It's a good thing the Average Voter doesn't pay attention to Twitter (so I'm told); the prospects keep looking worse by the day.
The attempts to reassure us aren't persuasive. Today someone scoffed at Left Twitter's concern about reports that Obama's hand-picked candidate Joe Biden is considering (so we're told) numerous Republicans for his cabinet, for diversity's sake. The scoffer declared confidently that Biden won't actually appoint Republicans (though Obama did), he's just vetting them, you big sillies. I can't see any reason to vet them in the first place.
Then Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer delivered himself of this great gob of liberal compassion:
That Rochester veteran didn't kill himself because he lacked access to suicide prevention counseling; he killed himself because he'd lost his job, couldn't make his mortgage payments, and was probably going to end up on the street. Counseling isn't going to help.
Schumer's clueless response is part of a pattern. Joe Kennedy helped tank his own campaign against Ed Markey by tweeting "Not a single patient should be forced to fight off medical bankruptcy in the midst of a global health pandemic without a lawyer by their side." That didn't go down well, so next day he backpedaled: "Let me be clear here: We need Medicare for all. We need an end to medical bankruptcy. Period. But until we get there, we need assurance that every patient will have access to legal counsel and aid if they are forced to fight their insurer in court."
Maybe Schumer is cobbling together a similar clarification. And yes, I know, the lack of financial assistance to people like that veteran is not entirely Schumer's fault, it's due to McConnell's obstruction. The proper response is to hammer the Republicans as hard as he can, not to thunder that not a single unemployed American should commit suicide without a professional suicide counselor by their side, with maybe a "Hang In There, Baby!" motivational poster thrown in at cost. (I mean, how much could it cost? Ten dollars?)
A self-identified mental health professional weighed in too, gently chiding Schumer for insensitivity:
Such a tragedy. <Broken heart emoji> As you work on matters of suicide prevention, for which we are grateful, it might be helpful for you to know that many of us in the mental health field prefer to say someone "died by suicide," not "committed suicide." Thank you.
I knew I should screencap it, because I expected her to block me for jeering at her; but she deleted hers instead. (Luckily, I'd quoted the text on Facebook.) Maybe she realized how close she'd come to Trump's claim that if we stopped testing, we'd have fewer COVID-19 cases. Incidentally, her response was a reminder that the most laughable "PC" terminology comes not from activists but from mental health professionals; the rest comes from management consultants. When my employer began downsizing, they preferred the euphemism RIF, Reduction In Force. They offered professional counseling to those who might be upset about losing their jobs.
Our leaders and their enablers are making it very difficult to miss that they aren't competent to handle a crisis like the one we're in. How it's going to play out, I don't know, but it doesn't look good.
