NOTE: This is the third and final in a series of Soapboxes to get us caught up after a three-week break; any of them can be read individually, although they are meant to be consumed sequentially. Oh, and they’re all filled with horribleness. Sorry…I don’t write the news, I just analyze and interpret it.
A few items you must accept before continuing:
- Covid-19 is a real virus that is exceptionally dangerous to those who are vulnerable to all viruses. Claiming it is a “hoax” makes you look like a fool.
- That said, if you have used critical thinking and examined all of the scientific data presented by all of the experts and decided to agree with those who say this is nothing more than a horrible case of something similar to the flu, you are in the minority by a large margin and you must accept that. Now, more than ever, Americans are terrified of the virus and 2/3rds support shutting down the country again. https://www.newsweek.com/majority-americans-support-closing-down-economy-again-over-coronavirus-spike-poll-1516374
- Masks? Everyone is wearing them except for a few of us. Drone surveillance, polling, CCTV cameras, and state inspectors across the nation report between 80-90% compliance. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/89-americans-wear-masks-public-coronavirus-pandemic-persists/story?id=71455062
With that as the foundation, we move on…
One of the things I am most proud of vis a vie the RAD show and its’ coverage of the Coronavirus outbreak and all things related, has been our uncanny ability to properly predict and prepare you for what’s next.
Time after time, either through proclamation or speculation, we have been spot-on with looks into policy changes, behavioral modifications, repercussions, attitudes, and results.
I realize that hope is innate in Americans. I have long, half-jokingly discouraged hope as merely a road towards despair, but now more than ever, it is time to have a very serous discussion about hope in America 2020 and how it is literally ruining lives.
All of us know what it’s like to anticipate something we believe is going to be fun or great, and how awful it feels when it turns out that the opposite is true. Perhaps weddings are the best example; countless couples plan the “perfect wedding,” only to have it turn into something halfway between a disappointment and a disaster. We’ve all been to concerts that didn’t live up to the hype, or been let down by what was supposed to be a great movie or restaurant. These incidents, when spaced out amongst life, are tolerable lessons that don’t douse our never-ending optimism and our need to plan the next-big-thing. And that’s where 2020 comes in. There are no next big things, and it’s time to, for our own health and well-being, admit and acknowledge that. Most people haven’t yet, and it’s going to lead to devastating levels of depression as the year continues.
For now, people are caught up in what I call the “better than nothing” mindset, which is a natural form of personal protection from emotional trauma, and takes us back to our abusive relationship that we are in with the year 2020. Like the beaten-down spouse, we cherish the one night he doesn’t give us a black eye and somehow make that a “good thing.” Lowering our expectations to miserable levels is not good; it’s soul-crushing; and the only thing more soul-crushing is our constant need to believe that things are going to change and/or get better.
How? Why? When? What possible reason do you have to believe that? Where are those indications?
Here’s what the rest of 2020 looks like in chronological order. Like it or not, prepare yourself for it:
IF KIDS GO BACK TO SCHOOL, IT WILL BE MISERABLE. As we openly contemplate re-shutting down the country, while simultaneously release plans for a school year that is scheduled to begin in 4-6 weeks, I’d say it’s 50/50 kids even get back to the classroom and are allowed to stay there. And even if they do, we will relegate our children to a life of wearing masks and staying 6 feet away from each other so that they don’t catch a virus that is of absolutely no danger to them. And in most states, kids will go to school 2-3 days a week and then home the other days doing e-learning. What a mess for working parents who are still working from work (that’s the newest phrase to define the minority…those of us who work from work. I can’t make this crap up).
IF THE NFL COMES BACK, IT WILL BE AWFUL. As the nation continues to be terrified of rising “cases” (but lowering rates of death), the most physical sport we have is going to explode in outbreaks. The likelihood that we’re going to have anything remotely close to NFL football is slim to none, and slim has left town.
HIGH SCHOOL AND COLLEGE FOOTBALL WILL BE FEW AND FAR BETWEEN, AND IF IT DOES HAPPEN, IT WILL BE AWFUL. As of this writing, some have already cancelled fall sports. The NCAA is under tremendous pressure to cancel college football and the minute they do, high schools will cave as well. Those that do play will not only be vilified for being reckless, but will do so under such obscene and obnoxious conditions it will be fun for almost no one.
THERE WILL BE NO AFTERSHOCK CONCERT. Please, for the love of God stop thinking otherwise and plan on October 2021 if you must
HALLOWEEN? ARE YOU JOKING? All of Halloween will be held in homes, where people will gather and hold mass-in-living-room trick or treat parties….which, by the way, will most likely be reported to authorities by “Karen’s” who are mortified that people are gathering in groups in the privacy of their own homes.
THE 2020 ELECTION WILL BE AN UNMITIGATED DISASTER. Historically, 25% of Americans vote by mail; this year, that number will double or triple…that will mean that it will take days or even weeks for states to report results. November 3rd isn’t election day, November is election month. We’ll be watching the tote board daily as a new state reports its’ results. The only people excited about the election are lawyers, since hundreds of thousands of them will be mobilized across the nation. If this election isn’t decided in the Supreme Court, that will be the story.
AND THEN COMES FLU SEASON. On what planet are we supposed to believe that, as a nation, we will react in any way reasonably to the inevitable outbreak of the flu? At first, everyone will be terrified that they have Covid…then, when they realize that the flu is just as dangerous (more so for children), something akin to an episode of “The Simpson’s” when Earth is visited by the aliens will ensue. Schools will close, plastic wrapped humans will be the norm, shelter-in-place orders will be re-instated, and whatever is left of the in-room-dining and movie theater business will cease entirely.
THERE WILL BE NO HOLIDAY PARTIES AND IF THERE ARE, THEY WILL BE MORE AWFUL THAN USUAL. Public gatherings of people that don’t live together amidst both Covid and the flu? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
THE VACCINE WON’T BE THE ANSWER. If we get a vaccine, they will try to sell it as the cure-all. Even if enough Americans agree to get it (which seems questionable at this time), people will still remain terrified of getting sick, as we have completely altered our way of life as it relates to something that used to be a given; viruses. A Covid-19 vaccine will not end this.
2021 DOESN’T SOLVE THIS. We have fundamentally altered our society for the foreseeable future. Many of you sense this and are able to adopt that “well, let’s make the best of this” attitude while others of us, like me, continue to mourn our country and society. The thought that a change of the calendar will suddenly remove the plastic partitions, masks, paranoia, and stupidity is fantasy…and you need to stop. My wife turns 30 in February; we should be planning a blow-out party in Las Vegas, Hawaii, Miami, or wherever on Earth she wants to celebrate, but we refuse to live in a world where we allow ourselves to be Charlie Brown and wait for the world to swipe the football away from us anymore. We’re tired of falling on our emotional faces.
It is not hyperbolic to say that we have destroyed America; it is merely a question of whether the damage is permanent and/or how long it will take for enough people to return us to what we all took for granted as nirvana; February, 2020.
Post-Vacay Soapbox #1: It Really Is This Simple
