Friday, May 15, 2020

Mask Up

The country has quarantine fatigue.  The weather, in most places, is goading the people to action.  They want more than extended walks, trips to the grocery store or gas station, essential forays into the dystopia.  They want their lives back.
In typical American fashion, many feel the need to demand their rights, quote the Constitution, and demonstrate their rage in public.  The government is, according to this view, not treating them as the adults they are and they are mad as hell and won't take it anymore.
They want nothing to do with spikes, new waves, or predictions of the "darkest winter" likely to come.  They need to go to the beach, the neighborhood bar, any restaurant, no matter what form that might take.  It's bad enough they can't attend a live sporting event, but at least some car, horse, and possibly human races will soon be held in silence.  There might even be basketball and some form of baseball.

They are Americans and demand their rights.
Yes, we are so divided as a nation that we can't go forward in the midst of a historic pandemic together.  So the American way will prevail.  The rugged individualism with equal parts of might and denial will accompany this nation into the second half of 2020.
I see today that some major league ballplayers will not accept a season that pays them only half their salary.  They're righteously pissed off and seem to have forgotten the current unemployment rate.  Not a good idea.  The optics are colored with greed as millions have no paycheck or prospects for one.  They couldn't even sell peanuts or soda/beer because all live sports will be henceforth seen at home on TV.
The biggest what-ifs at this point are all buried in the possibility of a second wave of the deadly virus.  If it emerges anytime before the November election then our current version of civil war or more properly, "un-civil war" could determine who wins the next election.

That crucial vote will be determined by voter turnout.  If 46% of those who could have voted last time pull that same stunt this time...nothing will change.  Mask up and vote.  You are an American and that is your right.

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