Doug's Darkworld

America was once a can do country.We won World War Two fighting two of the world’s great powers. We built the interstate highway system, a marvel of engineering. We went to the Moon. We eliminated smallpox. Johnson’s New Society brought millions out of poverty. We had an education and health care system that was the envy of the world. We had a thriving middle and working class where rising tides did raise all ships. I remember, I was there for much of it.

That was then, this is now. And now, we are the country that can’t. We can’t provide health care for all, something most of the rest of the world takes for granted. (There’s something more important than the health of a nation’s citizens?) We can’t do anything about our appalling gun violence and mass shooter problem. We can’t win a war. Our infrastructure and public education systems are falling apart from lack of funding. Minorities and blacks are still second class citizens in all but name.

And now we can’t even fight a pandemic, as the above illustration shows. The country is reopening, Covid-19 cases are spiking again, and the nation’s test and trace program isn’t up and running yet. It’s not up and running, because there is no national test and trace program. And Trump has basically said he’s done with the virus, he’s not closing down the country again, and he expects Covid-19 to just go away. So all we have against a continuation of the first wave of Covid-19 are piecemeal test and trace programs, and they aren’t going super well. Partly because it’s a difficult thing to set up, and partly because Americans are so “concerned” about their privacy they aren’t cooperating with test and trace programs.

In other words, yes, Trump has made Covid-19 far worse than it could have been. However, and it’s a huge however, the rot long preceded Trump. Yes, Obama, or Biden, or Clinton or Bush or my cat could likely have done a better job fighting Covid-19 than Trump, but they still would have been crippled by the underlying structural problems that turned us into America the Can’t Do nation. Obama no matter what he would have done for example, he certainly wouldn’t have convinced the GOP to cooperate any more than they ever cooperated with him. And lack of any sort of national health care system isn’t something that can be fixed overnight.

This is one of the reasons I don’t get as upset about Trump as some people. He’s as much a symptom of the problem as he is the cause. (Oh, add our broken election process to the  “Sorry, nothing can be done” list.) So getting rid of Trump is going to be a fine thing, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not going to magically fix this country’s problems. I don’t know what is going to fix them, though I can dream. I’ve always regretted missing the last great liberal cultural wave, the 1960s. Maybe the wave of people tearing down statues and stuff portends a real movement. Liberals are the goddamn majority in America, maybe 2020 will be the year they decide they are tired of empty promises from the Dems, and make broad social change happen. A blogger can dream.

Just because they say it’s impossible, doesn’t mean it is. Gee, free health care, better infrastructure and education. Freedom of religion, which means the separation of church and state. Living wages, middle class and working class growing wealthier. Yeah, the hyper rich will have much smaller bank accounts, and the military will have to do with less, but all in all the right will suffer through it. No one will be forced to get an abortion or go to a gay wedding. The world that was being created in the early 70s … before Nixon and Reagan sold the country out to the military industrial complex. That’s today’s idle speculation and I’m sticking to it.

So yeah, Trump’s big come back rally in Tulsa was a flop. About 6,000 showed up, the Trump campaign was prepared for tens of thousands. His speech was apparently not one of his best, to be honest I didn’t listen to it. My guess he probably took this low turnout badly, Trump really thrives on his MAGA rally energy. He’s had a lot of setbacks lately. He’s basically betting everything on Covid-19 just going away or being forgotten by people. He’s saying the forest fire is going to go out by itself, the experts disagree. They think it’s gonna chug along until herd immunity sets in. And depending on how long acquired immunity lasts, Covid-19 might be with us to stay. The cold from hell.

Trump was out of his depth in reasonably good times, now he’s drowning in failure. Maybe downhill from here till January when he’s dragged from the White House (while screaming “I’m the President!”)  to the sight of the greatest Trump crowd EVER … cheering his departure and burning MAGA hats.

It’s fun to live in a time in history when “God only knows what the rest of the year will bring.” Take care everyone, who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Copyright © 2020 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.

(Image: Used without permission. Washington Post. Claiming Fair Use, historically important image,  etc. I’m a subscriber and support them FWIW.)