Doug's Darkworld

Bernie Sanders dropped out of the 2020 American election campaign, paving the way for Joe Biden to face off against Trump in the November election for POTUS. Well, I thought the 2016 election had the most horrible choice of candidates ever. Cersei Lannister vs Ramsay Bolton. For the non ‘Game of Thrones’ folks, Clinton vs Trump was like choosing between hanging or firing squad. Some choice. Bye Bernie, a lot of my friends will be sad. This is an interesting and different take on Bernie and his candidacy, I wouldn’t say it’s wrong.

So yeah, Biden vs Trump in 2020. That’s in November, months away. A global pandemic and a global economic collapse are underway, a confluence of global events not seen since at least World War Two. Anything could happen between now and then, and almost certainly will. So I don’t see any reason to worry about the election yet. And come October there will be only two issues, Covid-19 and the economy. We’ll see what Trump and Biden have to say then.

There has been an explosion of vote-shaming memes on Facebook. Memes basically claiming that Biden isn’t as much a sh*t sandwich as Trump, so all Bernie supporters and such should vote for him if they have any brains. And I understand, I can’t fault the basic logic. Trump is a ghastly president, on track to be the worst POTUS ever, it’s kind of like a crime family has taken over the White House. I see why people would hold their nose and vote for Biden in the hopes that he would be better than Trump. That’s what voting is all about, vote for the candidate of your choice.

What I am having trouble with on several levels, is why people sharing such memes think they are helping? How, exactly, is telling people they are stupid if they disagree with you helping? Telling me I’m an idiot if I don’t buy a product certainly doesn’t inspire me to go buy it, It’s especially weird since this sort of vote shaming didn’t help Hillary’s campaign any in 2016. Telling Bernie supporters they were idiots didn’t get Hillary elected, how is telling Bernie supporters they are idiots going to get their votes for Biden? I generally don’t vote for people if their supporters call me an idiot. Thinking people who disagree with you are stupid is the problem, not the solution. There are very good reasons not to vote for Biden. In any event I’ll decide who to vote for in November 2020. It’s entirely possible I’ll vote for Biden. But it’s my vote and I will cast it as I will decide.

Scary days. Trump will handle a global depression as well as he handled Covid-19. He will react way too late, and not do what needs to be done to boot. There will be plenty of blog fodder no doubt, and social isolation means I have lots of time to write. And read obsessively online. In no particular order a few recent interesting links and developments:

Covid-19 is spreading in Singapore, which is scary, because Singapore initially had a truly robust approach and kept it shut down. Until now. The takeaway is that the more we are learning about Covid-19, the scarier it gets. It’s a scary contagious disease. It’s sickening to think of the havoc it is going to cause in the US because so many, including my freaking governor, still think it will all magically blow over or something. The US is going to end up being isolated from the rest of the world because Covid-19 will still be raging here as the rest of the developed world gets it under control. Darkly ironic considering the hostility so many in the US view foreigners with. Now they’ll build walls to keep us here.

Also in the US, Covid-19 is already proving to be far more deadly to blacks than whites. No surprise to people aware of the fact that blacks are routinely and institutionally treated as second class citizens in the USA. I’ve also heard some tribal lands are being hit hard, but didn’t want to read further because it’s so depressing. In any event, this article depressingly lays out that ‘No, the Coronavirus is not an Equalizer.’

Lastly, boy, the role science denial has played in America’s patchwork and uncoordinated response to Covid-14 can’t be underestimated. Science denial has become institutionalized in America, and decades of Global Warming Denial really paved the way for an unscientific response to Covid-19. America has always had an underbelly of anti-intellectualism, as Isaac Azimov put it nicely in 1980:

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

And it’s gotten worse in recent decades, spreading like a cancer through society and government. I wish I knew the answer, but a pandemic requires a rational science based response, and huge numbers of Americans couldn’t think rationally and scientifically if their lives depended on it.

And now their lives do depend on it. Have a safe and sane weekend everyone. #staythefuckhome

Copyright © 2020 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.

(Image: Mass graves in New York City. I have no words, never thought I’d see this in my lifetime. Credit: BBCNews, used without permission, but claiming Fair Use under US copyright law. It’s definitely an historical image. What a disaster.)