Doug's Darkworld

Ok, so have come across Trump’s re-election platform. It was something along the lines of “Biden is a socialist who’s going to take your guns and impose liberal fascism on America, completely destroying it from within. Vote for Trump to save America!” Did I miss some subtle nuance? I don’t think so. That was from his latest speech, which was more unhinged than usual. I mean, this is the ultimate straw man campaign, Trump’s firing up his supporters to fight a Democratic platform that doesn’t exist. Biden is an utterly non-progressive centrist candidate who is going to make zero progressive change, a total tool of the pentagon and the rich, like every president since Reagan. I went to Youtube and a Trump ad wanted my input on a poll about socialism. WTF? The socialist party in the USA has been irrelevant since at least the forties, Biden isn’t a socialist by any stretch of the imagination. And no serious gun control measures have been proposed since Reagan was shot decades ago. The Supreme Court even ruled in 2008 that the right to bear arms was an individual right, there’s literally zero chance of mass gun confiscation in the US.

So context for readers from the future, Covid-19 is raging out of control in the US. Trump is insisting schools open normally in a few weeks. Rush Limbaugh, the spokesman and mentor for Trump, is now saying we should “just get used to” mass Covid-19 deaths, because the Donner Party didn’t complain about their predicament. No, not making this up. He’s basically claiming that things like wearing masks and social distancing are cowardly liberal surrender. No, they are rational attempts to deal with Covid-19. Which are working just fine in virtually every other developed country.

It’s beyond crazy. I can’t even think of an historical analogy. The president and his followers are utterly refusing to fight Covid-19 as the experts in the field are urging them to do, and their re-election campaign so distorts the Democratic platform that it’s essentially running against a fantasy candidate. Sort of how my brother relates to me, but I digress. Yeah, I know, the Dems have their own reality testing issues. Mostly related to pretending that somehow they aren’t serving the rich and the pentagon. Not in the same league as a POTUS pretending a global pandemic is some sort of hoax to make him look bad, or the same POTUS whose reelection campaign is directed against a non-existent Democratic platform.

***

Friday night. Another new record sent, 75,000 new cases. The madness continues. The mask wars continue. The one step we could take to dramatically slow the spread of Covid-19, but huge numbers of Americans are resisting. And the president is encouraging the resisters. I don’t know what to say about that. To people concerned about the safety of themselves and their loved ones, they should do everything they can to avoid catching/spreading Covid-19 until there is a cure or a proven safe vaccine. It’s basic game theory, one wants to minimize the chances of a catastrophic outcome. Anything less is playing Russian roulette with one’s life, we simply don’t know what the long term consequences of getting infected with this virus are.

It’s like, oh, it only kills the old! In other words, if one catches Covid-19, maybe one has no symptoms as a young healthy person, but it hides in their body and kills them when they hit their sixties. Viruses do stuff like this, infections are permanent, they hide in one’s body for life waiting for favorable conditions to explode. Only a fool would take the risk of catching an unknown virus that already has scary effects. Heart damage for example.  Oh, but, my freedoms! The economy! Yeah, when your leaders tell you to charge into machine gun fire, maybe they don’t have your best interests at heart? When leaders talk about “acceptable losses,” be very afraid.

Just realized that in some ways, Biden is the perfect foil for Trump. He’s white, he’s male, he’s Christian, there’s nothing progressive in his background at all. He’s not vulnerable to the coded racist and sexist attacks Trump uses against Hillary, Obama, etc. Trump is basically flinging mud wildly, because Trump has neither accomplishments or issues to run on at this point. I can see why Biden is mostly laying low.

I’ll end on some good news, Covid-19 might be the beginning of the end for the fossil fuel industry. Especially coal. They are both wildly subsidized industries, in that they are allowed to pass their terrifying environmental and health costs onto the public, not to even mention global warming. So good riddance. Well, good news for Europe at least, where no one is in power who believes in “clean coal” and thinks wind farms cause cancer: “The way Europe sees it, if every nation in the world is going to be in debt for at least the next decade, they might as well be paying for something that solves the biggest challenge of the 21st century.” Interesting read: FC100: 2020 Is The Worst Year Ever For Fossil Fuels

Hope everyone is having a safe and sane weekend. Sorry about the disjointed nature of this post, getting harder to concentrate as I watch the Trump virus rage out of control in America. I recommend getting Covid-19 health advice from the CDC and Dr Fauci, not the White House. What a country, where the president thinks he knows more than experts in the field. The mind, formerly reeling, boggles uncontrollably. #StaytheFHome #WearaDamnMask

Copyright © 2020 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.

(Random image publicly posted on Facebook of unknown genesis, used without permission.)