Our Political Pandemic

We Americans are such strange and arrogant animals.

When the world is faced with a vicious, deadly pandemic, we Americans scoff.  Doesn't it know who we are?  We are the richest and the greatest nation on the planet.  No puny coronavirus can hurt us.  We are the greatest superpower in the world!  

Cue our national anthem now and play it softly in the background while I continue.

You see, this pandemic threat is a political thing with us.  Wave a pandemic in front of our faces and we'll come out of our tribal corners on a dead run.  If it looks like a government trap and it might cost our side some votes, we'll squash it like a bug.  We'll bury some data, make some speeches that there is no threat here, and tell them to just move along - nothing to see here.  At least, that would be the voices from the right side of the aisle.  They are worried about losing their votes and power in the U.S. Senate and House and the Oval Office in the 2020 elections.  They do not, under any circumstance, want anybody, anything, or any pandemic to rock their boat.  When the number of cases go up, they order the country to open up!  In other words, when the cases go high, they go low.

The other course of action is, of course, coming from those pesky, puny liberals.  They worry about their fellow Americans and try to protect us all from their coughs, sneezes, and loud voices spewing the virus into the air and  infecting others.  In doing so, their fellow citizens will do the same to protect them.  In other words, when the cases go low, they go high.

The well-used phrase, "We're in this together" is working great for the punier tribes, but for the big-and-tough crowd - not so much.  

I have yet to figure out why the toughies are so hell-bent on marching into an ICU and getting hooked up to a ventilator.  Lord knows there are enough folks who didn't have a choice in the matter when they ended up there.  And over 112,000 of them didn't get out alive, either.

We see the toughies on the beaches and in the bistros, and bars having a blast.  It's party time!  Businesses are closed or partly closed and workers are ready to have fun.  The problem begins when the fun turns serious, sickening, and so-long charlie.  Each reveler seems to have a self-fulfilling prophecy:  Party 'til you drop.

In the end, however, the toughies didn't cowtow to no  dadgum gov'mint jaspers tellin' 'em what to do.  No siree.

The problem with that is...neither did coronavirus!