I just can't do it anymore.
I just can't look the other way when someone strolls by me at the store without a mask.
I just can't drive by the service station on South Main Street festooned with all manner of Trump paraphernalia more than one month (the pink Women For Trump signs really annoy me - I mean really?) after the election was over and that guy lost by more than 7 million votes.
I just can't listen to the strident 'pro-life' rhetoric spouted by people who choose to ignore the staggering death toll of the pandemic (314,000 and growing in numbers we just couldn't imagine when this all began in March and we were told it would 'just go away'.) I just can't.
I just can't take seriously the arguments put forth by the Republicans in the Pennsylvania House about 'voting irregularities.' I voted by mail in the 2020 election. The reason I chose to vote by mail this year was simple - I did not want to subject myself to the tiny, overheated room where I could have cast my ballot in Hebron Township. The reason: Covid-19. The other reason: I suspected that since I had seen many of the people who traditionally worked the polls without face masks in social media posts, I would have no assurance that they would care to protect my health by masking up. So I cast my vote by "absentee" ballot and dropped it off at the Gunzburger building after donning my mask, sanitizing my hands and standing in front of the temperature sensor provided there.
It is insulting to all of us for Republicans such as our State Representative Martin Causer to suggest that such precautions were not a necessity.
And may I remind everyone that the numbers of confirmed Covid-19 infections in Potter County began to rise soon after Election Day. And then there's that Monday not two weeks later when a charlatan who goes by the name of Prophet Dutch Sheets felt it was necessary to hold a superspreader "prayer meeting" at the Gospel Tabernacle that attracted hundreds of followers. The sole purpose of the event was to pray for the election results to be overturned to hand the victory to the one they have deemed to be God's chosen one, Donald Trump.
But what about me and the myriad others who identify as Christians, who prayed for a different kind of chosen one. We're the Christians who believe that God's will was for Donald Trump to be voted out of office and take with him hate, lies, racism, bigotry, incompetence and Melania and Jared and Ivanka and Eric and Lara and Junior too. Oh yes, God decided that we would be done with Mike Pence and his newly-de-matronized wife who's known as "Mother."
I just can't understand how others can go swimming into the same deep pools of information I'm diving into and come up with any other conclusion than this: We've been had. All of us. And particularly swindled and mistreated are the Christians who really believe in their hearts that this man who knew exactly which coded language to use to woo them, was the annointed one to make the country a "Christian" nation.
As a former Republican strategist wrote: "It's just astonishing that this man is president of the United States. The man, the con man, from New York City. Many bankruptcies, failed businesses, a reality show that branded him as something he never was - a successful businessman.Well, he's the President of the United States now, and the man who said he would make the country great again. And he's brought death, suffering, and economic collapse on truly an epic scale. And let's be clear. This isn't happening in every country around the world. This place. Our place. Our home. Our country. The United states. We are the epicenter. We are the place where you're the most likely to die from this disease. We're the ones with the most shattered economy. And we are because of the fool that sits in the oval office behind the Resolute Desk."
I just can't see why others just can't see.
3 comments:
I'll bet you're glad to get that off your chest. You seem to also be saying you just can't continue trying to understand why these people are in such a condition of denial. Here, there is an inclination to simply look away and maybe if there is no resistance they will quit. The problem is that they won't. If this is a matter of identity to them, they will not give up, and they will be back. They're pretty riled up and aggressive already, to an arguably suicidal point. However much we may want to, we cannot afford to avoid the effort to diagnose where that comes from.
Thank you Jane for expressing in words what many of us hold equally true. My vocabulary has failed me at times over the past 5 years, nearly 4 years of the current administration, and these past 9 months of Pandemic. Watching Trump and his goon squad disrespect our Constitution, our institutions, our values, trampling on human rights, cozying up to dictators, and LYING EVERY DAY, spinning his warped sense of reality at every turn. It appalls me that 70 million Americans voted for that miserable piece of narcissistic flesh. It puzzles and grieves me they do not see through the charade, and I have a deep NEED to understand WHY. I believe that will be a goal of mine in 2021, to read much on the topic of Class, and fear of the loss of status. I think, but do not know with certainty, that is where much of his support comes from. Looking forward to reading more of your Blog.
Karen Nooney
Thank you thank you thank you
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