Doug's Darkworld

I wrote a post yesterday about the Battle of Hastings, that only mentions Trump and the times in relation to the post, and am criticised for being Americacentric:

Commenter: “An American’s potted history of The Norman Conquest and the Battle of Hastings….funny how they can manage to view everything through the prism of present day USA politics!”

Fair enough I guess, but I was trying to capture the moment as it were, to make people try to imagine what it felt like that day. My post is ‘potted’ in that I’m trying to cover a hugely important battle in one blog. I appreciate the comment, feedback helps me refine what I am doing.

And what I am doing is daily blogging about the ongoing election from hell and covid catastrophe in America, 15 October 2020.

I know blogging is so 2000s but Covid-19 has scrapped my plan to go to vlogging, so here I am. Writing is what I do.  I guess the main point I was trying to make with yesterday’s blog, which juxtaposed the Battle of Hastings with the events in modern America, is that shit is fucked up now in the USA. The way it was messed up then, the people didn’t have the internet, but news still travelled. People knew the king was dead, and claimants with armies were marching in. Fun times.

So yeah, Covid-19 is spiking in Europe (second wave) and spiking in the USA (third swell.) Under control in China, but mixed elsewhere. The Covid-19 plague continues. It’s not the Black Death, it’s not the 1918 flu, it’s not anything we have seen before, but what little we know about it now, it’s bad news. Covid-19 is the invisible enemy, it is an alien invader. It’s only killed a million people so far! That’s not a good start.

So two really unhappy American  thoughts. One, boy, ugly political assasination is not out of the question. It’s not like it hasn’t happened in our history. Certainly the sixties, and Reagan, Gabby Giffords. A lot of Americans are still clinging to normalcy, but it’s not normal times. Brace yourselves. Very very bad things may well transpire.

Secondly, Trump has decided that surrender to Covid-19 is the way to go. He calls his “strategy” herd immunity. Letting the virus spread through the population to the point where so much of the population has been infected, the virus can no longer spread. How to put this diplomatically? This is insane delusional nonsense. To Those Talking About ‘Herd Immunity’: Do The Math. Or Will Natural Herd Immunity End the Pandemic? Hundreds of thousands will die, if not millions, for nothing. America is already the worst hit country by numerous metrics, this non strategy will just make that worse.

I gave Trump a chance. I don’t suffer from TDS. What the hell, sometimes people who get into high power try to do the right thing and make the world a better place. Yeah, my hopes that Trump was one of those has faded. Promises aren’t real, see image above. (Unfortunately some people do believe him, but that number is dropping every day.) And in some ways I was wrong. Just read that Trump’s insistence that he had the greatest inaugural crowd ever was an example of delusional thinking. I mean it was demonstrably not true, Obama had much larger crowds.

So there was a duelling town hall thing tonight, since the planned second and third Trump/Biden debates are pretty much toast at this point. I didn’t watch. The big takeaway so far I see is that Trump didn’t disavow QAnon when asked to do so. He claimed “I know nothing about QAnon.” Well, I guess it’s refreshing to see Trump feign ignorance rather than claim he is the world’s expert. I am not reassured.

Two weeks to go. Blue wave crushing Trump defeat, or most FUBARED election in US history? Stay tuned. What a time to be alive. Comments, likes, etc. appreciated. #StaytheFHome #WearaDamnMask #FelesRegula

Copyright © 2020 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.

(Image: Harvested from Facebook, attribution in image, claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law.)