One thing that needs to be made perfectly clear is that the more Donald Trump bellows about how “we’re back” and we need to resume our daily activities, the less we should listen to him. The more he urges a return to “normalcy,” the more we should dig in our heels and ignore him and wonder what the hell he’s up to. He and/or those around him are so desperate to win in November that he is going to say and do whatever it takes to make that happen, and to hell with the coronavirus.

We may have a vaccine before the end of the year, and does anyone doubt who’ll be yakking about who should get the credit? If there is a God in heaven, we’ll find Donald Trump crying in his non-alcoholic beer on the sidelines, wondering how he could have lost an election when it seemed, in his pea brain, that so much had ended up going so right.

He can’t emerge from this shit show smelling like a rose. He just can’t. (He sort of didn’t…)

You say stuff over and over again, you start believing it.

You get good at sounding like you mean what you say. You even sound patriotic when you need to. Take Joe Biden, for instance. I’ve never thought much of him, really. He’s always seemed a bit too slick for my liking. But Barack Obama liked him as a running mate, so he must have something going for him. And he’s the almost octogenarian we’re pinning our hopes on to end this nightmare that now includes a pandemic. Which seems entirely appropriate– that a pandemic unfolds on Trump’s watch. Why not? It’s somehow fittingly symbolic of the last three-plus years. The natural progression of things.

So who do we believe regarding the origins of the virus? Did it indeed jump from animals to humans in Wuhan, or was it manufactured and intentionally spread in order to disrupt the world order? Either scenario sounds plausible. While the latter sounds more like it comes from a place of paranoia and the minds of Fox News and conspiracy theorists everywhere, the former sounds like something born of and perpetuated by a certain naivete.  

Who knows what the truth is anymore?

I’m no economist, but the massive price tags for relief packages beg a number of questions. Is there a piper to be paid at some point? Are we watching, in real time, the groundwork being laid for a day when it will take a wheelbarrow full of money just to buy a loaf of bread?

Will the short-term relief provided by millions of $1200 deposits and billions$ in business loans (and more to come?) eventually give way to a river of tears, and hardship many of us cannot possibly imagine and would be unprepared to endure?

This pandemic is shaping up to be an unwelcome scourge of unprecedented scope and reach, sowing economic ruin from which many will never recover.

Or I could be wrong about this. I hope so.

Let’s be honest with ourselves.

The quarantines and stay-at-home orders aren’t going away anytime soon. People can ignore them, call them unnecessary and oppressive, over-reaching and “Draconian.” They can buy Donald Trump’s take on things if they want, but that would be the opposite of patriotic, whatever that is. How about idiotic?

Without widespread testing and such– never mind a vaccine– we are a long way from feeling confident about a return to anything close to our former ways of going about business. How can people not know this?

At some point- and that point has already arrived in places- people will decide for themselves how much risk they can tolerate, and then try to resume BAU. But this isn’t going to make the virus go away. They will need to prepare themselves for further avoidable sickness and loss of life, perhaps affecting themselves or someone they love. And they will reconcile all that with bluster and bravado by saying it’s just the price we pay for living free and not under the thumb of a Governor they’re convinced is some sort of dictator.

The coronavirus doesn’t give two shits about your need to be “free.” It won’t take into consideration your gullibility or refusal to think. In fact, it will feast on your stupidity and recklessness. And worse yet, it will infect and kill some who want nothing to do with the choices you’ve made for yourself.

Somehow, and sooner than later, this needs to be more about “us” than about “me.”

Donald Trump is a Twinkie that has actually reached its expiration date. It’s time for him to go. He and the rest of the empty calories who pass for… leaders?

It is enormously frustrating to see how a single comment from Orange Man can shift a conversation. Tom Wolf calls on the people of PA to abide by the stay-at-home order and threatens consequences for not doing so, then Trump opines that this stance is not only oppressive, but more a case of milking the quarantine to make him look bad on Election Day.

No one else has to work to make Donald Trump look bad. He does that all by himself, the heartless bastard.

Plenty of time to lament…

… that we exist in separate universes, unable and unwilling to listen, long ago giving up on efforts to walk a mile in anyone else’s shoes. Apparently we’ve seen and heard all that we’ve needed to see and hear. This is where I’m at.

I quickly start generalizing, stereotyping, making assumptions: you drive a pick-up truck with a ball sac hanging from the trailer hitch? Probably a Trump voter. You have a Confederate flag proudly displayed somewhere on that pick-up truck? Definitely a Trump voter. You like NASCAR? Sixty/forty you’re a Trump voter. You watch Fox News regularly? You rail against the “liberal Dems” and decry their Socialist agenda? You badmouth anyone who gets a handout as you collect your subsidies or cash your Social Security check or get medical treatment through Medicare, or your opiate-addled adult child is de-toxified through a state- or county-run addiction treatment program? Probably a Trump voter.

The thing about key players in the Trump administration is that there is little reason to trust any of them. They’re always trying to put out the fires Trump starts, trying to placate and keep him happy. And most come across as incompetent goons and doormats, anyway. The VP, the AG, Ben Carson, Betsy DeVos, the press secretary who’s just another pretty face Trump found somewhere.

They’re all well-trained in the art of misdirection, can spin a yarn with the best of them, tell you lies with conviction, say ridiculous things with a straight face. And, as always, mystifyingly loyal.

Then there’s Stephen Miller. He and Kellyanne Conway (what does she do, exactly?) are in a class by themselves.

I have no faith in any of them. The fact that they were willing to take jobs in this administration is a red flag. Do they consider it an honor, for some reason? Or is it all just a head trip, that lust for public recognition, to be in a position of power, an insider?

No one voluntarily becomes part of the Trump administration because they want to “help people.” That’s such a quaint notion.

I feel it’s not my place to take pot shots at some who want to reopen things and get back to work. I’ve been pretty comfortable, not bothered by lack of income or food or a place to lay my head at night. My main gripe is with those who want to reopen simply because they need a haircut or don’t like being told what to do. Or they feel “oppressed,” their constitutional rights having been trampled on. Who told you that?

Oh, please. Cue the violins.

Don’t listen to Donald Trump! He has nothing good to say. He says hardly anything worth tuning in for. He’s probably not an idiot, but he is heartless. The only thing he cares about, ultimately, is himself and his prospects for staying in the limelight. He needs the adulation, the kudos, the pats on the back.

It should be of concern to all of us that the person who occupies the highest office in the land possesses the emotional maturity of a 6-year old, and has spent a good portion of his life being nothing more than a giant dickhead.

Isn’t there something inherently disturbing about a headline that reports California hospitals are losing $14 billion? One could argue that this is the Achilles heel of the American system: healthcare that’s based on cash flow. One could also argue that quality healthcare isn’t a commodity to be sold and traded and inventoried. It’s not a widget or an automobile.

It is difficult not to assume that the bottom line looms as large as any consideration given to patient care. It shouldn’t have to be a balancing act! Quality of care gets lost in efforts to stay PROFITABLE?! My word. This whole damned system is ill-conceived, nothing but corner cutting, compromising health and well-being because of out-sized concerns over a facility’s continued financial viability.

Which means that people get lost in the shuffle, both staff and patients. They become expendable, somehow. Statistics, as in, “Well, we of course need to minimize the detrimental effects on peoples’ lives, but a few casualties along the way are better than many casualties.” It’s all in the numbers. People as numbers. Not people as people, most with names and others who love them, and who, if asked, would probably prefer not to become statistical footnotes, the sad consequences of financial triage, of methods and a system based on tenuous sustainability, on the need to stay afloat. To either find the money somewhere, somehow, or die.

A better healthcare system might be one where no one has to worry about survival of the fittest. Where quality healthcare is a priority across the industry, a given, accessible by all, funded with a steady stream of dollars from the government, and not based on capricious fee structures and insurance premiums and competition. Basically receiving good care only if you can afford it.

That last qualification should make peoples’ ears burn, and just plain piss all of us off. But it won’t. Because it turns out a person’s health and well-being are commodities, after all. No different than toilet paper and hand sanitizer, or a nice New York strip steak.

Twenty-seven years ago.

The obvious question is “Why now?” And the answer is “Of course now.” Turnabout is fair play, right? This is just politics as usual. Scour the bushes and try to sully a reputation with accusations of an ancient, alleged sexual indiscretion. It hasn’t seemed to hurt Trump, and his hiccups are more recent. But what do you want to bet that this has a more damaging effect on Biden’s chances?

In addition to coronavirus and murder hornets, now we have to put up with another one of these sordid back and forth she said-he did episodes. Make it go away, Joe.

Or maybe he should just go away. He’s the best the Democrats can do against Trump? How much can he really have left in the tank? This has disturbing similarities to four years ago, when it seems the feeling was that it was just Hillary’s time. And that ended well.