Guilty

It started with our headquarters telling us to cancel all programming for March. A few days later, that was followed with being told to cancel all programming for April as well.

Then, on a Saturday in mid-March, we got the call: The libraries are closing. Announce it at the end of day.

We continued going to work for about a week after that, with no patrons in the building. Then the word came: Work from home, no one allowed in the building.

The following week that changed; we could have a minimal staff in the building, maintaining the collection and answering phones. But most of the time you'd be at home doing telework. We didn't know when we'd reopen the doors. We thought, oh a couple of months. And then, one by one, we were pulled away to perform disaster service work.

I would drive on my way to errands, and see streets empty of traffic, parking lots devoid of parked cars, and store after store shuttered. Libraries, museums, concert venues, the places where we gather for communal experiences, all dark. My city—my vibrant, chaotic, beautiful city—seemed as if a neutron bomb had gone off and had killed all the people, while leaving the buildings intact. It was an uneasy, eerie vision of the Apocalypse. No trumpets from the horsemen, no unsealing of doom. Just a sudden stop.

And then my brother told me that my step-niece had contracted COVID. To this day she suffers from the side-effects of the disease, the ones we all read about. We're hoping and praying that she doesn't develop the more severe morbidities. But nothing is certain.

I was assigned to contact tracing. Fortunately, I was assigned as a manager, not an interviewer. But I held regular meetings, and the stories would come out. I lost one interviewer because the work was impossible for her; her anxiety and depression, controlled by medication, was beyond the help of that medication due to the work, to calling people to tell them they had this disease, to listening to the tears, the forlorn cries, or, worse, calling a case and learning that they'd already succumbed to the virus.

During the worst of the pandemic, my group fielded eight-hundred new cases daily. It was worse during the weekends, when we were on half-staff. One day in July I broke down. I spent the entire day crying, with my wife hugging me, trying to console me. I called for an appointment with my psychiatrist, and the nurse on the other end of the line immediately asked if I needed emergency help. I pulled myself together; I'm of a normally sunny disposition, and I had people to care for, at home and at work. But when I broke down, it washed over me, a wave of sadness and despair subsuming me.

Yesterday, as we all know, the news broke from Bob Woodward's book, given to CNN by Woodward, along with recordings of the interviews he had done with Donald Trump, that Trump knew just how deadly this new virus was. He knew it was worse than the flu, that it was airborne, and was the greatest national security threat to face his so-called "administration" since he took office. 

And yet, he did nothing. He did the opposite of nothing, in fact. He downplayed the virus, knowing its deadliness. He disparaged efforts to ameliorate its spread. He castigated governors who didn't tow his line. He sent PPE to China, robbing front-line responders of the protection they needed. In any court of law, this would qualify as depraved indifference to life. And this is the man who holds the office of the presidency, consigning his fellow-citizens to death and long-term sickness because he was afraid it would injure his poll numbers. These actions pushed him from an incompetent moron to an outright evil figure. The evil underpinned the incompetence. His vanity caused him to spill all of this to Woodward. 

We all knew what an evil piece of shit Trump was. But hearing it from his own lips—his callousness, his self-centeredness, his willingness to sacrifice Americans for his re-election—still stuns me.

My life would have been so different with Hillary Clinton in office. All of our lives would be. When the first inklings of the virus crossed her desk in the PDB, she would have acted. She would have mobilized our alliances to fight it and minimize the damage. 

Instead, we have an evil sociopath who sees everything through the prism of his own malevolent narcissism in charge of a raging pandemic. He still makes things worse, as he has just ordered the cessation of testing of all incoming international travelers. Gotta get those tourists in, after all, for "the economy".

I will die mad at everyone who voted for this monstrosity. I will die mad at everyone who voted for anyone but Secretary Clinton. I will die mad at everyone who by their inaction allowed this calamity to ravage our country. We have been robbed of four years of peace. Hundreds of thousands have been robbed of their lives and health. And each of those lives lost to death or illness impact countless others who loved them. Families and friends have gaping holes in their hearts. They are maggots and scum, and I can't reconcile myself to calling them fellow citizens. They have abdicated all the responsibility which comes with the title "citizen". They vote solely for their own parochial interests. They vote solely for their own fearful hatreds.

When we restore our country, constant vigilance will be the order of the day. A dying minority will fight to scupper any progress. We know now what happens when they're in charge. The worst occurred. We can never allow all the pain and suffering to be for nothing.