Besides a gag reflex, the picture of Trump and Melania standing in the shadow of Mt. Rushmore evoked a certain yearning for the days, long gone, when I felt blind patriotism. To see the two of them standing there pretty much destroyed any remnants of that vibe.

There was dictatorship and Stephen Miller in the air, and the feeling that here was a shell of a man and his trophy wife, impostors both, reveling in the latest photo op and the adoration of 7500 maskless lemmings. No patriotism, just revulsion and a certain sadness.

Did you know that Gutzon Borglum was big into the KKK? Looks like 2020 is the year of pulling back the curtain. What else are we going to learn about our “exceptional” nation?

July 4th.

Two hundred forty-four years sounds like a long time but also not that long, relative to other nations on earth.

It gets tougher to celebrate every year, especially the last three or four. I don’t have the same feelings, the same views regarding what this country stands for or means. American exceptionalism? Hardly. At the moment, we’re exceptionally lost. We’re embarrassing ourselves on multiple fronts. We’re taking the whole freedom thing way too far, given what’s upon us in the form of a deadly virus. Stupidity and ignorance are running rampant.

The President has come to us straight from a dark place. Vain, needy, shallow, cold, selfish, overmatched, underqualified, spiteful, humorless, visionless, delusional, largely useless. A mouthpiece for the vermin with whom he’s surrounded himself. A playground bully with Secret Service protection.

I don’t feel the same way I once did about America. Not much moves me about it. I guess I still hope that the ideal will emerge as reality, but we’re a long way from there (though this summer of discontent seems to be an indication that something big is brewing, and maybe good).

American exceptionalism? Let’s remove that from the lexicon. You want to paint a target on your back? Just keep talking up your exceptionalism. How vain, how needy, can we get?

Relative to other nations, America is the insecure teenager seeking validation, still figuring itself out. We’re the Jordan Spieth of nations- had a good run, but currently searching for its A-game.

When it comes to Covid-19, I’ve come to believe that most of what the average person on the street is saying about it is rumor, hearsay, conjecture, opinion, and politically tainted horse shit.

The only thing we can all count on is that the virus is still around. We should give it a wide berth and wear a freakin’ mask. It’s not the flu!

Dr. Fauci and others are crying “wolf!” for a reason: THERE IS ONE.

One of the concerns I have is that we will see the writing on the wall and be powerless to do anything about it.

We’ll hear the warnings about a second wave compounded by the regular flu season, but we will never completely emerge from the first wave because people decided to take matters into their own hands. They believed the lunatic fringe who said this was all a conspiracy, that masks only inhibit our beautiful Creator-endowed breathing apparatus (?!). They wouldn’t wear masks in part because the President and VP carried on as if there was no pandemic, or as if masks were a mark on their manhood, a contrived red/blue issue, somehow a signal of defeat, of weakness, or something only the Libtards would do.

People would be stubborn, ignorant, and stupid, exhibiting a gullibility that defied logic.

We’ll hear the warnings of the legitimate prophets-the scientists and epidemiologists- who say the second wave could be worse than the first. But we won’t be able to prepare for it because supplies of PPE and energy in general were depleted by the extended battle in Round 1.

What is this if not an unparalleled and staggering failure of leadership? And more evidence of a nation that has lost its way.

None of us had a say in being here.

Every now and then I think about that. Does it matter, though? I suppose one could use this as an excuse for being reckless and self-involved. A cop-out, as in, “I had zero say in being here, so no one is going to tell me how to live my life!”

Is there some cosmic reason for each life? Is each adorned with intrinsic meaning and value and purpose? Or do we have to manufacture those things for ourselves? Sometimes I feel like we can live our lives any way we want, and to hell with status quo and trying to impress.

But then I think about the movie I watched recently- Selma– and all my selfishness and me-first thinking seems so small-minded. Not everyone gets thrust into an MLK role. Since we’re here, though, we should be looking out for one another.

But what if we get to the point where everything is healed? What then? What would be left to do? Would life be interesting? Or would we just get bored, looking for reasons to get angry, looking for scapegoats, hoping for something or someone to gripe about? Could we handle the peace and tranquility?

It seems there will always be good and bad. Healing and wholeness will never be total in this life. There will always be struggle. So, good news?

Trump’s first mistake was carrying on as if he had won bigly.

Humility is not his strong suit, though, so the stage was set for four years of smoke and mirrors and a Presidency from hell.

The Trump campaign is holding a rally tonight in Tulsa, OK.

In the middle of a pandemic, when cases in Oklahoma are on the rise.

Who is Donald Trump? Who are his supporters, and how can they be so rabidly loyal to a guy who couldn’t care less about them?

From all appearances, here is someone who is willing to put over 19,000 people at risk just so he can get an ego boost. Is that what we’re looking at here? Is it really as simple as that?

Donald Trump needs an applause and adoration fix, coronavirus be damned?

As the days pass and Summer arrives, it is becoming clearer that we are going to need to muster more patience than we’ve ever been asked to muster. The virus caseload may be decreasing in some places, but the virus itself really hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s still around, ready to take advantage of anyone who drifts too close to someone who just returned from Tulsa or Florida or the county next door.

There is much about this that makes perfect sense and no sense at the same time. We know the virus thrives when people are in close proximity to one another and making no effort to take precautions. We know some people are stubborn or maybe just stupid. They know that the virus thrives in close quarters, but don’t care. It’s almost like they’re daring it to infect them.

Such hubris. Such ignorance. And such predictable outcomes. Not everyone contracts the virus, of course. But enough do, so the spread continues.

It has become apparent that what most likely will happen, for the remainder of the year and until an effective vaccine is widely available, is that people will decide to live life with a higher tolerance for risk. Another quarantine or stay-at-home order will be a much tougher sell for governors and mayors, so people are just going to carry on hoping that they and those they love don’t get sick, all the while reconciled to the possibility that that might indeed happen. This is all remarkable, infuriating, and frightening at the same time.

And what about this scenario: because Donald needs to look like a hero in time for the election, the Trump administration grasps at one last straw, removes the red tape and rushes through what we eventually learn (surprise, surprise) is an unproven vaccine.

Anyway, what is flu season going to look like?

So, where are we headed in the fall? I very much want to believe that we will have turned a corner on covid by then. I want to believe that cities and towns and municipalities across the country will use whatever reprieve they have now to rest, to replenish, and recharge. Sorry, the alliterative flow just happens sometimes.

Anyway, I want to believe all that. But of course I don’t, really. The number of cases is not dropping. It’s plateauing. The pressure is being sustained. There is a let-up in spots, but in many others the case numbers are not leveling off or going away. They’re rising again.

And this isn’t the second wave. This is the result of people having had enough of the restrictions and saying to hell with mandates and guidelines. This is people making decisions not only for themselves but for those around them. This is what it looks like to throw discipline under the bus, because…America! Because the wheels of commerce need to keep turning, because the whole system is based on production and work and making money. Because there is no safety net, there is no us. And apparently, many suffer from ADD.

But there is Fox News pushing the alternate universe narrative that the liberal Dems are to blame for everything. And there are many Americans who bow to nothing or no one, not even a soulless, undiscriminating virus that has infected most of the world, and cares not one bit about red-blooded, blindly patriotic and stubborn numskulls.

I hope we can avoid a second wave, because it could make the first one look like child’s play, something we won’t be able to handle at all.

I’m such a ray of sunshine.

If state leaders are suffering from “restriction fatigue,” then for Pete’s sake ramp up the testing and contact tracing so you can know where the hot spots are and can limit movement and interaction in a more focused way. We’ve been flying blind long enough! It seems people have long known what needs to be done but are just not doing it in a committed way.

And health care workers are still needing to re-use PPE? Are you kidding me?

Also, Donald Trump needs to be removed from the communication loop. He offers nothing. Nothing whatsoever.