July 4th Weekend Update: Dangers and Memories

This will be a fateful weekend for the United States of America--perhaps the most fateful 4th of July weekend since the first one.

Will its citizens heed the clear danger, or will many replicate the foolhardiness of Memorial Day weekend which--the experts concur--began this explosive surge of covid cases?

Will the current phenomenon of the Entitled Tourist-- Karens and Kens in shorts-- continue to arrogantly flout mask-wearing and other norms of civilized conduct in the covid crisis, as they have locally in Trinidad and tragically in Myrtle Beach, with its ongoing and exported outbreak?  Will Floridians show more restraint and common sense that their governor?

Tank positioned at Lincoln Memorial for Trump's DC 4th

This weekend was designed by the Trump campaign to be a federal government-paid extravaganza of triumph and Keep American Great symbolism for Trump, with elaborate, ominously militaristic and (especially given the context) obscenely expensive celebrations in Washington and then Mount Rushmore, where the danger of wildfire from fireworks mounts the danger of a wildfire of infections.  Will Washingtonians reject all this, heed common sense and their mayor and stay home?  Will the stands be empty in South Dakota?

Governors who opened too soon and too fast, and tragically joined the Carnival Barker in Chief in giving the impression that things were safe, are abruptly trying to prevent the crowds in bars and parties that lit the flames of the current out of control epidemic.  States and even some national Republicans are being scared straight on the subject of masks.

The official celebrations will be telling, but it may be some time before we know about behavior across the country, because there will inevitably be enough examples of suicidal and murderous goings-on to inspire click-bait stories.  Given the large percentages of Americans who say they support public health, wear masks and see the covid crisis as dangerous, it seems remarkable that we're seeing such a large outbreak.

Things are going to be bad enough--catastrophically bad--even without a new explosion of infections from this weekend.  Individual states and the country as a whole are breaking records for infections every day now, hospitals in several states are already overwhelmed.  But this weekend will determine how much worse--apocalyptically worse-- it could get.

Testing has largely broken down in many states as well, and there are pockets of resistance to contact tracing.  The testing problems are the fault of the federal government, as are the shortages of equipment--problems from the spring which were never adequately addressed, in an epic and humiliating American failure.

The problems with compliance and the resistance to masks and contact tracing however are more directly the failures and responsibility of individual Americans, as well as the lunatic politics that Republicans largely embrace, when they aren't fomenting them.

Theoretically, many businesses should be able to remain open and employ people, provided everyone plays by the rules of masks and physical distancing.  But that hasn't been happening to the degree necessary, so in this current surge, things are going to stop again.

The NBA wants to finish its season in a protected bubble in Orlando, but that plan is starting to look like a Disney fantasy.  Players are testing positive to the extent that one team--the New Jersey Nets--has lost all of its stars and pretty much its starting lineup.  That team has gone from a favorite for a playoff spot to almost no chance.  It's likely only a matter of time before the whole thing gets cancelled.  Ditto the baseball season.  Ditto the NFL season.

The Republican National Convention is scheduled for Jacksonville, Florida, in a state vying for the worst current outbreak. Jacksonville is now mandating masks indoors. The big acceptance speech in a crowded enclosure with thousands of shouting devotees of the cult--that's not going to happen either.

Former presidential candidate and Trump surrogate Herman Cain attended the Tulsa rally.  He's in the hospital with covid.  VP Pence postponed a campaign trip to Arizona when his Secret Service protection advance team tested positive. That's all going to keep happening.

Meanwhile, another bad week for Trump--so bad that rumors grow that he'll drop out of the 2020 race, or even resign the presidency.  Anything's possible these days, but neither is likely unless severe depression overcomes monumental narcissism.

 More folks however are waking up to the fact that we haven't had a functioning President since 2017, and don't have one in this stunning hour of need.  But election day is too close and Congress too cowardly for any move towards a replacement, however justified.

Some fear a panic move by the Apprentice Dictator to become a real dictator, but though I've been warning against Homegrown Hitler since 2017, I am less fearful of that outcome now than I have ever been.  For me the pivotal moment was the military clearing of protesters from Lafayette Park.  Had that act received public support, and especially had the military justified its actions, then the current and oncoming chaos would be the perfect opportunity for seizing dictatorial control.

But the Park gambit failed with the public, and the highest echelons of the military backed away in horror.  Even the National Guard freaked out.  Now Trump's approval rating is sinking fast into the abyss, and more than half of registered voters in a recent poll said there were no conditions under which they would vote for him to remain in the White House.  His mystique is gone.  Stop the presses!--the Emperor is naked!

On the other hand, there is no other potential authoritarian leader--no General, no governor, not even a rabid right culture hero--with enough power or public support to stage a coup, so we're probably safe from that as well.  All in all, we're probably stuck with him until January 20.  Or Pence, which isn't much of an upgrade.

This past week we might also have been reminded of a time when we had a President.

The saga of George Floyd began when a teenager agreed to accompany a younger child to a local store.  She saw a man held down on the ground by cops, and shot the video seen and heard round the world.

Spontaneous and then organized protests across the country sounded a surprisingly responsive chord among Americans of all kinds.  Floyd's words of "I can't breathe" became a global battle cry, but it likely was the final dying call by this six foot tall black man for his dead mother that struck the universal heart.

Though the recognition of deeply embedded institutional and cultural racism and resulting changes continue at a dizzying pace, that saga left the main stage with George Floyd's funeral, and it was just before the funeral that President Obama called George's brother.  Their conversation lasted a half hour, and when it was over, said Reverend Al Sharpton, "That was the first time, I think, that the Floyd family really experienced solace since he died."

And so we are reminded of a President who shed angry tears over the deaths of children shot and killed in their classrooms, who sang "Amazing Grace" at a service honoring members of a black church killed in a hate bombing, almost precisely five years ago.  A President who visited wounded soldiers, who comforted hurricane victims, who rose to every emergency, and whose conscientious attention meant that many disasters were avoided.

So it is with high and mixed emotions that we may imagine what living through the covid crisis would have been like had it happened between 2009 and 2017.  We certainly would not be experiencing what we are now, and what no other civilized nation on Earth is experiencing.

Trump called George Floyd's brother, a brief monologue that caused only frustration and anger, not solace.  Obama offered him comfort but also hope. We're all going to need that the rest of this year.