approximately 143,000 deaths from COVID-19
- The average number of deaths per day over that period is approximately1,000 – almost five times as many combat deaths per day in WWII.
- On April 16, 2020, there were 2,310 reported COVID-19 deaths – almost five times as many combat deaths per day in the Battle of the Bulge.
- Today, approximately 850 people are dying per day – four times the number that died in combat during WWII.
- It is possible that by the end of this year the COVID-19 deaths will surpass WWII combat deaths.
First, no, COVID-19 is not like the flu. If anyone tries to minimize COVID-19 with that lie, ask them if they consider the loss of life in WWII to have been horrific. Then compare the numbers.
But why does anyone even need to make that argument? Where is the outrage, the urgency, the national will of an “exceptional” nation? Are we (are the republicans) so decadent that these lives just don’t matter?
The problem, for those with eyes to see, is a total and utter failure of leadership — a dereliction of leadership — all around in the republican party. Saving lives and saving livelihoods under the current circumstances is an extraordinarily complex problem — one that won’t be solved by magical thinking, sloganeering, and foot-stomping “you can’t make me.”
I have no good answers myself. I am not an epidemiology expert (among many other things I am not). But, my g-d, there is a problem here — those that we elected to manage the national resources that we own should be bringing expertise to bear to wield those resources — and be doing every possible thing to try to save lives.
The only thing “wartime” about our “wartime president” is the casualty rate.
I am truly afraid right now. Afraid that we might not make it to January.
We should be protesting in the streets for trump, pence, mcconnell, mnuchin, barr, et al to RESIGN NOW!
(*) His name does not deserve even the minute respect that capitalization would lend to it.
(**) There are many other discussions to be had about the human toll on the US and the world due to COVID-19 — as well as whether an analogy to war is apt. I pass over those issue in silence and am just presenting numbers.
(***) I did not normalize the numbers in the comparisons — the population of the US during WWII was about half of what it is now. If one wanted to use a comparison relative to total population, COVID-19 is still twice as bad as WWII.