The GOP'S Dark Xmas, We Deserve Better: Hundreds of Thousands Died of Covid, Millions In Poverty
'The Republican party has ushered in a dark Christmas, indeed.' We deserve better. By Hamilton Nolan, The Guardian, Dec. 24, 2020. This year hundreds of thousands of Americans have died of Covid and millions have sunk into poverty, thanks to Republican callousness.
Santa will not be pleased. Not to mention Jesus. That guy is gonna be pissed. When they find out whats happened here, America is going to be in for a very dark Christmas indeed.
I am not one of the unfortunates so poisoned by capitalisms warped inhalation of the holiday season that they have grown cynical about the entire enterprise. My family takes Christmas very seriously. From a very young age I learned that this time of year was not about orgies of shopping or stewing in your contempt for your far-flung relatives, but rather about putting our dormant innate generosity into practice. The Christmas spirit is love. Our bitter cynicism should properly be oriented not at the Christmas spirit itself, but rather at those who corrupt it.
Three hundred thousand Americans have died from Covid this year. Well over 200,000 of them died unnecessarily. Had our government managed this public health crisis in a mature and rational way, the deaths would be a fraction of what they are. Our government chose not to do so. Our leering and stupid leader chose to make the wearing of masks into a defining political issue not out of necessity, or for any financial gain, or out of adherence to any philosophy, but out of aggressive stupidity, laziness and self-rationalization. Usually, the Republican party screws regular people because someone stands to get rich on it. In this case, it was only because they formed a cowards puppet line behind an awful leader with a loud voice. In every community in America, there are people lying dead because their elected officials were scared of being tweeted at by a former reality show host.
Merry Christmas, America.
Tens of millions of Americans lost their jobs this year through no fault of their own. Tens of thousands of small businesses, each one representing the dreams and ambitions of a human being and the employment of many others, have failed this year through no fault of their own. The money that our government appropriated to carry all of these people and businesses through this natural disaster ran out months ago, and nothing more has been forthcoming, even as we watch our friends and neighbors sink into bankruptcy and food insecurity and desperation.
Many other nations have paid workers to stay home, relieving financial pressures on employers and employees alike. Republicans in Congress have refused to do this, because the stock market has stayed high, and also because they dont care. Our incompetent and callous Republican leaders have ordered shutdowns without providing an adequate safety net, thus causing predictable public backlash against the shutdowns, which Republicans have been happy to encourage, because it directs public ire away from them and onto public health professionals. Idiocy in the White House has combined with the wealth-worshiping Republican Senate to produce the worst of both worlds: a raging preventable public health disaster and an economic catastrophe from which the very rich have been insulated.
Your loved ones can die, your business can collapse, your job can evaporate, your unemployment benefits can dry up, your stimulus checks can disappear, and in return your elected leaders will offer you sneering jokes about masks and lies about who won the election. The rest, they will mostly ignore...
More, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/24/republican-party-dark-christmas-we-deserve-better
Blue Owl
(49,934 posts)May it turn out to be so...