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SURVIVING THE PANDEMIC: Ignore the President. Act like a Governor. Take Charge.
By
Published: Apr 05, 2020
Category:
Pandemic: Dispatches and Essentials
CAPTION: New York firemen applaud hospital workers at shift change.
“So let us not talk falsely now
The hour is getting late”
– Dylan, “All Along the Watchtower”
Before we start…watch this:
Heart pounding? Tears? Good. This is where I’ll get to today, but first, sadly, a racing heart and tears of a different kind…
The virus is peaking in New York (“like a fire spreading,” Andrew Cuomo said of Nassau and Suffolk counties) and New Jersey. Equipment shortages, exhausted responders — you know the list. Or will, shortly.
Bottom line: The federal government has failed us. Totally. Absolutely. Some of this is because stupid people were inattentive. And some of it seems to be deliberate — on live TV, they’re saying the once quiet things out loud.
You didn’t watch the press conference yesterday (Saturday)? Smart! This is what you missed…
The President astutely predicted the week ahead: ”Lots of death.” But maybe we get back to work soon. More imminently: church pews could be filled as early as Easter, April 12th. (Not a word about Seders: Passover starts Wednesday, the 8th. Forget about Ramadan, which starts on the 24th.) And, of course, there’s a miracle drug. “What do you have to lose?” Trump said about chloroquines as a COVID treatment, answering a question that had been directed to Fauci, who doesn’t agree. He scorned Navy hero, Brett Croizier: “It looked terrible what he did. To write a letter. I mean this isn’t a class on literature… I guess the captain stopped in Vietnam and people got off in Vietnam.” Later, Trump fired the Inspector General who endorsed the whistleblower’s claim that Trump’s “perfect” call was anything but, which led to Trump’s impeachment. Trump ranted about the whistleblower: “Somebody ought to sue his ass off.” (Translation: “If it wasn’t for that I G, I would never have been impeached, and no one would ever have known that I was extorting another country.” Update: The new Acting Inspector General is.. a White House lawyer.)
Lucian Truscott IV summed up the press conference:
He’s coming apart in front of our eyes. His body language was jumpy, manic, especially when someone else was talking. He couldn’t stand waiting for them to finish. I think they’re lashing him together with a cocktail of Adderall and Valium or that fast acting anti-anxiety drug Klonopin, and it’s working to get him out there on the stage, but once he’s there under the lights in front of the cameras and the press, even the drugs can’t hold him together.
Twitter: Everything he’s reading to you right now, he’s reading for the first time. He clearly does no preparation for this, which is why when he starts improvising, he’s often wrong.
But it’s worse than a reality show host melting down on live TV. Thanks to the smart people I follow on Twitter, we now know…
Instead of the federal government acting like the federal government — which it has functioned in every emergency before Trump became President — the government is sending medical supplies to vendors so they can sell them to desperate hospitals who have to compete with each other to “win” the business.
This system may be in place so, after distributors sell to the highest bidder, they kick back money to Kushner and Trump. And since the order was paid by the states, every dollar is profit.
Some conclusions:
Trump’s narcissistic sociopathy is creating two deadly, politically-driven realities: 1) A red state tribal loyalty/ideological purity/cult membership test. 2) A petty, vindictive, sadistic, revenge-driven vanity project against Trump’s personal and political enemies.
To the degree he is capable of rational thought, Trump long ago made a calculated bet that only his base mattered. That’s the South, the Christian Right, mostly male white investors.
Every segment of his base is on target for doom.
INVESTORS: In a judgment that seems Biblical, every dollar of gain from the “Trump boom” has been wiped out.
Outcome: Who thinks the market bounces back soon?
THE SOUTH: Nine of the ten states that have seen the most rapid increase in cases are states that voted for Trump in 2016, led by Texas, where the number of reported cases increased by 297 percent.
The Times: In the American South, a Perfect Storm Is Gathering
“What does it mean to live though a pandemic in a place with a high number of uninsured citizens where many counties don’t have a single hospital, and where the governor delayed requiring folks to stay home? Across the South, we are about to find out.”
Bloomberg: For decades, people in the 11 states that seceded during the Civil War — America’s poorest region — have suffered from a scourge of obesity and hypertension, which intensify the danger of the coronavirus and the Covid-19 respiratory disease that it causes. Four of the five states with the highest diabetes rates are in the South. And eight didn’t expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, leaving thousands of families without access to routine care, even as financially troubled rural hospitals wither away.
Outcome: The South will lose a war…again.
THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT: Trump told them he was the Second Coming, here to reestablish white Christian supremacy.
Outcome: Gonna take a miracle.
Here’s a safe bet: If you’re reading this, Trump was never your President. He never cared about you or the people and the causes you care about: immigrants, the poor, working mothers, children in cages, the preservation of Medicare, the environment, women, journalists.
He cares about money – his.
He cares about the election – his re-election.
Sarah Kendzior: It’s bizarre that people *still* don’t grasp that this administration doesn’t work for the people of the United States. As I’ve said a million times, it’s a transnational crime syndicate masquerading as a government. When Kushner says supplies are “theirs,” he means mafia cohort.
Most of the media — most visibly, almost every reporter at the daily press conference — won’t confront what seems, more and more, like obvious fact: The virus has no mercy. Trump has no mercy. The words I see more often now: genocide, mass murder.
In so many ways, Trump is the virus.
As the shit hits the fan, it seems increasingly important to me that we do everything we can to survive. At the political level: so we can walk through the rubble to a polling place and cast our vote. On the personal level: for our friends and lovers, and, most of all, our children. On the global level: so there will be survivors who are hard-wired for decency, honor and love.
K. has been working all week on what she calls “self-kindness.” Not getting up in the morning and feeling behind. Not blaming the obvious suspects. Not watching the news. Instead: understanding there’s nowhere to go. Understanding the crucial importance of kindness to others, and that the most useful thing she can do for others is listen — not dispense “thoughts and prayers” or woo-woo clichés. Just listen.
Doesn’t seem like much? It is just what Cuomo was saying in that video. Just what J.D. Salinger wrote: “She wasn’t doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together.” Just, in your heart and on a good day, what you think about yourself.
HOPEFUL VIDEO
Zubin Mehta’s 2-year-old grandson watches his grandfather conduct.
APPOINTMENT LISTENING: TONIGHT, 8 – 11 PM, “CAVALCADE”
WFUV — the station of Fordham University. 90.7 FM and streaming here — sets the bar for smart rock-and-country radio. In the last few months, it’s been my security blanket. And on Sunday nights from 8 to 11, I’m welded to “Cavalcade,” hosted by Paul Cavalconte. The music he plays is from no known set list — the entire history of music seems to be in his head. (You can also hear him, as a classical host, on WQXR.) And his commentary is wise and welcoming; I go to sleep comforted by a sign of intelligent life in an increasingly mysterious universe.
TODAY’S MUSIC
Conducted by Leonard Bernstein, The Berlin Celebration Concert is an historic performance marking the fall of the Berlin Wall. Performed on Christmas Day 1989 in the former East Berlin. If you’re not up to the whole thing, go to 1 hour 19 minutes for the Ode to Joy (here called the Ode to Freedom) and do not blink when the camera is on Bernstein. Note that he has no sheet music in front of him; he is conducting purely by ear and knowledge. Is this what civilization about, or what?
NEW ESSENTIAL: PUSHUP HANDLES
Yes, for muscle strength. And for increased definition in your arms, shoulders, back, chest, and abs — you’ll be the envy of everyone on the beach. I like it for this reason: pushups make me breathe faster and deeper. Bonus: the handles come with a U.S. Navy SEAL-inspired 21-day workout chart. [To buy Pushup Handles from Amazon, click here.]
And all Butler dispatches and product recommendations, all in one place, click here.
QUICK VIRUS CHECK: A TASTE TEST
It is said that one sign it’s coming to you is a loss of smell and taste. So fill a bowl with salsa. Can you taste it? If not, add a few drops of hot sauce. No taste? Add more hot sauce. Do you register the spice, the heat? Good.
TODAYS’S HERO: OREGON GOVERNOR KATE BROWN
On Twitter: New York needs more ventilators, and we are answering their call for help. We’ll be sending 140 ventilators to help NY because Oregon is in a better position right now. We must do all that we can to help those on the front lines of this response.
YOUR ZOOM BACKGROUND
Elle Décor has kindly served up better Zoom backdrops than books and a view of your laundry room. To my surprise, one is from an article I wrote.
BRETT CROZIER UPDATE
The Washington Post: 155 crew members of USS Theodore Roosevelt test positive days after the captain is ousted over his letter. 44 percent of the roughly 4,800-person crew have been tested; 1,548 have been moved to shore.
BRIEF AND GORGEOUS
Ben Platt, “Dancing Alone”
