Beware the one who doesn’t drink and has no sense of humor.

The fears are real. Based on past and current performance. If Trump gets re-elected, we can kiss our collective ass goodbye. There’s so much to dread with another four years of this monster. So, it can’t happen.

This nation has been hijacked and taken hostage. There’s literally nothing to smile about when it comes to Trump. He’s a repository for all that is dark and ugly. I’ve never seen anything like it- someone who’s so willing to create chaos if it serves his ends. He truly appears to be an authoritarian wannabe. We should have seen this coming when he descended that damned escalator.

Descent, alright. It was writing on the wall, metaphor for much of what has happened since.

Nancy Pelosi is 80 years old. How can her heart still be in what she’s doing? She seems feisty and engaged, and I’m glad she seems unafraid to square off against the Donald. But still. She’s 80. I know this sounds awful, but she’s 80.

Our country is run by career politicians who keep getting re-elected and staying until they die. While she’s not under appointment like a SC justice, it ends up being like that. She and Mitch McConnell and others serve either until they expire or they decide they can’t do it anymore. Or they get defeated in an election, eventually, maybe. Are their hearts still in their work, or are they just in love with the lifestyle and benefits? Are “stability” or “continuity” or “familiarity with the workings of Congress” good enough arguments for someone to stick around for 30 years or more?

How about no more than two consecutive terms, 8 years max for Senators and Representatives? That should be enough time to effect positive change, or take up space without doing irreparable damage to one institution or another.

It seems fishy to me that Trump restarts the Covid press conferences shortly after the redirection of statistics from CDC to HHS.

Seems like the door is now opened to manipulated data that he or others can hand pick to paint whatever picture they feel needs painting.

Or is this just unwarranted cynicism and suspicion?

How is it remotely possible for anyone to still support Donald Trump? The only answer I can come up with is that people are gullible and desperate. Stubborn, too.

Take a closer look, people. Dare to take a closer look. Look into his scowling countenance, his empty eyes, his empty soul. Listen to the words that ooze from him like sewage bubbling up in your back yard. Look at the people with whom he surrounds himself. Then decide if you still think he’s the person for the job.

This pandemic disaster is in no small part his doing (and yours, too, since you believe the virus is a hoax and masks are for suckers and wimps). Our new standing in the world as laughingstock and object of scorn and pity is in no small part because of him. He’s not a leader. He’s not even fully human. He is dead inside, a thousand times worse than the Grinch. Yet you seem to love him. This can only be because you don’t want to admit your mistake, your miscalculation. You can’t concede anything to us pansy socialist libtards who saw the writing on the wall, but who obviously hate America and want to turn it into a nanny state.

Wow, you really will believe anything.

In your own estimation, you may be patriots and you may love America. But your patriotic fervor comes with strings attached, blind spots and caveats. You may think it’s love, but it’s really something less.

I realize now that the America I used to believe in was in some ways a figment of my imagination. This is what can happen as you get older and are given occasional peeks behind the curtain. Still, there was something upright and pure about my once-upon-a-time America. I was proud of it, thought it could do no wrong. Heck, fifty-one years ago today Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the moon. Then walked on it! That was a heady time, something to celebrate after a rough 1968.

Back then, I pledged allegiance without reservation. I viewed the flag as a powerful symbol of freedom. But equality had never been something I gave much thought to. I didn’t spend a lot of time pondering the reality that other Americans didn’t really feel like they were Americans, didn’t feel welcomed or that they belonged here. They saw the flag differently. They saw the moon landing effort differently. They saw, and see, many things differently.

Nation building, it turns out, is more complicated and less virtuous than the version we we’ve been fed in our history books. It is a ruthless, dirty business. Someone is always getting caught in the bulldozer treads.

The flag means less to me now than it once did. I’m not proud of this “exceptional” country the way I once was. I’m angry with it, sad for it, wondering if it will survive much longer. Wondering if it can emerge from the current darkness and confusion.

In the back of my mind, words like “resilience” and “hopefulness” still rattle around. And these are what we need now, in the throes of a pandemic, in the midst of unrest and increasingly acute economic hardship, and with the likes of Donald Trump running the show and poisoning everything.

If we get the opportunity to look back on these days, I hope we can see them as catharsis, as revelation, as the moment when we as a nation looked in the mirror and finally didn’t like what we saw.  

If governors do their job and lead with a level head, mindful of data, and they stick to their guns, they get hit with opposition for being too dictatorial, not business-friendly enough. They get attacked for doing their job and making decisions and trying to protect the public. But the infection rates and hospitalizations drop.

If they decide to kiss Trump’s ass and disregard precautions and open early, they end up with a short-lived period of pseudo-normalcy followed by sky-rocketing sickness, maxed-out ERs, exhausted doctors and nurses, a drain on precious PPE, and businesses that have to close again anyway.

What bothers me is that the former course of action hasn’t been adopted by every state. There are no longer adequate words to capture the futility of trying to understand the vast differences of opinion and adopted strategies.

Andrew Cuomo adopted a rational and sane strategy and stuck to it. Ron DeSantis and his kindred idiot in Georgia just decided “No one will tell us how to handle things, except the Almighty Donald. We’re still fighting the Civil War and this time we’re gonna win. We have rights.”

Maybe they also have blood on their hands.

Here we are 7 months into this disaster and it could have been under control by now, if we had just worn masks and hunkered down for a month. But we couldn’t grasp the seriousness, and we couldn’t wear masks early on because there weren’t enough to go around (still aren’t, for healthcare workers). It took a while for the cottage industries to ramp up.

The President said that it was just gonna go away. Many believed him, and apparently still do.

There was no direction, no guidance we could all agree on. The red/blue curse followed us into this battle. The states were on their own. Accordingly, it looks like we’re on the verge of losing control in some places, if that hasn’t already happened. This in no small part because large enough groups of the population confuse certain inalienable rights with the realities and demands of a universal, existential threat like a pandemic.

These are insane arguments about rights and freedom, because the virus doesn’t care. It simply continues to have a field day all over the place. The mayor of Atlanta puts a mask requirement in place, but the governor says, “not so fast.”  How can this be? That loud smacking sound we’re hearing is tone-deaf leaders with their lips firmly pressed against Donald Trump’s ass. How’s that for a visual?

This is insanity on steroids.

Sometimes, don’t you just want to be rid of the whole mess, wake up one morning and realize it was the proverbial bad dream? Because everything is swirling, everything is rotten, ugly, depressing, emitting an odor of decay and doom without a hint of hope or positivity or cheerfulness.

Donald Trump and his whole administration have to go as soon as possible. His presence and that of those around him is stultifying. He is slimy, conniving, humorless, dangerous. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve said this to myself, or felt this way. It’s just darkness and lamentation every fucking day.

The only light comes from hoping we vote him out of office on November 3. This is our only hope. We need hope now, we need to hold onto the possibility of a return to some semblance of capable governance and leadership, even if it comes in the person who’s much closer to 80 than 70.

Because many are yearning for a sensible, calming voice amidst all the clamor and noise. Someone who speaks plainly and knowledgeably, rather than out of his ass.

It was good to hear a medical doctor confirm what I and many others have wondered regarding the coronavirus.

In theory, if we all masked, distanced, isolated, and otherwise minimized our movements for 1 month, the virus would be gone, or significantly mitigated. This will never happen, but it makes sense. The virus would have limited means of transmission, few hosts, and it would die off.

Again, between necessity and arrogance/stupidity/ignorance, this will never happen. There would be segments of any population who wouldn’t be able to shelter in place. People need to eat, they need to work their essential jobs, so there would always be a certain amount of movement and exposure.

And the people prone to unintelligent decisions would be the ones to really throw a wrench in the works, because real Americans aren’t going to let a fabricated left-wing conspiracy keep them from living their damn lives.

From all appearances, Gov. Ron DeSantis is a flaming idiot who is in way over his head. Florida is reeling from a record caseload of covid and all he can do is make convoluted, feeble attempts at dispelling the gravity of the situation.

Yet another Trump lackey, butt sniffer, and human dunce cap who doubts the science and stands behind this dangerous belief about constitutional rights and economic necessity taking precedence over precautions and a more measured approach.

It’s hard to watch.