The coronavirus spread updated in real time

[_Jersey Girl]

Can Trump be charged with manslaughter on a mass scale? Genocide? He's openly flouting the advice and guidelines set up by his own task force advisors, mainly Dr. Birx. What about accessory to murder? Somebody needs to pull this guy off the podium and get him out of office because he's basically taking the CDC guidelines, crumbling them up into a little ball, throwing them over his shoulder going " “F” this crap. Open it up and let's make money!" So he can centerpiece the recovering economy while American citizens drop like flies in the background with no notice at all.

What the “F”? Are the American people smart enough to say no to the upcoming re-opening of 40 states total? Are they diligently paying attention to the stats and predictions by the medical community enough to say "Um, no. We're not coming out, Bozo, so take your economy AND your election and shove it."

What are we going to do here? What can be done? He's leveled exactly no criticism against protesters carrying AR's into the public square (not that they don't have the right to protest openly) yell in the faces of essential personnel, spit on other human beings when reminded to wear a damned mask for god sakes, much less has he so much as tried to tone down the situation by calling for calm. What? Is he courting civil war here?

Are the politicians' just going to sit there and literally brown nose this guy/kiss his ass right in front of our very faces while thousands more Americans die? How do we stop this rapid slide into actual hell?

What about the Lincoln Project? Do they hold any weight or influence at all?

Can anyone help us out of this massive FUBAR as a country? Is there anyone willing to even try lifting us out of this mess? Or is it now on our shoulders as individual citizens of this chaotic out of control country to vote with our feet? Will that even work? Keep in mind we're talking about a population that manages to grab headlines and even folks at grassroots level (in my general location even) who can't make a distinction much less a sound judgement call between a public health crisis and a fight for their constitutional rights!

Just yesterday our local news put up a thing about a little café further out in the sticks than I even am that opened up to dining in with no masks required! Everyone cheering them on for violating health department directives! Because by God, that lady has a right to earn a living to feed her family. Does no one care about health standards? If she served you a ground mouse sandwich are you up for that too? Because once you start tossing health department compliance you might as well eat that crap. Can people not think?

What if Cuomo stepped up to the plate? Does anyone think he can pull us out of this mess on a national scale? Are we screwed for the duration here? If we don't turn a corner on this, thousands upon thousands more people will die in a soon-to-happen surge of the virus and we'll be back to square one long before November, fighting a massive war wherein Trump fiddles while American citizens burn.

I may or may not have this out of my gut writing this. I don't think it would be healthy to get it out of my gut entirely. I mean I'm lucky and blessed to live off the beaten path but that only serves as a buffer that protects me from the crap going on around me, it's not solving the national crisis yet to come. And we thought we were just getting a handle on it. No, we're creating a new one bigger and far worse than the one we were just on the cusp of winning.

Those numbers of new cases are going to jump off the charts in at least 2 weeks time with massive amounts of deaths to follow.

Do I sound irrational here? Be honest. I don't mind my thinking being picked apart or criticized or told to stand down because you're out of you mind, Jersey, and everything is going to be just fine. No...it's not going to be just fine. Trump is the author of a new type of disaster the likes of which I've never seen in my entire life time and that's saying something. We've now traded the nightly news body bag count from Vietnam for refrigerated trucks piled high with human corpses in our metro areas with more rural areas soon to follow.

Am I the only one here angry about this crap? Why isn't DC angry about this crap? Does anyone there have anything resembling a moral compass at all? Why don't they just rip the US flag off the Capitol building and replace it with a $100 dollar bill and fly that crap because that's what our so-called leaders are about.

I might be done. Don't count on it.

[_Elphaba]

Jersey Girl,

I feel every single word you wrote. Please don't be done writing about everything. It's very helpful to me.

Thanks,
Elphaba

[_EAllusion]

The closest analog for word you are looking for Jersey Girl is democide:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide

I only learned it after asking someone in mid-March who would know if there was a term for the negligent homicide equivalent of genocide as that's what Trump appeared to be gearing up for. There is no exact term that covers this, but we've got a very good reason to coin that term now.

Sometimes people like Trump face consequences in their lifetime. More often they do not. Sometimes history catches up with them and they're remembered for who they were as their legacies are dismantled. Sometimes they get victor's justice and escape retribution, even in memory, for a long time. Stalin still has a positive reputation in Russia. History isn't written yet, so it's hard to know what Trump will face. There's enough of a chance that we're in for a long-haul authoritarian collapse of the country that you gotta brace yourself and remember the truth. I'm resigned to the fact that it's a pretty good chance. But that's not guaranteed. Not yet.

[_MeDotOrg]

I might be done. Don't count on it.

During the worst domestic crisis since the Civil War, our President rates as the least competent President in our history. Things are not geting better for a while. Every day, EVERY STINKING DAY, there are horror stories about our hospitals, retirement homes, long term care facilities, prisons and meat packing plants. The President and his staff are tested daily, but he tells the country tests are not that important.

If we continue with the early opening madness, tens of thousands of Americans will lose their lives as a result. And I must admit, part of me is almost resigned to that fate: Until Trump is removed from office, we can expect policies that will result in the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans. And a lot of us, every day, feel equal parts desperation and rage at the situation. The theory is that we should open the country. The facts say wait for 2 weeks after a downturn in cases. So the administration is now using predictive models that are totally opaque to the country. Citizens are not allowed to examine the criteria being used to protect their own health and safety. How is that possible in a democracy?

But as you are hit by story after story, it is hard not to succumb to numbness and battle fatigue. What will convince that American people that this man is an ethical, moral, legal and political disaster? What will cause the GOP to realize that if Trump and the Republican party are one, they have hitched their wagon to a star that is flaming out? The number of Republicans who have shown an ounce of courage is depressingly small. I take some solace is watching Lincoln Project videos. I hope that saturate the crap out of Fox with those videos this fall.

I hope you're not done, Jersey Girl. I showed your post to a friend of mine. You're speaking to a large part of our collective consciousness.

[_Jersey Girl]

The closest analog for word you are looking for Jersey Girl is democide:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide

I only learned it after asking someone in mid-March who would know if there was a term for the negligent homicide equivalent of genocide as that's what Trump appeared to be gearing up for. There is no exact term that covers this, but we've got a very good reason to coin that term now.

Mid-March eh? Just in time, too! Yes, I looked it up. This right here describes what I was trying to with no word to use for it:


Objectives
The objectives of democide include the disintegration of the political and social institutions of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups; the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity; and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups.[6]

I mean for God sakes that's it in a nutshell right there. Tick off all the boxes!

Sometimes people like Trump face consequences in their lifetime. More often they do not. Sometimes history catches up with them and they're remembered for who they were as their legacies are dismantled. Sometimes they get victor's justice and escape retribution, even in memory, for a long time. Stalin still has a positive reputation in Russia. History isn't written yet, so it's hard to know what Trump will face. There's enough of a chance that we're in for a long-haul authoritarian collapse of the country that you gotta brace yourself and remember the truth. I'm resigned to the fact that it's a pretty good chance. But that's not guaranteed. Not yet.

Welp. This guy who thought the virus was going to miraculously disappear just got a visit from it via his valet and Pence with his press secretary. But wait...one report said Trump was tested and is negative.

Negative and so what? What? Was NO ONE IN THE ADMINISTRATION PAYING ATTENTION TO THE BRIEFINGS??????? NO ONE????

They put this crap out on the wire (as we used to say) and what, folks are going whew! The President tested negative so he's good! Yay!

What the hell is wrong with people? They can't think? The virus is in the freaking White House and they think all is good because 2 folks tested positive but you know, President Is clear because he's negative and Pence is likely negative so...problem solved. Man did they dodge a bullet right?

Have they not been listening to the damned experts standing beside them, meeting with them every freaking day of the week? Do they not know what viral spread is? Oh no wait. These are people who aren't wearing masks or social distancing. My bad!

I'm sitting over here watching complete idiocy pass before my very eyes only this kind of idiocy can up and KILL us all, and what scares me is that some people are just going oh yeah, did you hear Trump tested negative! Isn't that marvy?

We're in hell people!

[_Jersey Girl]

...

[_Jersey Girl]

MeDot you remember the body bag counts every night on the 6 o'clock news don't you? I wasn't too young to understand the profundity of the black bags coming out of helicopters and the numbers every night. It wasn't too far away to understand these were our soldiers being slaughtered on the way back to be buried. You remember Cronkite, right? All the others, can't think of them right now..Howard K. Smith? Huntley-Brinkley? When they gave us a report it was factual and we believed them. We trusted them to report without bias.

We're in literal hell now. The press can't be hardly trusted, the President lies right to our faces, thank God for people like Dr. Fauci who isn't afraid to contradict his ass standing right next to him. Trump is telling us fairy tales straight out of his delusions. Oh the virus is going to disappear. No it's NOT! It's going to spread like wildfire over the newly re-opened US, dear Christ he'll have the airlines up and running in short order here and we'll spread it around the globe again and give it back to China, and then he'll blame China.

I sit here this week thinking the emperor has no clothes and wondering if the American public knows what naked is when they see it.

He CAN'T win the election this year. He simply can not. We'll be forever doomed to hell if he wins.

You know what bothers me and I know you can relate. I'm pretty old, right? This is how I'm spending the last years of my life watching full on crazy in the White House unless of course the virus slam dunks me into eternity. I've been self isolating for almost 2 months now like I know that I should. I haven't touched my kids in all that time. I've seen them through windows and on landings with a mask on and I'm watching people storm state buildings over wearing a goddamn mask in a pandemic?

They don't know what a pandemic is? I studied pandemics in school and so what if they didn't? They can't read what's right in front of them? They can't think? All they can do is react? They have a constitutional right to return to work? Okay, fine. Return to work while I sit here on my ass watching the numbers blow off the charts in 2 weeks. Then what? We're back to square one in a second wave and then what'll those folks do when their governors have to lock them down again? What? Are they going to storm their state capitols, drag the governors out and plug 'em with their AR's? That doesn't get you back to work. It gets you a pair of metal bracelets and a swift trip to jail in the back of a police cruiser, and then see how you like COVID on the inside of that crap where the only right you have is the right to sit there, take it, and shut up your damned mouth about the petri dish you're now locked in. For reals locked in!

For what purpose? So fine. Go back to work. Open your restaurant. Let's see how many people actually patronize. Let's see how many clients you have in your nail shop. People are up in arms (literally) over getting their damned nails and hair done! WTF...they can't do their own nails? Since when did we need someone to do our nails? How helpless are people? Too much Kardashians? I cut my hair the other night. WTF it's damned hair who gives a crap! I tipped off the ends and if it gets too long I'll put it up or cut it all off. My local hair salon opened this week. Is my ass in a chair? No. It's not.

Have people lost the ability to adapt?

If we had a decent leader in the White House there would be some semblance of calm. Folks would be accurately informed by a well informed President who oversees the situation and develops a strategic plan subject to change as needed, understand the totality of the situation because they have a leader who understands it and the majority would do their level best to comply. Like Cuomo did and like NYC did. But no. We've got yahoo buddy boy tooling around a mask factory with no mask on to the tune of "live and let die" playing in the background...nice optics!

The only thing that might shift this course...and I assure you that I wish no harm to anyone. Not anyone. Is for Trump or one of his family to catch this crap so he can experience or witness the suffering first hand as something close to a human being might.

Notice I didn't say die from it. I don't think that. Not ever. Well that's a lie. I have thought it a few times. But not now. I worked through it.

Then of course he'd blame the Chinese then god knows what would happen. But still.

[_Jersey Girl]

What about the Lincoln Project, you guys? How influential do you think they really are??

[_Jersey Girl]

Jersey Girl,

I feel every single word you wrote. Please don't be done writing about everything. It's very helpful to me.

Thanks,
Elphaba

Yeah well I went to the Jersey side and I'm not coming back any time soon because now I'm pissed off watching this crazy crap. Remember when he was campaigning how he said repeatedly that America was a "complete disaster"? Really? What the “F” does he think THIS is?

[_Jersey Girl]

I hope you're not done, Jersey Girl. I showed your post to a friend of mine. You're speaking to a large part of our collective consciousness.

How many of us do you think there really are? Are we strong enough in numbers to vote this worthless “F” out of office? Did your friend think I was crazy? Because I'm not crazy. I'm pissed off.