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They don't know they've already lost


I, of course, didn't watch Donald Trump's Oval Office address to the nation concerning the coronavirus pandemic. Why would I subject myself to that? But, if you at all thought that Trump had any inkling of concern for the American public, just take a gander at this:
That's right. This fucking evil moron saw this performance as just something to get through. He has no sympathy. He has no empathy. He is a sociopath incapable of human feeling. Nothing moves him except the con, the grift, the quick chance. He entered the presidential race as the longest of cons, just to get his name in the headlines every day, because that's all he cares about. He hadn't planned to win. And when he was installed, he treated the presidency, the sacred trust into which he fell, like any of his business endeavors: just one more way to rake a buck.

However, as I have to tell no one who is a regular reader, that's not how government works. At least it's not how it should work in a democratic republic. This is how Russia and the former Soviet republics work: larcenous states where the leader and his cronies make off with the nation's wealth, leaving the populace in penury.

This is how Trump sees his unanticipated fortune: he's got something golden, and he's going to milk it. His response to the coronavirus is of a piece to this: how will it redound to his benefit?

But that's to be expected from this buffoon. And that's not the point of this piece.

The graphic which fronts this essay encapsulates this essay's title.

I have been commenting on here that if you want to see a revolution, have a government botch the reaction to a pandemic in such a fashion that it costs thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of lives. The worst case estimates right now are that up to half of the US population could become infected, with a death toll of one million.

But it doesn't have to get anywhere near that apocalyptic for the effect to be felt. Last night it was announced that the NBA had suspended the rest of the season after one of its players tested positive for the virus. That's billions of dollars gone from local economies, as the arenas are shuttered, staff doesn't get paid, tax revenue isn't generated. And that's just one industry. The E3 electronics convention was also canceled. That brings millions of dollars into the Los Angeles economy every year. My boss was going to chaperone a group of teenagers to a Kiwanis convention this weekend; that, and all the hotel bookings, were canceled. We have barely begun to conceive of the ripples this will have on the economy. And all Republicans are concerned about is giving handouts to corporations, not relief to citizens, and certainly not ensuring Americans have access to tests and health care.

At this moment in history, Republicans are doing what every ancien regime does right when it's about to fall: whistle past the graveyard, sure that they are eternal, that the GOP will never go the way of the Whigs or the Federalists. Political parties have disappeared for a fraction of what the GOP is doing. While a rump 27% will always vote for the worst possible people, this botched response to a global pandemic has the promise of sticking a knife into the Grand Old Party. A party which was founded to oppose slavery has devolved into the party of slavery-defenders. The party which broke up monopolies and trusts at the beginning of the last century is now nothing but a spigot of cash for them. But all that pales in comparison to the very real possibility that this party, this government, may condemn thousands to death and many more to grave illness because of both incompetence and malice.

Lamar Alexander's words will be hung around his neck as he's led to the dock if even a tenth of the worst case scenario comes to pass. We're already seeing Joe Biden, in the nominating primaries, building a new governing coalition, between the Democratic Party's traditional base of people of color, and white, college-educated suburbanites who can no longer stomach the GOP's pathology. If, as is most likely, Republican malfeasance leads to calamity both in the nation's health and exchequer, expect a bloodbath in November. The revolution won't be brought about by an old Marxist from Vermont; it will be engendered by a virus and the avoidable chaos it's caused.

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