Your Fear Is My Problem

In the early days of the pandemic, many conservatives insisted that Covid-19 was no big deal because the fatality rate was only about 3%. So even if every American caught the virus, the claim went, we shouldn’t get too worked up when 3% of the country dies. 

By this logic, the Civil War was a minor affair, because it killed only 2.5% of population.

In any case, all that gibberish about the coronavirus being no worse than the common cold has mysteriously disappeared within conservative circles. In fact, there is some evidence that Republicans are finally taking “the coronavirus more seriously.”

Is it the fact that America’s response to the pandemic, by any objective standard, has been abysmal? Is it because we are closing in a quarter million deaths, a ghastly number that once seemed unimaginable?

No, it’s because one old man who refused to wear a mask has now caught the virus.

Yes, in a development that is either ironic, karmic, predictable, joyous, shocking or horrifying — depending upon your viewpoint — our supposedly invincible chief executive is currently fighting off the virus that he has both cavalierly dismissed and criminally downplayed. He has checked himself out of a top-tier medical center, where he enjoyed premium healthcare for free, so that he could return to the White House and resume his busy schedule of tweeting all-caps insults and jarring non sequiturs.

So how will Trump’s infection affect the election?

Fuck if I know.

So rather than analyze the future, let’s look at how we got to this point, where members of the president’s own family believe that the guy may be cracking under the pressure.

The catalyst, as it is for so much of the conservative movement, is fear.

Yes, we all know that right-wingers portray themselves as brave warriors, unafraid of those pathetic liberal snowflakes. But if your whole worldview is that you need a dozen AR-15s and a massive wall to protect you from scary brown people — to say nothing of the panic you feel when you see a mosque or hear the words “gay marriage” — then you are not in a position to lecture anyone on the topic of fear. In fact, many studies have shown that conservatives tend to be more fearful and squeamish than progressives.

And that fear reflex has led to real-world chaos.

For example, when it comes to Covid-19, “the president’s delayed reaction to the crisis was partially due to his fears about the deep state.” In this case, the conservative fear of an imaginary enemy helped turn a bad situation into a national catastrophe. Trump’s response to coronavirus was “colored by his suspicion of and disdain for what he viewed as the ‘deep state,’ the very people in his government whose expertise and long experience might have guided him more quickly toward steps that would slow the virus, and likely save lives.”

Many Americans are dead today because the president got jittery about a nonexistent threat, while ignoring a real disaster. 

It got worse after that, as the stupidest cultural war of all time ignited over face masks. Millions of Americans, particularly men, refused to mask up because they were afraid — absolutely petrified — that total strangers might consider them wimps. The irony, of course, is that if you alter your behavior out of fear that people might think you’re weak, it means you’re a wimp who cares what people think of you. And this terror of social disapproval — which didn’t exist, by the way — helped Covid-19 spread faster, leading to even more death. Clearly, the right wing’s “narrow definition of masculinity has lethal repercussions.”

And what of those so-called looters and rioters that are burning down our cities? Well, this is yet another figment of the conservative mind. In truth, 93 percent of Black Lives Matter protests have been peaceful. And when violence has occurred, it is usually right-wing extremists who are committing it.

For example, there have been 66 incidents of vehicles driving into crowds of protesters. In a truly disturbing development, seven of those incidents involve police.

Furthermore, there have been 33 incidents where Black Lives Matter protesters were threatened with a gun, shot at, or killed. However, there have been just 12 similar incidents where counterprotesters were the target.

So the fear that BLM is coming to ransack your house is absurd, because if anything, the protesters are more likely to be the victim than the offender.

This twisted focus on fake threats, and the related dismissal of real danger, is a conservative hallmark.

You see, lovers of Fox News spend their lives trembling in terror over the progressives who are out to kill them. The idea that leftists are a bigger danger is completely backward, considering that “America's greatest domestic terror threat stems from racially and ethnically motivated extremists, following a record high in hate-motivated attacks and the rise of neo-Nazi and white supremacist violence,” now formally recognized by the FBI as a significant threat.

Since 2018, white supremacists have conducted “more lethal attacks in the US than any other domestic extremist movement, demonstrating a longstanding intent to target racial and religious minorities, members of the LGBTQ community, politicians and those they believe promote multi-culturalism.”

Basically, that guy with a swastika tattoo is more likely to come after you than some Earth First vegan.

This fact has been true for decades now. After all, it was not Antifa or BLM that bombed Oklahoma City (i.e., Timothy McVeigh wasn’t exactly a bleeding-heart liberal). 

The doublespeak of this situation is evident in the right-wing chorus of “Facts, not fear,” and in their insistence that they are the toughest hombres around for staring down Covid-19.

But of course, it’s all projection. Because there is nobody more scared right now than Donald Trump. And his fear, as well as the fear of his followers, is infecting all of us.

Lost Forever

Yes, we’ve all been there.

At some point, we’ve all been jammed into the uncomfortable position of reconciling our sincere beliefs with unpleasant facts, with the result that we are often found wanting. 

For example, some of our greatest artists are horrible human beings. But we still buy their books and see their movies.

We preach sustainability, but when there’s no recycling bin around, we’ll throw that soda can in the garbage.

And we say we’re compassionate people who detest bigotry, but then we support white supremacy and calls for violence. 

OK, stop. 

As it turns out, maybe we haven’t all been there.

You see, we’re closing in on the election that will decide if America is going to crawl out of the intractable quicksand of oligarchy, racial warfare, and religious fanaticism, or if we’re going to happily cannonball into the abyss.

And Trump supporters have made it clear that they are having no crises of conscience, no blinding epiphanies, and no moments of hesitation. 

When our cacophonous chief executive told the Proud Boys to “stand by,” this pack of neo-Nazis responded by shouting, “Yes, sir!” And rather than glance around at the company they are keeping, and growing alarmed about it, most Republicans just shrugged and mumbled something about Hunter Biden and creeping socialism.

It is just the latest in an unending string of lemming-like behavior that, way back in 2016, might have caused us to wonder how anyone could be so delusional, hypocritical, and abhorrent.

But we have now come to accept that 40 percent of our fellow Americans will rationalize just about anything rather than flick on the neurons that provoke empathy, logic, or introspection.

These are people who are furious that “illegals” don’t pay taxes (even though undocumented immigrants “pay billions of dollars in federal taxes annually”). However, their fake billionaire dodges his taxes for years, and that just makes him “smart.”

One would think they might be disturbed that a privately owned U.S. immigration detention center in Georgia forcibly sterilizedimmigrant women. But then conservatives realized that we’re talking about brown-skinned women, and anyway, unauthorized hysterectomies without anesthesia are completely justifiable because Trump is simply carrying out God’s will.

And the threats that Trump will not leave office even if he loses, and that his minions are plotting to undermine democracy? Well, in a refrain that has become farcical, we hear that Trump “doesn’t really mean it.”

Clearly, the guy could mock their religion and play them for suckers, and they would be fine with it.

It must be exhausting for Trump supporters, constantly spinning their president’s deranged threats into patriotic virtues, and insisting that everyone is a malicious liar unless he works for the administration or Fox News. 

They might view their perpetual churning of reasons and motivations as charming complexity, or an example of the inherent contradictions of being human.

But the rest of see a bunch of hate-filled zealots eager to sell out their supposed principles just to say they owned the libs.

You see, being a Trump supporter “is about winning at any cost, cheating and subjugating. It’s about unraveling the culture in service of just one aim: victory over the others.”

The rest of America can do nothing except futilely hope for the president’s acolytes to snap out of it, and come to their senses. In this sense, it is we who are standing by. But our wait will be endless.

Notorious USA

Here’s a fun fact:

“Both of the last two Republican presidents — Bush and Trump— have lost the popular vote, and yet each nominated two Supreme Court justices, who have been confirmed by the votes of senators who represent a minority of the American people.” So a fifth member of SCOTUS confirmed in this way will “create a solid majority on the court, which can then unwind the legal framework that a majority of Americans still supports.” 

Wait, did I say, “fun”?

Sorry, I meant to say, “grotesque travesty of logic and a trampling of basic civil rights.”

I get those things confused sometimes.

Yes, the great Ruth Bader Ginsburg gave it her best shot, but she couldn’t quite hold on until January, when a potential President Biden could nominate a replacement who wouldn’t, for example, possess a “deep, deep contempt for the rights of voters” or insist that "it's time for Roe v. Wade to go."

No, that probably would not happen.

Of course, the idea that the death of one octogenarian woman means the collapse of decades of social progress does not, in any way, indicate that America’s political system is a pathetic façade that autocrats can twist and contort at will.

Ok, maybe it does.

You see, the supposed principles of America, and our theoretically strong institutions, are not just a house of cards, but a tower of water-soaked jokers, perched upon a shit-covered dog trying to scratch itself in unpleasant places.

I think you’ll agree that this is indeed a shaky foundation.

And yet many of us have placed our faith in these systems, and in the people who were entrusted with running them. Our reward for this delusion was a parade of Republicans who did everything but slap our naïve faces for believing — even for a slice of a nanosecond — that they would refrain from indulging in a blatant, salivating power grab.

I mean, a few GOP senators offered tortured rationales for their inconsistency — something about this event being different than 2016 — but those reasons quickly devolved into a MC Escher contortion of self-serving nonsense.

However, most Republicans didn’t even bother to reconcile their torpedoing of Merrick Garland then with their embrace of rushing through a confirmation today. 

And many GOP senators flat-out reveled in their hypocrisy. They thought it was just fucking hilarious that Americans would believe they might be men of their word. Just a scream.

So what happens now, when the Republican Party has revealed — for about the 883^rd time — that they don’t really care about democracy, decency, or effective governance?

Well, there’s a lot of talk about the Democrats stacking the court, and indeed, some of them may just be pissed off enough to try it. But come on — we’re talking about the Democratic Party here. Most of their leaders think Joe Biden is too progressive, and that we all have to continue worshipping the white working class, and that making Republicans angry is so upsetting that it’s better to cower in the corner and avoid doing anything too “radical.”

So no, I highly doubt that you will see Democrats re-impeach Trump tomorrow, or ram through four liberal justices in January, or do much of anything beyond pout and ask Middle America to please love them.

But of course, even if there were some way to stop Trump’s third appointment in four years, it would be a stopgap. Because we need to go deeper.

Gentlemen’s agreements about how to run the country don’t work when one side is just fine with fascism, racism, and armed vigilantes in the streets. Lifetime appointments for justices who love theocracy is not a workable idea. Pining our hopes on a 250-year-old document that is impossible to amend is not a productive approach. And hoping that a system engineered to keep rich white men in power will somehow reform itself is not a comforting plan.

If the age of Trump has taught us anything, it is that all options have to be considered. Because the Republicans have figured this out already, and they think it’s cute if you don’t see it that way. 

Yes, it’s simply adorable.

Free Hugs

Last week, I attempted to deal with the nonstop deluge of horrific behavior spewing out of the White House by asking, “Is there something that we progressives can do to make conservatives feel better, so that maybe they won’t, you know, destroy the country and devastate the entire planet?”

After all, we liberals are well-known for blaming ourselves for every monstrous action that right-wingers embrace. And American society is all about excusing conservative aggression and justifying GOP incompetence.

So let’s just run with it. Here are some of the ways in which liberals can make things easier for you conservatives.

First, we don’t want to hurt your feelings by pointing out that Trump is a dangerous moron whose own advisors “hesitated to give him military options, fearing the President might accidentally take the US to war.” Hey, I’m sure that statement has been true about every president.

Of course, we also know that Trump only ran for president as some kind of bizarre branding exercise, and for some unfathomable reason, you bought it. And yes, our sociopathic chief executive possesses the attention span of nine-year-old, has revitalized fascism, and is arguably the most corrupt president in history. But you won’t hear that from us.

Similarly, we will not bring up the fact that if you support Trump, you are more likely to be racist — even though study after study has shown this. No, you can go right on thinking that Black Lives Matter are a bunch of terrorists, even if the FBI has stated that “White supremacist extremists present the most lethal threat” to the country.

Oh, maybe you don’t know about that last item because “top political appointees in the Department of Homeland Security repeatedly instructed career officials to modify intelligence assessments to suit President Donald Trump's agenda by downplaying Russia's efforts to interfere in the US and the threat posed by White supremacists.”

Apparently, the guy flies into a rage if someone tells him a fact that he doesn’t want to hear, and in a maneuver better suited to calming a screaming toddler than advising the most powerful person in the country, his lackeys twist the truth to keep him appeased. Or, in an assessment that we swear we are not making up, “the President prefers to operate without intelligence.”

Yeah, he does that a lot.

In any case, you keep on believing that a doddering septuagenarian with a history of failure and garbled syntax knows far more than the top medical professionals in the world. While we’re at it, go on and forward that conspiratorial video from your high school acquaintance who flunked chemistry and has never left his home state, but who somehow is plugged into the inner workings of a vast cabal of mad scientists.

Above all things, we will not question American exceptionalism. We don’t want to destroy your belief that our country is vastly superior to all others, even if this “too often clashes with its culture of guns, mass incarceration, the death penalty and the war on drugs,” and has left us way behind on multiple quality-of-life measurements.

Woops, I see that I’ve upset you. I apologize, and I definitely will not mention that the border wall with Mexico will never be built. Yes, that endeavor wasted tons of taxpayer money, and did nothing more than provide a front for right-wing con men to steal your money, like you were some kind of fucking rube or something, but…

OK, now you’re crying. Let’s try to make it up to you.

Hey, would you like to vote twice? You know, because you’re so special? The president says it’s fine, so go for it.

And you know what else? We will ask newspapers to avoid endorsing candidates, because it might upset conservatives. There, there.

You know what would really cheer you up? Ending all of that diversity nonsense.

Yes, the president who is incredibly popular with neo-Nazis — a coincidence, we’re sure — “has instructed federal agencies to end racial sensitivity trainings that address topics like white privilege and critical race theory, calling them ‘divisive, anti-American propaganda.’”

And good news for you: It’s not just the feds who are canceling diversity. Companies such as Google have “significantly rolled backtheir diversity and inclusion initiatives in an apparent effort to avoid being perceived as anti-conservative.” 

In fact, some of these companies have “stopped saying the word diversity” altogether, because it’s so very very very controversial — well, at least to you Trump supporters. So we bend over backward to ensure that you’ll never have to hear disturbing facts about racial inequality or have your 1950s thinking challenged in any way.

You see, it’s all about being nicer to you, the hardcore Trump supporter who screams, “Fuck your feelings” and shrieks that progressives are sensitive snowflakes. And that’s when you’re not threatening us with guns, or beating us up to prove that we’re the violent ones. Or just shooting us in the street while the cops watch.

We want to make sure that you feel good about yourselves. Because that’s the most important thing in the goddamn world.

Yup.

A Helpful Guide (Intro)

Look, we understand that these are tough times for you unwavering Trump supporters.

You’ve discovered that you cannot yell, “Support the troops” while waving around a Trump 2020 sign. That’s because your idol made some, shall we say, unfortunate remarks concerning American’s veterans — something about “losers” and “suckers.” To be honest, the fact that the president has complete disdain for everybody except himself (and certain homicidal dictators) cannot be a shocker. Hey, it’s not like military leaders are rushing to deny the story, and even Fox News verified it. Plus, he has more or less said the same thing out loud (and you applauded).

But wait, because it gets worse. Apparently, your beloved president “admitted he knew weeks before the first confirmed US coronavirus death that the virus was dangerous, airborne, highly contagious and ‘more deadly than even your strenuous flus,’ and that he repeatedly played it down publicly.” The result of his little fib — this tiny lie — was that tens of thousands of Americans died. So clearly, your bewildered leader messed up, and your claims that he knew what he was doing are even more pathetic than we realized.

OK, so you’re having some cognitive dissonance right now. How can you support a corrupt dolt who has complete disdain for you and everything you supposedly revere, and whose selfish grandstanding has decimated the country?

Well, fortunately for you, we progressives are here to help. Next week, I’ll list all the ways that liberals are bending over backward to help Trump supporters feel better about themselves.

Consider this an introduction to a field guide. Or a teaser. Or a way for me to admit that I cannot possibly keep up with all the crazy shit coming out of the White House on an hourly basis.

In any case, stay tuned and see you next week.