Welcome to the shit-show<\/b><\/p>\n
Like Armageddon, except Jesus is the clown from \u201cIt\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n
March 24th<\/sup> 2020<\/i><\/p>\n Trump wants to end the coronavirus crisis by Easter. That\u2019s always a nice time of year here in the northern latitudes\u2014spring is finally really asserting itself over winter, all the trees are budding, grass is greening, daffodils are waiting to be crushed by the rogue April snow storm. Christians liked it so much they made it the most important day on their calendar.<\/p>\n Now, it\u2019s one thing to offer hope in a time of crisis. Just this morning I told the fellow down at my local grocery story that I thought we might get a half-season of baseball this year, with opening day on the Fourth of July. I don\u2019t have a shred of evidence to support that, aside from a historical tendency of plagues to fade out after about six months, and we\u2019re now in month three. But it cheered the guy up a bit (being a store clerk right now isn\u2019t much fun) and what the hell\u2014I felt a little bit better by saying it, too.<\/p>\n But here\u2019s the thing; I don\u2019t have the power to order baseball to reopen on a specific date, and I wouldn\u2019t even if I had that power. And if an epidemiologist heard me talking to the clerk, he might suggest that I was being a tad optimistic and suggest that baseball wait until summer solstice before making that sort of decision.<\/p>\n If I said baseball should open up for the season on April 12th<\/sup>, he would tell me I would get thousands of people killed, and I was being reckless even suggesting it.<\/p>\n There isn\u2019t an epidemiologist in the country that thinks dropping social distancing and resuming business as usual in just 18 days would be anything short of catastrophic. If the United States is very, very lucky, we might be showing signs of flattening the curve by then. On our present course, which is still accelerating, by April 12th<\/sup> we may have 1.2 million cases, and between 10 and 20 thousand dead. Sorry to scare anyone, but those are the numbers. It\u2019s bad, it\u2019s going to get a lot worse.<\/p>\n That\u2019s even if Americans do batten down and avoid social contact as much as possible from now on. Between lack of test to get an idea of where the disease is or how far it\u2019s spread, and the deliberate refusal by Trumpkins to observe such precautions (many of them still believe it\u2019s all a liberal Democratic plot to hurt Trump) those are the optimistic numbers, the ones that assume everyone will exercise caution and common sense, and in two weeks the curve may begin to flatten.<\/p>\n What I expect to see by April 12th<\/sup> is that things will be at the point where nearly everyone in the country at least knows someone who has caught the disease, and a significant number know someone who is dead or in a weeks-long struggle to live from the disease. By then, even some of the Trumpkins will realize that going back to work is tantamount to a death sentence, and that the only reason Trump is trying to order them back is because some of his billionaire friends are in danger of becoming millionaires. Not all of them\u2014Trump worship is a cult, in its worst form as bad as Jonestown, and we all remember what happened there. Some Trumpkins will die for Trump, because it will SO annoy the libruls. There was even an image of two MAGAts licking a New York Subway turnstile, which they put on line as a way of \u201csticking it to the libs\u201d.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, it\u2019s a part of human nature. Today\u2019s Gallup poll showed Trump\u2019s approval rating at 49%, and his disapproval rating at 42%–the first time since he took office that his approval rating wasn\u2019t underwater. When people are frightened, they flock to the safety of an authority figure. They want Big Daddy to save them from the vicious noseeums that are so threatening. This is well known, not just to elderly curmudgeons such as myself, but to any competent social psychologist.<\/p>\n Trump is what is known as a Charismatic Authority. Until now, he wasn\u2019t a very good one, only able to command a relatively small fraction of the population through propaganda that he, and they, were targeted and victimized by others, such as liberals, blacks, Mexicans and Moslems. His crises had been all invented, and rather transparently so. Now that a real crisis has arisen, his power to manipulate has grown exponentially.<\/p>\n Charismatic authorities have always come out during crises: some, such as Winston Churchill or FDR, were benign. Others, such as Stalin, Mao, and Hitler, were not.<\/p>\n While Trump is not an intelligent or empathetic man, that does not mean he is not a crafty predator, and he has realized this crisis will work to his advantage. Charismatic authorities feed off crises. He\u2019s already pressed during this one to have Congress give him a half a trillion dollars to spend as he sees fit, without having to account to anyone or even explain where the money went.<\/p>\n Oh, I\u2019m sure he\u2019ll donate it all to charity. That\u2019s just the type of guy he is, right?<\/p>\n No, more than likely that money would make the Trump family an unmovable and insurmountable dictatorship that would afflict Americans for generations to come.<\/p>\n Crises are essential. Hitler, Mao and Stalin not only arose in times of crisis, but maintained states of crises throughout their bloody reigns. Hitler\u2019s proved so catastrophic to his followers that his public adulation only began to fade in early 1945, when it was obvious that Germany was to be destroyed. Stalin and Mao had policies that killed millions, but upon their deaths, the unfeigned mourning and bereavement their respective lands was immense. Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn, then serving a ten year term for Anti-Soviet Agitation, wrote of the utter tearful loss and desolation amongst the prisoners, many of whom were as capriciously imprisoned as he, upon the death of \u201cUncle Joe.\u201d Charismatic leaders create crises upon which they thrive.<\/p>\n