Where's Whoopsie #26: Could Trump's Words like *Silent* Raindrops Fall?!

CW: American politics and corona. Seriously. WTF, America?!

So, uh, I’ll totally be back to my usual semi-humorous self later this week. But, I need to go scream somewhere for a minute, and here is the “safest” place I can think.

I have said repeatedly that people are the scariest part of any pandemic to a trauma survivor. I think I have said repeatedly that people are the scariest part of existence, period, to a trauma survivor.

But, as unsettling as shelter-in-place and market freefall have been, I have also said that it has been a relief to the girl who always had to prepare for every disaster herself from little onward because she couldn’t trust that anyone else would that at least U.S. states seemed to be taking actions over the head of the natural disaster in the White House himself.

The most a girl from the 9th Circle of Hell is going to hope for is that we might attempt to mitigate disasters when they happen instead of exacerbate them. I was relieved that for a brief moment we seemed like we might “trust Fauci over Fox News” and those of our Governors over our President who might actually be willing to lead in the hard places.

But, that was all before I took a two-hour nap after remote work today and woke up to a flurry of breaking news notifications.

Oh, ye of too much faith, I feel like my childhood self is reprimanding me tonight.

When I woke up, the first few notifications that I saw, in order, were as follows:

1. Dr. Fauci finally gave a candid interview admitting he was doing his best to inject sanity into White House press briefings but that he really had to learn to pick his battles after the “facepalm seen ’round the Internet.” Then, he was sidelined two White House press briefings in a row.
2. More than just Fox News whose article I am linking because it has the video were mocking Joe Biden for stumbling when he lost teleprompter for only about twenty seconds during a speech on corona and couldn’t seem to stay on message.
3. Trump had given another press briefing saying he was getting tired of social distancing hurting his pocketbook. He was thinking it was time for Americans to get back to work.
4. Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick said he was “all in” on grandparents sacrificing themselves to corona the Invisible Hand so he could keep making money. Two percent of the American population is a perfectly acceptable sacrifice for his continued profits. “Logan’s Run” was trending on Twitter as a result.
5. A new “flatten the curve” style graphic – this time showing time to hospital medical supply overwhelm and breakdown by state – was making its way around among the socially conscious in an attempt to push back against Trump’s willingness to resume business as usual. (I haven’t fact-checked that specific graphic, so I’ll just link to a generic news article about that looming crisis instead, but it seemed pretty much in line with what the various news aggregations I have been reading to date have given for timing.)
6. Dan Rather responded to all of the above on his media commentary site News and Guts not with a long essay of hope and optimism – as the vast majority of his posts even during the worst of what has been done to our country for the past nearly four years have been to date – but simply with the lyrics “Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.”

That last one is what my childhood self would absolutely say should be the final straw on me being optimistic about “people” during a pandemic. I think I’ve mentioned a few times that Simon and Garfunkel have been my go-to lyrics for describing my feelings growing up in the 9th Circle of Hell? Well, if not, maybe the fact that I summed up the “experience that shaped my life the most” with lyrics from the Sound of Silence will encapsulate it.

Or the fact that I used those same Simon and Garfunkel lyrics to try to sum up dissociation in an early Where’s Whoopsie from 2019 that I never posted because I don’t particularly like to remember what dissociation feels like when any particular crisis has passed.

I’ll be okay, as I always will, even though the overt discussion of how some Americans should just step up and sacrifice themselves always hits me right in the “Nazis went after the disabled first of all in WW2” eugenics buttons. Childhood me always knew she’d have to remember that one – and probably have to have a plan for it, too – among other things.

I’ll be okay even though seeing otherwise level-headed journalists who write hopefully be reduced to simply using the same lyrics to capture their anxiety, and fear, and fury that I always have used is surprisingly triggering.

I’ll be okay, and I’ll redouble my efforts to point out that maybe its time true Progressives in America actually step up to the plate. I’ll redouble my efforts to point out that Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick – and Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell and a too-long list of others to name here – deserve their own hot places in their own special 9th Circles of Hell for being so “cool” with sacrificing American lives (whether or not someone(s) else manage(s) to stop them from it first!)

I’ll also post that drawing of dissociation from 2019. Because, seriously, wake the fuck up America. If you keep voting for those who are fine with sacrificing others, doesn’t that old poem my childhood self also remembers suggest someone is later going to sacrifice you, too?!

<Image>: Cat on a cobblestone street looks into its reflection but cannot reach itself through the barrier of the glassy water. Caption says: “Dissociation: ‘But my words like silent raindrops fell, and echoed in the wells of silence…”

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Need a recap of anything I’m talking about in any post? Check out my Glossary of Terms

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