Wednesday open thread: Was it worth it?
mRNA vaccines are a wonder of modern science. They unarguably prevented the COVID pandemic death toll from coming even close to the numbers of the 1918 flu. And now brainworm-eaten Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is canceling all funding for vaccine development.
Answer me this, those of you who couldn't bring yourselves to vote for Kamala Harris: Was it worth it? Is this what you thought your apathy would get you? Are you reveling in the damage you've caused? Because this is a direct result of you either voting 3rd party, staying home, or reluctantly voting for "Killer Kamala" while rhetorically doing everything you could to suppress the vote.
These vaccines will still be researched. But not in the United States. Our competitors will advance by leaps and bounds, while we become, at least for now, a sad, lonely backwater. We will cease to be the source of new discoveries, and will have to hope that this regime will allow those discoveries to be distributed here.
Has Gaza been "freed"? Are grocery prices down? Are you still more interested in voting off a cast member on "Love Island" than in ensuring that your children have a better life than you had? Petulance and purity have cast us on this raft in the middle of the ocean, with beasts of the deep circling us.
No, it didn't have to be this way. And yet it did. Because for far too long too many of our fellow citizens have seen democracy and its maintenance as something that doesn't concern them. Or they see in democracy only a failure to provide them with things they think they deserve, while doing no work to bring about those things. What we are going through now is a direct result of the infantilization of the American voter, the demand for instant gratification, the denial of expertise and experience.
Was it worth it to destroy your lives and those of your neighbors for you to maintain your principles? The dissolution of USAID will lead to millions of deaths. You who bray about "genocide": What do you say to that? Do those lives not count? Of course, I know the answer to that. So do you.
Those who seek perfection will only reap dust. And those who simply don't care about what happens outside of their own home will find no succor when the wolf breaks down the door. You couldn't be bothered to vote, and will lose your Medicaid. You couldn't be bothered to put a mail-in ballot into your drop-off, and you will see everything in your life get materially worse. Gaza was more important than those who live next door to you. A bit of inflation after a world-upending pandemic was enough to make you forget the elation you felt when the election was called in 2020. You are the most unserious people to ever compose the public of an empire.
Yes, I blame the electorate. It has the power. And when it refuses to vote to make everyone's lives better, I will blame it. Power comes from the ballot; exercise it, or those who have ill-intent certainly will.
I hope the pain and death through which we shall go will offer a salutary lesson. But no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public. We are a proudly anti-intellectual, hyper-individualistic people, unconcerned with matters of community. I got mine, screw you. Or I got nothing, I want you to have less. It's disgusting, but it's our history.
Was it worth it? I fear I know what the answer will be for many of you.