I don’t often write about politics here because it never does any good. I could do without trolls finding and attacking me, and I don’t want to risk getting in arguments with friends.
But boy is it bleak.
I have to admit, I thought COVID would finally “break the fever” of people believing crazy things. If there was an actual cost—like death from a contagious virus—then maybe we’d all start to get on the same page...right?
Nope! And my wife said, “I knew it wouldn’t change.”
We can’t have a country if 20 to 35 percent of the public has divorced themselves from facts and reality, because they follow propaganda outlets who say whatever people want to hear in order to make money and gain power.
I know that’s what the “other side” says about my side...but it’s not true.
Because my side, more often than not, operates in good faith. I know I do. Show me the data and let’s use logic and reality to figure out the best plan of action.
For example, it is true that the left has overreacted to Covid in certain ways that has been damaging, particularly around school closures. One of my favorite writers is Jonathan Chait, who covered it here (paywall site, though you get one free article).
We can have debates about how much taxation is fair, about the degree of government regulation, about the wisdom of foreign military engagement.
We can’t have a quarter to a third of the country deny the result of an election because they didn’t like an outcome, or believe hysterical nonsense about a safe and effective vaccine.
And we can’t have our politics split into a white party and a coalition-of-races party.
I don’t know the way out of it, except if there’s some kind of wipeout election that inspires the Republican party to kick out the grifters and lunatics. I was hoping that would happen in 2016 or 2020...nope. There are too many structural problems and there’s too much corruption already baked into the system.
We’ll see what happens after Roe v. Wade is overturned and half the country becomes a police state for women’s bodies. I don’t think anybody has fully reckoned with the backlash over that.
It’s all very depressing, and I admit a certain amount of fear just for writing about it.
Trolls, stay away! It’s my site and my opinions.
But to my right-of-center friends—let’s stay talking, and stay friends. The country will only work if we can get along and hear each other and work out fair solutions.