Day 27

Demonstrators across the country violated social-distancing orders to call for the reopening of states and the American economy.  Yesterday alone, people gathered in Indianapolis, Annapolis, Austin, Carson City, Salt Lake City, Wisconsin, and elsewhere.  

I don't agree with the protesters and personally feel that the only way to get the country, nay the world, back on track is to continue to "flatten the curve," increase testing and exposure tracing, and properly supply hospitals and the front-line workers with the PPE and equipment they need to treat the sick and the infected.  But that's just my opinion.

What I find upsetting are my liberal and progressive friends and acquaintances on social media making fun on the protesters.  "Good," they've written, "let them all break quarantine and catch the covid-19.  Darwinian selection.  They many fewer Republican voters come November." 

First of all, while I know they're not seriously wishing death on those who disagree with them, they're still blaming the behavior on the protester's ignorance and they're not listening to what the protesters are actually saying.  Sure, there are some yahoos in the crowd saying that the pandemic isn't real or that the threat is overstated, and the so-called "president" is unnecessarily politicizing the protests. But others are saying that they're aware of the risks, but their lives are in limbo, they're out of food and money, and they're willing to face the dangers to return to work in order to feed their families. A $1,200 stimulus check helps, sure, but they've got a spouse and children and elderly parents to take care of, and $1,200 won't cut it given how long the shut-down is predicted to last.

Again, I disagree, but I'm sympathetic to their plight.  I don't wish death, either tongue-in-cheek or real, on them.  I wish that they had a real social safety net that wouldn't make them have to choose between bringing a deadly virus into their home or watching their children starve.  

If only.  If we only had a guaranteed living wage, payable to workers even when their employer goes out of business, this wouldn't exist.  If we only hadn't stigmatized "socialism" to the point where many Americans think there's something shameful if not downright subversive about accepting financial assistance.  If we had only earmarked for the workers even a small portion of the trillions of bail-out dollars being provided to the large corporations, without worrying if some of the workers would be getting more money from the assistance than they were getting whilst employed.

I'm not optimistic about our future.  Viruses have bought down empires throughout history.  The fall and decline of the Roman Empire was due as much to a virus as to Vandals and Visigoths.  Viruses, not Spanish conquistadors, bought down the Mayans and Aztecs.  The Black Plague decimated Europe, and Asian nations have flourished and faded based on the whims of microbes.

Even now, the supply chain is breaking down because of the pandemic.  Supermarkets ran out of toilet paper back in mid-March and still can't fill the empty shelves.  Meat-processing plants have been hit particularly hard, and slaughterhouses are closing due to lack of workers.  While this is arguably good for cattle, meat is a staple of many Americans' diet and it would be foolish optimism to think the supply-chain breakdown will limit itself to just meat production.  Delivery truck drivers are falling sick,  factories are shuttered, farmers are forced to dispose of their crops due to lack of markets, and no one will soon have money left to buy the few consumer goods still available.

I'm not saying we're all going to die from the coronavirus.  But the virus is exploiting the weaknesses already inherent in late-stage capitalist America, and the coming economic depression will impede the reopening of shuttered factories, abandoned processing plants, and idle farmland.  And all this while, we've been ignoring climate change, and the survivors of the pandemic, weakened and stressed by the depression, will have little recourse against the inevitable floods and droughts and wildfires and extreme weather events due to climate change.

The covid-19 pandemic isn't the end of the world.  But it may be the beginning of the end of America as we knew it.