The Isolation Diaries No. 33

“The past is uncertain, mobile. It shifts and rearranges back there. All might turn out and change back there yet.” Kevin Barry, Night Boat to Tangier

Sunny days in Santa Barbara, but so windy at times that the old windows in our apartment rattle. A gust pulls the back door shut with a bang. Our Covid-19 spring. SB remains in hibernation, though it seems more and more people are venturing out. Cautious optimism from local officials and Governor Gavin Newsome, the usual batshit happy talk from the White House. 

As of this writing, the Trump Death clock has recorded 55,642 deaths as a result of Trump’s incompetence.

The Orange Menace claims to be taking daily doses of hydroxychloroquine, a drug that has shown little to no efficacy against Covid-19. Despite medical evidence, Trump continues to tout the drug, saying he’s heard many stories about its effectiveness. Still hoping for a magic bullet. 

By mid-June, if not earlier, we will know if this re-opening gambit was worth the potential risk. If a flare-up of infections is going to happen, it should happen around that time. I think about Frank Snowden, a historian of infectious diseases, most notably the Black Death that struck parts of Europe off and on for nearly 400 years, who contrasted the public health response in Italy (Snowden was there, caught Covid-19, recovered) with that of the United States. Unlike here, where the message about the pandemic has been inconsistent, chaotic, contradictory, and politicized, Italy’s public messaging about the virus was consistent, focused on public health, not politics, sparing lives, not attacking scientific authorities or drenching the public with magical thinking and empty boasts day after day.  

As of this writing, the Trump Death clock has recorded 55,642 deaths as a result of Trump’s incompetence. This shocking number and the misery and sadness and grief it represents, should spell doom for Trump in November, even against a cardboard cutout of Joe Biden, but this is America and there’s a very good chance that the Electoral College will once again deliver victory for Trump. 

That thought is too depressing to contemplate at this early hour of the day, when I can hear birds chirping in the yard. 

Democrats are decent when it comes to governing, but hopeless when it comes to winning elections; Republicans have their message down pat, know how to perpetuate their power, but can’t govern their way out of a wet paper sack. Republicans can’t get over their ideological wall to deal with reality, while Democrats are so compromised by being joined at the neck with Big Finance that they have alienated millions of people who once supported Democrats, no matter what. 

And there we sit, on this slippery, dangerous slope. Our old nemesis, avarice, grins at us from higher up, dislodges a boulder with his foot, and laughs as it tumbles down. 

Spring of discontent, disaster, depression, denial, and dereliction. 

Sun climbing the bottlebrush tree, a crow squawks and is answered by a bluejay. Another Covid-19 morning.  

The Isolation Diaries No. 16

“He who has wandered in these mists, he who has suffered much before death, he who has flown over this earth bearing on himself too heavy a burden, knows it. The weary man knows it.” Mikhail Bulgakov

Numbers, abstract pandemic numbers. Over 17,000 deaths in the US, a number that is almost certainly underreported; 16 million people unemployed, also a number that is likely lower than the actual number. Mass graves in New York. Refrigerated trailers filled with the dead. Sirens wailing around the clock. 

Trump is the only one that believes the worst is behind us. He’s getting bored. 

Will Wisconsin see a big spike in Covid-19 cases after going ahead with its one vote, one potential death, primary election last Tuesday? Watch the numbers, but also watch who dies. Data from across the nation shows a grim pattern: Covid-19 infections and deaths are more predominant in poor communities of color, African American and Latino, where daily life is difficult, healthcare is below par or absent, decent housing is unavailable, and educational opportunities are scarce. The virus strikes hard in places that have suffered from deliberate neglect, where the water is polluted and the air is dirty. Poverty is always a factor in a pandemic. Imagine trying to practice social distancing in a cramped apartment housing more than one family group. Imagine the lives of low-wage workers who can’t work remotely, and won’t be paid unless they show up. 

I’m sure the emerging demographic data gives Trump a jolt of pleasure in his racist loins. He’s never cared for black and brown people. 

Thank you CVS workers. Thank you Ralphs workers. Thank you Trader Joe’s workers. Thank you doctors and nurses and technicians. Thank you delivery drivers. Thank you public servants. Thank you US postal workers.

And thank you to the people who warned us of this dangerous possibility, including Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Rachel Carson, and Sheldon Wolin. Why do we always ignore the true prophets? 

Hearing Trump jabber about re-starting the economy (the Malignant One must believe it’s as easy as flicking a light switch) I recalled something I read somewhere about the Black Plague and how the wealthy opposed calls from laborers for higher wages. Check this out from a scholarly article called The Economic Impact of the Black Death of 1347-1352:

“RULERS RESIST WORKERS’ DEMANDS FOR HIGHER WAGES

The plague had an important effect on the relationship between the lords who owned much of the land in Europe and the peasants who worked for the lords. As people died, it became harder and harder to find people to plow fields, harvest crops, and produce other goods and services. Peasants began to demand higher wages.

European rulers tried to keep wages from rising. An English law in 1349 tried to force workers to accept the same wages they received in 1346. A similar law, the Statute of Laborers, was issued in 1351. The statute said that every healthy unemployed person under 60 years old must work for anyone who wanted to hire him. Workers who violated the Statute of Laborers were fined and were put in stocks as punishment for disobeying the statute.”

That is essentially Trump’s call for a return to the business of America -- which is, lest we forget, making the wealthy wealthier -- even without a massive Covid-19 testing regimen to guard against returning to “normal” prematurely. Trump, stable genius that he is,  doesn’t believe widespread testing is THE prerequisite to everybody trotting back to the office, the auto body shop, or the kitchen. Trump wants the serfs to return to the fields, even if they drop dead shortly after arriving. 

Seeing news footage of long lines of people in Wisconsin waiting to vote made me think of all the so-called third world nations the US once laughed at…

The GOP, in particular, has made it very clear that they prefer certain people do not vote; they want to choose their own voters. The GOP admits this. 

Mighty Amazon is losing its shit over the actions of one man in New York state named Christian Smalls. Remember the name. Smalls single-handedly intimidated Amazon by organizing a walk-out to protest against unsafe working conditions in a massive Amazon fulfillment warehouse. He was fired, naturally. Amazon, the avatar of Predatory Capitalism, will not tolerate any agitation or unwelcome noise from its serfs. Work. Don’t dare complain. Who do you think you are? 

I watched again that strange White House briefing last Sunday in which Donald Trump sounded out of his mind, like a demented used car salesman, as he urged people to try hydroxychloroquine. “What do you have to lose?” Trump asked again and again. Take it, it’s great, very powerful. Hydroxychloroquine. Trump could barely pronounce it, but he wanted people to take it and see what happens. Might work, might give you a heart attack. But what do you have to lose? Look at this pill, this beautiful pill. So powerful, so wonderful. See for yourself. What do you have to lose? 

That bizarre performance failed to frighten a single member of the GOP to demand Trump be removed from office under the authority of the 25th amendment. If that’s not enough proof that the GOP is a death cult, I don’t know what is. 

This is going to be far worse than we imagine, both from a public health standpoint and an economic one. It won’t end one day and be gone, not by a long shot. The world will be dealing with Covid-19 fallout for years, and the US will not be exempt. Our country is hollowed out by forty years of predatory capitalism, the structures are weak and rotted, and the levers of power are in the hands of greedy, cruel, and incompetent people. The comfortable elites will try to delay the reckoning as long as possible, but the wave that is visible now will grow to tsunami proportions; many millions of human beings will be swept away.