Pay us to stay home, pay us parents to do what we signed up to do when we had kids in the first place — to actually watch them and coach them instead of sending them off to daycare, I mean, “school” — and increase COVID-19 testing and contact tracing. That’s all we’d have to do to rein in the virus, just for a few months. What are you worried about? Adding to the national debt? It’s already higher than it’s ever been in history. Truth. Or are you scared that your kids will bother you while you’re WFH? Legit concern, which brings me to my next point: Let’s put school on hold for a few months if not a year. Let’s keep the kids learning and let’s keep challenging them remotely, but let’s hold off on all of the standardized testing for a bit. Colleges looking at high school seniors have, or should have, a variety of other ways to evaluate students than just STARR or any other big test. Maybe once these “COVID grads” reach college, they can be funneled into STARR-like remedial classes for a semester. Whatever we do, we can’t force all students back into classrooms to please Dear Leader. Even if he has your support (is your head OK?), no politician is worth your offspring. Especially this one, who has paid more to China ($188,561) and porn star Stormy Daniels ($130,000) for a grand total of $318,561 than in taxes to this very fine Republic ($750), who has separated the parents of 545 children, who owes more than $400 million in debt to unnamed sources, who has, since staining the highest office in the land, golfed 283 times to the tune of $141 million to taxpayers, who is claiming a $72.9 million tax refund in his battle with the I.R.S., and who is mostly responsible for 222,000-plus deaths from COVID-19.
Only a wounded lame duck would politicize saving lives. That schlub in the White House does not care about you — unless you’re white, a member of his golf club, or someone who pulls down a cool mil a year. That guy called for schools — and businesses — to reopen during the pandemic only to satisfy his sick political goals. He. Does. Not. Care. About. You. Never forget that. And, remember, this is the same cult figure who inspired our spineless Lt. Gov. to say that Grandma and Grandpa should sacrifice themselves for our economy. OK, Danny boy, will do, but you first, pal. Honestly, the biggest problem with this plan as it’s laid out above is that you might wreck your Land Rover on your way to getting tested. That’s it. That’s the biggest obstacle.
We can all agree that this country is in the dumps. Whites and Blacks are ready to go to war with each other, and that guy whose name I can’t even say right now in the Offal Office is only encouraging the mutual hatred. More than 23 million are on jobless programs, and as part of that we still have no plan moving forward to combat the pandemic and consequent lockdown. We indeed will have a plan on Jan. 21, once Joe Biden is sworn in as the nation’s 46th president, but until then, Dear Leader, his enablers in Congress, and his staffers at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue are content to let us all know that the administration is “not going to control” the virus and/or the pandemic. Giving up has never counted as a strategy in the United States, ever, but it does now with this White House. #shame
This is because tRump is not a leader. He’s a conman masquerading as U.S. president who spends all of his time on the shitter tweeting out even bigger turds than the ones that plop into his golden toilet bowl after a few rails of chopped-up Adderall. With the exception of a few million nostalgists for the days of white rule, the entire planet can’t wait for him to lose and go to prison. For tax fraud and emoluments probably, hopefully for rape — exactly 26 women have made credible accusations against him. Imagine if that were Obama. There’d be more white people rioting in the streets than after a stupid national championship victory.
Just the other day, an epidemiologist who helped eliminate smallpox in the ’70s told The New York Times that he sees DT’s stark lack of a response as “a colossal failure of leadership. Of the more than 200,000 people who have died as of today, I don’t think that 50,000 would have died if it hadn’t been for the incompetence.”
The scourge of COVID-19 hangs squarely on the orange guy’s shoulders. “In retrospect,” the Times continued, “Trump did almost everything wrong. He discouraged mask wearing. The administration never rolled out contact tracing, missed opportunities to isolate the infected and exposed, didn’t adequately protect nursing homes, issued advice that confused the issues more than clarified them, and handed responsibilities to states and localities that were unprepared to act. Trump did do a good job of accelerating a vaccine, but that won’t help significantly until next year.
“Most striking,” the Times went on, “Trump still has never developed a comprehensive plan to fight COVID-19. His ‘strategy’ was to downplay the virus and resist business closures, in an effort to keep the economy roaring — his best argument for re-election.”
His play backfired, because by corralling the virus, he could have protected business. Since May, more than 8 million Americans are now technically impoverished thanks to Dear Leader’s nonreaction. Though the average U.S. president’s power is limited to acting like a Pez dispenser on money allocations, he or she has a lot of soft power, setting the tone overseas, guiding the unmoored at home, bringing people together. The guy in the White House right now cares only about himself and enriching himself and his family while on taxpayers’ dime. If you haven’t already, vote blue down the ballot, starting at the top with Biden, our next president, who actually cares about healing our racial wounds, who, perhaps because he’s the father of one, would never refer to U.S. soldiers as “suckers” and “losers,” who respects life, all of it, not just embryos until they’re born, and who actually goes to church. Vote for Biden now to stop the nightmare, and then four years from now, if Dems get their heads out of their asses, which is still in severe doubt, we can talk about fine-tuning our precious experiment in democracy. Right now, autocracy is on the rise, and its name is … I still just can’t say it. And never will. — Anthony Mariani
The Weekly welcomes submissions from all political persuasions. Please email Editor Anthony Mariani at anthony@fwweekly.com.
Way to throw teachers under the bus.
Talk about acuity of the voter influence this fall.