{"id":1088,"date":"2020-10-04T20:46:24","date_gmt":"2020-10-05T00:46:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/?p=1088"},"modified":"2020-10-04T20:46:24","modified_gmt":"2020-10-05T00:46:24","slug":"on-current-events-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/on-current-events-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"On Current Events, Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

So I said this way the hell back in March<\/a>, which was only six months ago but feels at least six years past:<\/p>\n

Viruses are not Tinkerbell. They will not go away if you don\u2019t believe in them. What\u2019s happening in the US right now is the inevitable outcome of people pretending that science is just an opinion. That was never going to end well. \u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That comment has never felt\u00a0truer than it does right now.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I learned about Trump\u2019s COVID-19 diagnosis when the news hit Twitter around 1:30 AM my time on Friday morning. Ever since, I\u2019ve been seesawing back and forth between experiencing schadenfreude<\/i> and feeling like the worst Buddhist ever, because I\u2019m guessing my initial reaction <\/i>isn\u2019t the kind of thought one should find anywhere on the Eightfold Path<\/a>. \u00a0I\u2019ve been trying to refocus that wild emotional energy on hoping that Joe Biden stays healthy and safe, especially knowing that he could\u00a0have been exposed to COVID-19 during Tuesday night\u2019s debate.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mostly I\u2019m angry and sad, because this year could have gone so<\/em> differently. Trump knew from the start how bad this virus would be,* and he lied about it, and his supporters bought into his bullshit regardless of what was already unfolding in the rest of the world.\u00a0The simple act of protecting yourself from a virus became politicized, which should not have ever happened. Trump cares more about his precious economy than he does about the lives of the people he\u2019s supposed to be serving, and now here we are: 200,000 dead in the US, and no end in sight.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Yes, COVID-19 would have been bad no matter who was at the helm in the US; even countries with governments that have their shit together had problems. Would things have been this bad? This politicized? I don\u2019t think so.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And as I write this, the virus is ripping through top Republicans as if someone out there has an actual Death Note<\/a>, but for COVID-19. It\u2019s hilarious to me that some Republicans are hinting broadly that they\u2019re being \u201ctargeted.\u201d It couldn\u2019t possibly<\/i> be that the things some Republicans have been calling Democrats sheep for doing for the last six months\u2014quarantining or staying home as much as possible, wearing masks if we have to go out, and avoiding crowds\u2014are effective<\/i>, or something.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And fuck no, I don\u2019t feel sorry for Trump. I\u2019m only surprised it took this long for his idiotic \u201cIf I pretend this virus isn\u2019t that bad, it\u2019ll go away\u201d strategy to bite him in the ass. If I thought he might\u00a0learn something about hubris and arrogance from this, I might feel differently, but he won\u2019t.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Remember, people: Viruses are not<\/i> Tinkerbell. I\u2019m just as sick of isolation as you are. I don\u2019t like wearing masks. I haven\u2019t seen my family in ages. I\u2019ve missed out on things I really wanted to do. I never got to give my coworkers a proper goodbye. I\u2019ve already seen some of my favorite hangouts for the last time.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And I\u2019ve had it really, really easy<\/i> compared to so many during this whole nightmare. You know what would suck more than all those things? A ventilator, or a lonely death.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

*Should Bob Woodward have said something? I dunno. Probably. But be honest: Given what we\u2019ve seen this year, what do you think would have happened if he had? I think Trump would claim Woodward was lying, Republicans would believe him, Democrats would believe Woodward, and\u2026nothing would really be different now, I don\u2019t think.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Besides, Bob Woodward? He\u2019s not the President<\/b>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So I said this way the hell back in March, which was only six months ago but feels at least…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51,44,65],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1088"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1088"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1089,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1088\/revisions\/1089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}