The violence in Kenosha, Wisc. and Portland, Ore. and Acting President Donald Trump’s tweeted shouts of law and order have obscured other concerns, many of them spin-offs of the global pandemic. The death toll mounts. The case count too. One nation under Trump cannot seem to do anything right to control the spread. Trump himself, as the old commercial goes, is a chocolate mess, misleader of an anti-democracy party dismantling America as we know it and flirting with autocracy. His anxious white followers would rather sicken and die than lose their dominant position on America’s social ladder to any mix of persons they perceive as lessers or know-something elites. They’ll see the country burn first, figuratively if not literally.
While Trump tries to Jedi-mind-trick the country into ignoring his epic floundering on the pandemic and turn their attention to crime, more proximate concerns — like food to eat —trouble voters far from Portland and Kenosha. People lined up in cars for miles last month in Dallas to obtain food.
Life as Dana Frank knew it in Santa Cruz is over. Amid the pandemic’s social distancing and the California wildfires, the ash and the evacuations, her mother died at her nursing home in Oakland. For the first time Frank had to pile her things by the front door and make snap decisions about what to leave behind in an evacuation. Seeing America burn in California is no metaphor. The headquarters at nearby Big Basin Redwoods built in the 1930s by FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps has burned to the ground. There’s a metaphor for you.
The CDC “is asking states to expedite the approval process for medical supply company McKesson so it can set up coronavirus vaccination sites by Nov. 1.” Not that there is a vaccine yet, mind you, one that’s been properly tested safe and effective. But Trump needs a desperate, splashy, vaporware headline ahead of the election. If this goes badly, Trump could undermine faith in government for decades in addition to driving a stake through the heart of the world’s once-premier public health agency.
Meanwhile, the New York Times sent reporters across the country to speak to families experiencing food insecurity in the pandemic. Work is slack or nonexistent. Food is whatever is cheap and less perishable. And microwaveable. Families stock what they can afford or obtain it when they can from food pantries:
In long conversations around the country this August — at kitchen tables, in living rooms and sitting in cars in slow-moving food lines with rambunctious children in the back — Americans reflected on their new reality. The shame and embarrassment. The loss of choice in something as basic as what to eat. The worry over how to make sure their children get a healthy diet. The fear that their lives will never get back on track.
The pandemic could virtually wipe out the restaurant industry. In New York City, the industry is on the verge of collapse, reports The Gothamist:
At the moment, the best hope for the industry lies with the RESTAURANTS Act, a bipartisan federal bill introduced this summer that would create a $120 billion fund to aid small and locally-owned restaurants, and would specifically cover the difference between revenues from 2019 and estimated revenues through the rest of the year.
New York magazine’s Rachel Sugar spoke with restaurant owners in New York City:
Is it hopeless to think that indoor dining can return to New York City before a vaccine is widely available? The more I talked to experts, the more it started to feel like it might be. But what I also heard was frustration from operators who just want some sort of proposal in place so they can start making plans of their own. “At this point, I just need to know,” says Tren’ness Woods-Black, the third-generation owner of Sylvia’s in Harlem. “That’s all. I’m not a doctor. I’m not a scientist. I’m not an air-filtration specialist.” If reopening dining rooms isn’t possible this year, then okay, she says. But “I don’t want to feel beat up because I’m asking.”
Unless Congress acts to shore up unemployment benefits, things could get worse fast. Nearly half a million Arizonans could see their benefits drop abruptly from $540 per week to $240. In Pennsylvania, in Massachusetts, in Tennessee and elsewhere, the unemployed fret over how much and when they will receive assistance to make it through a nationwide pandemic with no end in sight. Jobless claims that trended lower over the summer remain at record highs.
On Wednesday, Trump traveled to North Carolina to announce in front of the battleship North Carolina he is declaring Wilmington the first World War II “Heritage City.” He could have found famed WWII carriers and battleships in South Carolina, Texas, California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Hawaii, Virginia or Alabama. He chose North Carolina. A mystery, huh?
Donald Trump couldn’t find his aft with both hands. And he cannot bluster his way out of a pandemic, nor help desperate Americans plagued by his administration. He is too busy trying to get himself reelected.
This November’s election is not about who controls the country, but about whether there will be one left to control. People are getting desperate.
● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
For The Win, 3rd Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV mechanics guide at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like.