As of the time of this writing (September 23, 2020) there have been more than 6.9M CoV-SARS-2 (aka “Covid”) infections in the US, resulting in more than 200,000 deaths. These numbers are predicted to double by the end of 2020 (which will put us on par with the total number of deaths in WWII — but in 9 months rather than 4 years — and the numbers will continue to grow until an effective vaccine is widely deployed). We still don’t know very much about the long-term effects of the virus, but it seems that infection can cause permanent damage to major organs (especially, but not only, to the lungs).
That things are this bad — 400,000 deaths in 9 months — and that they are this bad because of deliberate policies and actions taken by the republican party — is, I think, literally incomprehensible. Even for those of us who do care about our fellow human beings, we can’t fully react to what has happened because the truth is just too terrible to accept (*).
But just like covid, the horrible disease currently afflicting our body politic (the republican party) is going to have long term effects. Even once we are cured, once the republicans are swept from elected office, they will continue to inflict damage through lifetime court appointments.
Again, the situation we are facing right now is hard to fully comprehend, hard to fully process. The republican party is likely to succeed in confirming trump’s next Supreme Court nominee, perhaps even before the election or before the next ACA hearing scheduled on Nov 10. How many people are at risk of losing health-care coverage once the court declares the ACA to be unconstitutional? The 6.9M who have been infected with covid may suddenly find they have a pre-existing condition. And that is 6.9M today — it will be 14M by 2021 and who knows how high when a vaccine is finally available.
The congress and the president will have to take drastic actions to undo the damage that has been done — and to prevent ongoing damage. And I think it will be important to get the message across about what they are doing and why. Right now the republicans have framed all debates as a struggle for power. It is obvious to everyone — their supporters included — that the most important thing for them is to grab, hold, and abuse power. Those of us who think government has a good and proper role in providing for the common good obviously oppose the republicans. But the republicans have framed this opposition as also just being about power.
When we expand the courts to dilute the poison the republicans have planted there, when we expand and improve ACA, when we establish and implement plans for climate action — we can’t let the republicans frame this as payback. They are masters of projection and they only see things in those primitive and self-centered terms. We have to control the message — that we are healing real damage done (and we need to focus on the damage, not the perpetrators, as tempting as the latter might be — again, we can’t fall into their characterization of us). And the damage should be obvious — starting with the 14M covid survivors (on inauguration day) that should be assured the Democratic President and Congress care about them.
(*) cf. Jammelle Bouie, The Trump We Did Not Want to See — he makes the case that it is impossible to comprehend awfulness of Trump and that in order to preserve our very sanity, our minds have to reject what is in front of us.
(**) cf. also Paige Winfield Cunningham, The Health 202: Coronavirus could be considered a preexisting condition if Obamacare is struck down — I saw this article shortly after I starting writing this diary