The Isolation Diaries No. 22

“No longer were there individual destinies; only a collective destiny, made of plague and the emotions shared by all.” Albert Camus, The Plague

American flags. Red MAGA caps. Camo hunting vests, jackets and pants. AR-15 rifles. Confederate flags. A few Nazi flags. Holstered pistols. Signs demanding liberty from lockdown. Don’t tread on us, the real Americans who want to get on with our lives.  

The protests against social distancing, business and school closures, curtailed church services, are likely to be the flash point, bound, sooner or later to take a violent turn. Egged on by far-right websites, FOX News, and Donald Trump -- whose administration issues revised social distancing guidelines on Thursday, only to have Trump tweet LIBERATE MICHIGAN, LIBERATE MINNESOTA, LIBERATE VIRGINIA, on Friday, further proof of how little coherence matters to Trump -- the issue morphs from public safety and health to evil government intrusion and an abridgement of personal liberty. How’s that for rhetorical judo? Who comes up with this stuff? The ever-servile and unscrupulous Bill Barr is on the case, opinning that his Department of Justice might support suits against governors who refuse to lift social distancing restrictions. To the slaughter, cries Barr. 

No protest thus far from Lindsey Graham or Devin Nunes or Marco Rubio or Rand Paul about states’ rights, federalism, and small government. 

Apparently, the protesters believe that some governors are deliberately sabotaging their state economies in order to make citizens suffer even more. Or maybe they believe the imposition of social distancing is a power grab by Trump’s many devious enemies. 

What Trump wants is obvious: to get the serfs and servants and toilers back to work to juice the stock market, which is central to Trump’s reelection. Human sacrifice. There are more than 22 million unemployed people in the US, and millions more in India, and China is still finding its footing. The global economy isn’t going to snap back any time soon. We’re at the start, the end is a dream.   

Watching clips of these protests, resisting the urge to dismiss them out of hand as the work of a small minority of misguided souls, which, despite media amplification I think they are, I wondered (for about ten seconds) how local authorities would react if armed African Americans or Latinos marched on a state capitol? Why is it that police departments treat armed white protesters with such leniency and tolerance? We know why, it’s the history of America, it’s white privilege in its fullest incarnation. We know this plot inside and out. White protesters gather; black and brown protesters riot. White people get in scuffles with the police; black and brown people assault the police. White protesters are deemed peaceable; black and brown protesters are deemed violent. 

What this pandemic has shown is that the vast majority of Americans are decent, kind, reasonable, adaptable, with enough sense to comply with professional advice that gives them the best chance to survive. New Yorkers, hardest hit, have been phenomenal examples of courage and grit. Those who take to the streets with their guns and MAGA caps and Nazi flags are a minority, but they garner an inordinate amount of media attention, far more than workers at Amazon and Whole Foods who have walked off the job for lack of protective gear. I feel, however, that the rational center will not hold, and too many states will cave to the desire for a normal feeling moment, even if that moment turns out to be a grave mistake as most public health officials believe it will. 

The HBO series, The Plot Against America, ended this past Sunday. Unlike the novel, where life returns to an FDR sort of normalcy, the series ends on a note of ambiguity. Did Roosevelt win another term, or were enough ballots destroyed to keep FDR from another term? We don’t know. Neither do the fictional Levins.  

Trump’s daily BS show, Fake President, continues to muddle along, one episode similar in tone to the one that preceeded it. Trump congratulates himself repeatedly for things he didn’t accomplish, blames anyone else he possibly can for his multiple, lethal failings, jabbers in circles and into blind alleyways and dusty doorways, lies, gesticulates, snarls and preens. He’s where he wants to be, before a camera, dictating the story, weaving a spell of deception and denunciation and denial and death.  

I stopped watching. I’ve seen enough. The question is the same as it has always been: what can we do about Donald Trump? I’m still of the opinion that Trump will not leave even if he loses to Joe Biden by significant margin. He’ll go immediately on the offensive with massive voter fraud claims, he’ll sue, and battle House Democrats with even more lawlessness than he has to this sad point. It’s still a long way to November. If you pay attention it’s easy to see what Trump’s trying to do, which is rewrite history almost as it happens. A few White House correspondents have finally begun to push back, but in general, the American press is too deferential to power. Trump should have fried over a spit by now. 

Coming home from a short stint in the office I ride up State Street. There’s more vehicle traffic today, some workmen, the homeless, and a solitary pedestrian or two. The man I saw camped in the doorway of a closed store yesterday has a female companion today; their belongings are spread out on the sidewalk. I see a UPS truck and an armored truck. 

Maggie Haberman of the New York Times must be pissed at Trump. Haberman was one of the reporters of the recent Times piece that detailed Trump’s failures. After calling the NYT fake news, washed up, soon to fail and disappear, etc., Trump used a cherry-picked audio clip of Haberman praising Trump for his China ban. So if the NYT is nothing but fake news, why is Trump using its reporting to make his case for him? Did Trump think no one would notice? Even you can’t have it both ways, Donald. 

I fear that cynical, power-mad people will make the Coronavirus about the Other, whether China, the World Health Organization, the poor, or immigrants. The ugly is never far below the American consciousness. The virus is the enemy, not the place where it originated. Pandemics happen, over and over. This one’s not over yet. 

It’s day by day.