Devastation in South Dakota

[My Pet Orangutan]

‘God be with us’: A rural community in S.D. ignored the virus for months. Then people started dying.

Tjarks, who owns a drapery company called Gotcha Covered, is a conservative Republican. But she became convinced the city had to act as deaths began tearing a deep hole in the community’s civic heart.

“What we have been doing isn’t working,” she told the city council. “I don’t want to lose any more friends. I don’t want to lose any more neighbors. We have to do what we need to do to step up and prevent these cases from rising.”

So many town leaders have died in such a short time that the impact has been profound, Tjarks said. Who will fill Timmins’s shoes as a mentor for young referees in the state high school athletic association? Who will raise money for the veteran’s park and the rodeo stampede now that state legislator Lance Carson is gone? There would be smaller absences too: her neighbor, John, now missing from the morning group at the doughnut shop.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/12/09/south-dakota-mitchell-covid-masks/

[Thomas Hurt]

1. (smh) stupid, stupid people.

[My Pet Orangutan]

3. It can't happen here :facepalm:

[exboyfil]

2. I am sure many of them talked about how

those blacks were so dirty in the inner city and how that was why they had high lethality rates.

Not a black or a Democrat around to blame now.

[leftieNanner]

4. The article is about South Dakota - not North Dakota

Might want to change your title.

But let's hope some of these folks up there get the message - and the masks.

[My Pet Orangutan]

7. Fixed. Thank you. :red face:

[Aristus]

5. I suspect when this is all over, there will be small towns across the country empty of people.

Just like at the end of the Black Plague.

This seems to run counter to the usual right-wing meme that they need more of them in order to outnumber us and dominate the country.

They sure seem anxious to go the other way on that one...

[Kingofalldems]

6. Trump has destroyed lives and communities.

[blm]

12. ✔️

😢

[BlueNProud]

21. But they would do it all over again so am I supposed to cry for these idiots?

They're the ones who made it a red blue issue. I'm no Rhodes scholar but I listen to doctors and scientists when it comes to health. Is that so hard?

[2naSalit]

26. Well, he has been trying to distroy the whole country so...

He just needs to fall into a hole and stay there.

[Srkdqltr]

8. Duh. Don't listen. Looks like you all will have to learn the hard way.

I'm sure someone else will raise money for the stampede and there will always be referees. Don't give up your freedom.

[pwb]

9. Maybe it is not a Hoax ha red states?

Change the channel.

[dem4decades]

10. She's fake news. I don't believe her. Live free Republicans.

[orwell]

11. +100

I'm sorry. No thoughts...no prayers.

After watching this debacle for the last 4 years I hold all RepubliCons who supported this asshole for the destruction of this country. He has zero power without their cultish level of support.

Good riddance...

[ret5hd]

16. Definitely a crisis actor!

[Enterstageleft]

13. A fish rots from the head down...

Kristi Noem...hearby known as "fishes head".

[Hugin]

14. If one doesn't act on a crisis until it is a crisis...

This is what happens.

At least they have their freedumbs.

[sfstaxprep]

15. Snowflakes

You Bought It, Live With It.

[captain queeg]

17. If we keep going at the present rate we'll have 8 million new cases

and 120,000 new dead by the time trump leaves. Roughly. Maybe that will start registering with people.

[gratuitous]

18. How do we reach people like this?

They have been carefully conditioned to distrust "liberals" and "progressives" and "socialists," and to trust only those politicians anointed by their favored media outlet. I hold no brief for Mitchell SD or Podunk or East Bumblefuck, but I don't have anything against them, either. I'm sorry to see their towns decimated by the pandemic, but really, what can I do from my coastal elite enclave? When we were being brutalized by federal law enforcement this past summer, I'm sure that a lot of the people suffering now exulted watching the hippies getting gassed by the feds, smacked with batons, and shot with rubber bullets. What could we possibly offer the people of Mitchell now?

[roamer65]

27. Let natural selection proceed.

Some will learn from the hard knocks that are coming. Maybe...

[Wellstone ruled]

19. Folks,this is a story that is

happening in many Rural County Seat Towns. Said this before,after five decades of various B to B Sales and Service careers,knew Covid was going to play out this sad way in Rural Fly over Land. There is a certain amount of Ignorance in play,but,it is just plain people being stubbornness and Whiteness. The one thing that could stop this Stupidity is,if every Preacher in the Pulpit this Sunday said,this is for real and please protect your self as well as your family. With in three weeks,the Covid Curve would flatten.

But,Religion and Politics have become strange bedfellows.

[central scrutinizer]

20. Sturgis superspreader event

Has to be partly to blame. Plus Drumpf’s stupid Mt. Rushmore event.

[NJCher]

22. if anyone is having trouble reading the full story

due to WP's paywall, just search the headline. I used Yahoo. and was able to read the full story at Seattle Times.

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation/a-rural-s-d-community-ignored-the-virus-then-people-started-dying/

[My Pet Orangutan]

23. ty!

[MrsMatt]

24. In so many ways, I feel sorry for them

they've been lied to, bamboozled and gaslighted. I grew up in a rural area, and still have friends there. Half of them will not take the covid vaccine when available. These are not stupid people; just misguided.

[roamer65]

25. Regret is too late.

They are paying for their poor decisions.

[bif]

28. Just keep your fingers in your ears and hum real loud!

[EarthFirst]

29. Here's a song for you; South Dakota...

[lpbk2713]

30. It's a case of closing the barn door after the horse got out.

Sorry to have to break it to you that way. Some resources are hard to get to at this point.

It's like the people who choose to ride out a hurricane and then call 911 when the wind
outside is 130 mph. Dispatcher's reply: "We'll get to you when we can."

[msongs]

31. god sent you covid-19. isnt that "with us" enough? nt

[KY_EnviroGuy]

32. This is what happens to folks living in a right-wing information bubble....

from watching/listening only to Faux News/Limbaugh and their preachers in denial. What we have is a huge nation-wide cult and my own state (KY) and my state of origin (TN) is full of them.

As others have said, these people are not necessarily low IQ. The right-wing machine figured out how to connect to their emotional buttons and caught them hook, line and sinker starting in the 70s. Now, it's multi-generational.

We must figure out how to break the bonds to the evil, usury side of the media world or we're sunk. Our real enemy is our very own dollars that have trickled up to greedy right-wing billionaires that fund right-wing media, GOP-connected think tanks, and GOP political campaigns.

Their goal is to have us living under a pure autocratic sectarian plutocracy.


KY rant done......

[Brainfodder]

34. Well said, the problem IS.........

These poorly programmed folks think they are just fine and we are the evil assholes and don't want to change the channel?

The evil assholes at the top are not going to stop either?

Round and round we've gone....

I don't even understand billionaires still working, I'd cash out and live a life of WTF but not wrecking havoc on others?

This sick inability to share shouldn't be the reason behind this fucked up planet!

[hatrack]

33. This is pretty much what I thought would happen - not enough deaths yet to get through to the cult

We'll break 300,000 dead by the time the football games wrap up this Sunday. Probably 400,000 dead by Inauguration Day.

Will half a million dead Americans do the trick?

700,000? A million?

How many dead before a substantial minority of this country's population stop acting like whiny, stupid second-graders with guns and shitty attitudes?

[JDC]

35. I distinctly remember the mayor of Sturgis and the Gov of SD

Continually refer to the people of South Dakota as "freedom loving" so no mask required. Responsible citizenship, etc etc.


I for one am sick and tired of having to depend on dumbfucks to make good decisions. They don't.

[smirkymonkey]

36. Seems like they are the ones who should have had New Hampshire's state motto.

"Live Free or Die".

Guess they are finally learning their lesson. A bit late.