What The Pandemic Has Taught Us About Ourselves

What have we learned from the pandemic about ourselves, as a people?

Maybe that's a premature question, in one sense.  The pandemic is far from over.  Despite massive efforts at publicly-sponsored vaccinations and education, the COVID-19 virus, after a brief month of optimism about a fall recovery for the nation, has once again reasserted its power over our lives, our futures, and perhaps our national soul and identity as well.  Reported cases are on the rise in many states, hospitals in those states are overwhelmed with COVID patients, parents are anxious about sending their children back to bricks-and-mortar schooling, and all of us are wondering whether we will ever get back to any kind of semblance of "normal."  In short, the pandemic seems likely to be with us for many more months.  It therefore may not be finished teaching us lessons.

But make no mistake:  if you have a functional brain, senses to feed it information, and a willingness to learn something from combining those two things, it is painfully clear that the pandemic has already taught us a lot about ourselves.  And none of it is good.  Especially given the events of the past few weeks.

Take, for example, the impact on the part of America where COVID is as immediate as anything can be:  our medical system, which we like to think of as the envy of the world, but which is fact was already operating under tremendous stress even before the start of the pandemic.  Over the past month, that system has become filled with people who, days and perhaps hours before their admission, were denying the very science they suddenly needed so desperately to take advantage of.

It's not enough, however, to mock the hypocrisy of these people; it's far more important to point out the stress that hypocrisy has created for others.  Those who are exercising the "freedom" to defy science and common sense to own the libs are really owning the patients with other medical conditions who can't access medical care because of all the freedom-loving anti-vaxers who have jammed the ICUs of hospitals in their states, and deprived non-COVID patients of the freedom to protect their health.  Yes, even from cancer.  This influx of patients is also taking a toll on health care workers, even ones with years of experience in dealing with patients in crisis, as they see the deniers come in to the hospitals and demand the benefits of the medical science they formerly mocked.  

And what about our public servants, the ones we elect to put the public interest ahead of their private interests?  Far too many of them have effectively said to hell with public safety coming first.  Instead, their own desire for money and power has come first.  Rand Paul, the entitled twerp from the state that gave us Mitch McCONnell, this past week became only the most recent example of how this has worked in the pandemic context.  If you'd like a roundup, even if only a partial one, of these efforts, here's one that makes sure to include Paul.  And they're not being particularly discreet about all of this.  In the case of Jim Jordan, who's made it clear for years that he's a professional loudmouth, he's more than happy to say the quiet part out loud.

While they're at it, of course, they're not just helping themselves; they're also helping the array of private interests that got them their cushy jobs in the first place.  Take, in the case of Ron DeathSantis, the "governor" of Florida, his willingness to let the owners of private school systems profit from our current national misery, in more ways than one.  In DeathSantis' case, it doesn't stop with where the money goes; there's also the question of how it's going to be paid for.

And their response, to anyone who dares complaint about the rise in caseloads and the public profiteering off of it?  You can kiss that sunny Reagan-era hope, growth, and optimism goodbye.  The new message?  "Life's tough, get over it."    The statement from Marjorie Taylor Greene to be found in that link would be funny if it weren't so sad.  That she can't even see how her bizarre concept of "freedom" deprives others of their freedom from sickness without any choice on their part exposes the cruelty as well as the cluelessness that embodies what American conservatism has become.  You can rest assured, however, that life is not tough for those in the vast right-wing conspiracy.  Just ask Ted Cruz.  

You also see this cruelty and cluelessness in their response to the unemployment crisis created by the pandemic.  People are reluctant to go back to work because of child care issues.  But the right is pushing the idea that jobs are going unfilled because of supposedly "generous" unemployment benefits.  Anyone who has tried living on unemployment benefits (and I speak from experience, unfortunately) is more than happy to testify to their lack of generosity.  But that doesn't impress right-wing yakkers like Laura Ingraham, who thinks that what's needed is to threaten the public with starvation.  Go ahead and try public starvation, Laura; you won't like the results.

Truth to tell, no one should be surprised by any of this.  When a political party spends four decades systematically building up public mistrust in the government of, by, and for the people,  designed to protect and ensure public interests, what message can there be at the end of that process except "You're on your own"?  That they are saying that fearlessly and publicly out loud now should tell you something about their own sense of how successful they've been.  Here's an even more frightening example of how successful they've been at practicing divide-and-conquer politics.  

And, as I've said before, and will probably have to say many times more before it changes, all of this has been aided and abetted by the ongoing corruption of what's left of mainstream American journalism., which has so effectively merged with the conservative politicans that, like the humans and the pigs in Orwell's "Animal Farm," it is no longer possible to tell the difference.  But what about the handful of "good" journalists out there?  Can't we rely on them?  Well, we can rely on their willingness to try, but, unfortunately, we can also rely on the brazen cowardice of conservative politicians in pushing back against them, without any apparent fear of reprisals.  

We can also rely on the equally brazen dishonesty of conservatives when they try to explain the failures of "freedom" by blaming the recent explosion of COVID cases on immigrants.  All you have to do is to take a look at this map to see the ludicrous nature of this attempt at deflection.    If anything, one likely consequence of this crisis is that we will need an influx of immigrants to replace those we have lost.  

How can one best sum all of this up?  What have we learned about ourselves in the past 17 months?  I'll put it this way:  I contend that the impact of the pandemic has been devastating not only to America by itself, but also to the American impact on the rest of the world.

We are not the nation that won World War II and saved Western civilization through a combination of unity and self-sacrifice.  We are not the beacon of freedom and integrity that we like to think has made us the envy of the rest of the world.  And, most definitely, we are not an "exceptional" nation, congenitally impervious to the forces that have corrupted and destroyed civilizations that preceded us.  We are not demi-gods, any more than the founders of this country were.  We are the inheritors of a Republic that was bequeathed to us by an extraordinary group of individuals, and perhaps the most extraordinary thing about them was the fact that they were painfully aware of their own frailty, as well as ours.  That is precisely why it is important not to lose sight of Benjamin Franklin's words to the person who asked him what the Constitutional Convention had created:  "A Republic, if you can keep it." (emphasis added) 

As the pandemic has amply demonstrated, we are not a perfect union.  We are a nation charged with the responsibility to strive, at all times, to form a more perfect union.  That is not a discreet process.  It is, and should be, an ongoing one.  It's poignant that it takes an immigrant to point that out and put the sacrifices we are called to make now into perspective--especially a Republican immigrant.  Forming a more perfect union, and thereby rising out of the muck that the pandemic has exposed as characterizing our current status, is one that takes an ongoing process of renewal, including the acceptance of new arrivals who can remind us where we have been, and teach us where we need to go.

Frankly, too much of the corruption and betrayal of our better angels has been tolerated for far too long by those of us who strive to do the right thing quietly, and are fed up with those who noisily seek attention for themselves, and nothing else.  An excellent place to start would be by imposing a tax on the unvaccinated, so that we have a way of paying for the human and social costs of their narcissism.

It's past due time, in any case, for America to get well, physically and spiritually.  The harsh lessons of this period must be heeded, if we are to reclaim the place in this world we had once imagined for ourselves, and which so many around the world want us to occupy again.