We've Trapped Ourselves. Stupidity Followed by Misery. Happy Now?

I've told a few people that I'd like to go to the Azores. They look like a nice place. And Portugal, too. Nice people, I'm told. The Portuguese own the Azores.

That was then. Now, maybe not. I might not be able to go anywhere in the EU. I'm an American, and millions of my countrymen have been just plain stupid or stubborn or full of themselves. They have failed to suppress this virus, and now it's spreading again, perhaps out of control.

So the EU, wisely, has said that it might not take any Americans now. Why invite trouble?

And we are trouble. Too many don't know control. Too many don't accept science. Too many listened to Rush Limbaugh and Fox News, which chortled that it was all a conspiracy. Looking at it from the standpoint of the EU, how could they do anything else but shut their doors to an ignorant, arrogant people with blinders?

People who think that it's more important to express their rights than to stay alive and healthy. People who think that this is some kind of plot. Well, it is. It's a plot fomented upon them by their government, which simply does not care about them.

That's the tough part. That's the part that they don't get. The national government doesn't care. They think 'government' is one big entity. They were never taught that in school.

But neither did they listen. They cruised through, cynically, having been told by their parents, mostly, that none of that mattered much, that all politicians were corrupt or liars, that the fix was in. They sat, mostly politely, while the teacher told them stuff that they didn't believe or didn't think mattered, got grades that were good enough, and went on quietly. But they didn't care.

They're the ones who voted for 45, the person who validated their intellectual laziness. They wore Make America Great Again t-shirts, indeed still wear them, without having any idea what it meant or how it happened. Now he's behind 14 points in one poll. He can rally, of course; circumstances may arise to make him appear necessary to more people for a little while, and that timing could carry him to another election. But he has a long way to go now.

Go ahead, call it 'kung flu.' Add racism to your ignorance. And the people shouting in approval? They'll get sick, too.

Religion teaches us to have compassion for others, to stand ready to help them in need. But that assumes that something's happened to them that they didn't see coming and that they couldn't help. That didn't happen here. The virus has been amongst us for four months now, and we had a chance to suppress it.

But without national guidance and leadership, the states were left on their own. Even then, the above stupid, stubborn, mindless people took to the streets, mostly their state capitols, and brought guns and dumb, misspelled posters. They whined about not having a haircut, about not having sports.

And, in the end, they got their way. Faced with massive unemployment, the states reopened. People got haircuts. The PGA Tour restarted, but within one week, three golfers got sick and several have now pulled out. The baseball season says it will begin training camps July 1, then the season on July 24, taking up 60 games. That's a full month away. Want to bet how long it takes before they have to shutter up again?

Too many don't get it. Let me repeat: This is real. The virus hasn't gone away. When it gets the chance, it takes it. Magical thinking doesn't remove it. 45's wishes didn't come true. He has largely given up. Now he wants to curtail testing so the bad numbers won't be so bad. That's a recipe for disaster, a strategy for losers.

Texas, which never took the virus very seriously, has now told people to stay in place because the virus is spreading too fast and the hospitals will be overrun--just like New York's was three months ago. I know someone who had a serious accident, non-viral, near Austin. She was one of the last to get into her hospital before it had to be shut down, saving beds in anticipation of the virus. Mostly bed-ridden, nobody can visit her. She's no better off than someone who's going to get the virus.

Andrew Cuomo, New York's governor, was tough, unlike the one in Texas who got a head-start on it and instead pretended it was no big deal; in fact, his lieutenant governor suggested that old people could die to save the economy. Cuomo's people, confronted with thousands of body bags right away, paid attention, and the virus has subsided there. Now it's thinking about quarantining people from inside the country, people coming from states where the virus is surging, until it's sure they're okay. Several New England states are already doing so, according to the Boston Globe. If you travel to Massachusetts, for instance, you'd better be ready to hunker down for 14 days, regardless of what it'll cost you.

I predict this will happen elsewhere. I predict we will become more insular, not less. The virus is now random. We've trapped ourselves. Europe is laughing at us. We used to be the model of the world. I guess we still are, in a way: Us, and Brazil, and Belarus, and a few other countries filled with autocratic rulers who think just saying tough things will be enough. That didn't stop members of 45's staff from getting sick during the past few days, nor a couple of Secret Service members.

The governor of Florida, someone with that very same attitude, now has trouble on his hands. Other states have said they're going to quarantine his state's citizens because the rate of infection there has hit an all-time high. Even he is wearing a mask now. Even he gets it--two months too late.

I have no compassion for those who ignored the warnings. I pity them. They will get very sick. Some will die. But they were warned. Information was not lacking. They listened to someone who only cared about whether they would vote for him. And they probably still will. If they get to the polls.

This economy could have recovered by now, if we would have had the determination to face the virus for what it was and stare it down. Now, with only jawboning from the top, half-efforts and half-commitments have backfired. Now, we are headed for a genuine, full-bore depression. The economy can't sustain itself for much longer. Too many are out of work.

Then came Black Lives Matter, as necessary as it was. Thousands in major cities took to the streets. Some had masks. Some didn't. Milwaukee County's infection rate is now up again. We will see how high it goes.

The wreckage has ramped up. For heaven's sake, wear a mask wherever you go now. The holiday, however brief, has ended. You roll the dice now. You aren't in control. Neither is your governor, at least not in Wisconsin, because its state Supreme Court put a temporary adjustment of rights in front of people's lives. That decision will look worse now by the day. The governor is helpless.

Stupidity followed by misery: People can be that way, sure. Really, I wouldn't care. I miss the theater, miss baseball, miss the movie house and the bookstore, but I can live without them. But if my food supply line is interrupted by this nonsense, someone's going to hear about it. And someone will have to watch it happen.

Real trouble is just around the corner. This will be a long, tough summer.

Be well. Be careful. Wear a mask. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.


Mister Mark