Thanks very much to everyone who has donated to the Happy Hollandaise fundraiser so far. I know there’s been a ton of demand for people’s money this year and I’m so grateful for your support.
Now that Biden’s election has been secured and we have a vaccine on the way, I know people are feeling a little bit more optimistic that we might be able to get back to normal in 2021. I know I’m yearning for it. These past four years have been exhausting and 2020 was an absolute horror. I still can’t believe the death toll and it’s going to get worse before it gets better unfortunately.
My first post on the virus was in January of this year. (I unfortunately called it the Wuhan virus, which was what it was referred to in the literature at the time, but I should have realized it was wrong to label it that way.) I was alarmed but under the impression it wasn’t going to be a problem for us, largely based upon the reassurance from the government. That was a mistake. If anyone should have known that Donald Trump’s administration was not to be trusted, it should have been me.
I still can hardly believe how bad America’s response to this crisis has been. If we ever had any faith that the bureaucracy could carry on despite poor leadership from our elected officials, I think we’ve been disabused of that notion. The alleged Deep State that operates on its own apparently isn’t very efficient.
I think this has shown us as nothing else has, that government matters. And our crisis of democracy is just as acute as our health crisis. The damage Trump and his collaborators in the party and the right wing media have caused is immense and all the political and profit incentives lead toward more normalization, not less. It’s the path of least resistance.
I have been posting to this blog seven days a week since 2002. And just as my contributors and I have closely observed and analyzed what was happening in the run-up to the Iraq war, the kidnap torture regime of the Bush administration, the financial crisis, the Grand Bargain, the rise of the progressive movement, the Trump disaster and everything that happened in between, we’ll continue to keep an eye on what’s happening now.
I’ve always said, if nothing else, we document the atrocities. And sadly, if you look over the past 18 years there is plenty to document, no matter who is president or which party has the majority in congress. This is one of the most tumultuous times in our history and as citizens we have an obligation to pay attention. We’re here to help with that if we can.
If you would like to help out with that you can do that by hitting one of the buttons below or sending something to the snail mail address on the left sidebar. I cannot say how much it means to me.
cheers,
digby