Hell Yeah I Have Schadenfreude, and I'm Not Afraid to Use It!

As I'm sure everyone knows by now, Donald and Melania Trump have both tested positive for COVID-19, along with Trump's assistant Hope Hicks, Notre Dame University president (and Trump booster) John I. Jenkins, Utah Senator Mike Lee, and probably others.  Initially it was claimed that the Trumps are asymptomatic, but there have been reports that Trump had been tired-looking and unsteady a few days ago, and now that they're both at least mildly symptomatic.  We'll see; it's too early to say much for certain, but it looks like last week's meet-and-greet announcing Trump's nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court may have been the spreader.  None of these people wore masks at the event.  Nor, it appears, did the Trump family at this week's debate.

I was a bit hesitant to check social media this morning after I heard the news, anticipating a flood of sanctimonious drivel from Democratic liberals and centrists.  I needn't have worried.  Most of the people I follow are hard-hearted leftists and satirists; Trump and his toadies got no sympathy from us.  The only outpourings of hopes and prayer I saw were quotations from the predictable suspects: right-wing Trump supporters demanding that "the radical left" (liberals and centrists) behave better than the Right, and liberals either virtue-signalling or motivated by childish, superstitious fear that they'll be punished for having hated Trump so vehemently.  They compared him to Hitler, now they wish Hitler a speedy recovery.

It's mildly surprising: I'm a guilt junkie since childhood, probably thanks to my Catholic mother, but I feel no qualms about saying that I don't care what happens to the Trumps or his followers, especially the highly-educated elites.  I still feel guilty for many things I've done in my life, but withholding good wishes from Trump isn't going to hurt him or anyone else.  He'll have the best treatment available if he gets sick, as will his wife and Jenkins and the rest.  If he dies, so have 200,000 other Americans (along with even more people around the world), and so have adults, children and babies in his concentration camps who didn't get any medical treatment at all.  As various people have said, if you want to pray, pray for the White House and Capitol staff, or for people in prison or concentration camps or cramped workplaces who can't keep a safe difference from each other.  After eight years each of Dubya and Obama followed by four years of Trump, I don't have any guilt left where the troubles of the mighty are concerned.

One presumable Christian quoted Galatians 6:7, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.”  This is false, of course, like all invocations of judgment and karma, and a Christian of all people should be wary about wishing judgment on others.  On the other hand, I've read the gospels, and I know how callous and delighted Jesus was about the suffering of the damned.  I'm not a Christian and I don't believe in Hell.  If Trump dies, he dies; but so do we all eventually.  I wouldn't have wished for Trump to catch the virus, but I won't pretend to care that he has.  If I myself catch the virus, get sick, even die, it won't be because I didn't pray for Trump.

This clip from exactly four years ago is entertaining: Trump mocking Hillary Clinton for her bout of pneumonia.  Pneumonia isn't COVID-19, but it does kill old people (and Clinton, like Trump, is an old person; on the other hand, it must be balanced against Clinton's obscene gloating over the lynching of Muammar Qadafy: "We came, we saw, he died!" If it will make liberals feel any better, I'd have the same reaction if Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama or Joe Biden caught COVID.  Or Jeff Bezos for that matter.  They are all murderous elites who, as Susan of Texas always says, kill us for money, and the virus is no respecter of persons.  Meanwhile, it's fun to think of the Trumps quarantined together (though the White House is big enough to give them plenty of space), with Melania blaming Donald for giving her the virus.  And you know he'll be trying to find a way to sneak out of Walter Reed and play golf.

But, as some are already protesting, isn't that just sinking to their level?  I don't really think so, but I can't say I care.  But if we're going to worry about such things, let's talk about double standards.  It's fascinating how selective liberals and centrists are in these matters.  Someone pointed out: "Bernie Sanders had a heart attack and Dems were questioning his fitness to serve. Trump gets coronavirus and Dems pray for a speedy recovery."  When the left historian Howard Zinn died, National Public Radio ran a scurrilous obituary that quoted the odious right-winger David Horowitz attacking Zinn with his usual disregard for facts. It's hard to imagine them, or any other respectable media outlet, doing the same for the most depraved right-wingers.  Remember the outpouring of dishonest eulogies for John McCain? Or Richard Nixon, or Ronald Reagan?   By contrast there wasn't much empathy on display for Hugo Chavez, the legally-elected president of Venezuela, when he died of cancer at a relatively young age.  I'm all for critical evaluations of the prominent dead, but they should be honest, and that seldom happens regardless of the politics of the deceased.

So far I've seen one remarkably good report from corporate media on the Trumps' status, this factual and unsensational NBC story. NPR, which I woke to this morning, didn't do nearly as well: they did their typical personality-driven, faux-predictive coverage, including a bizarre segment on what "Trump's Coronavirus Means for National Security."  "The president, of course, is the commander in chief of our nation's armed forces. So what could this development mean for the military?" anchor David Greene asked. Correspondent Tom Bowman reassured him:

Well, we've heard nothing from the Pentagon at this point or the White House about the continuation of, you know, the military. Defense Secretary Mark Esper is traveling overseas. I reached out to his spokesman; no word from him yet. But it's important to note, David, that the president is still carrying out his duties as commander in chief.

And more of the same, for anyone who might fear that Communist Venezuela or China might be poised to take advantage of our Commander-in-Chief's potential incapacity and pour across our undefended borders.  This is, among other things, the result of seeing politics as the domain of One Man, the Head of the Nation, instead of a vast hydra-headed network of experienced people both civilian and military, who can carry on even if the Head is struck off.  I was only twelve when John Kennedy was assassinated, but I remember the same kind of inane fuss at the time and thinking that it was ridiculous, as it is now: the country isn't going to fall if the President gets sick or dies - something which has happened numerous times in our history and, for better or worse, here we still be.  The mainstream media love to stroke this kind of genteel panic.  The New Yorker, for another example, is hoping for chaos.  And the liberal rehabilitation of Donald Trump, which leftists have been warning about, has already begun.

The liberal muckymuck Jeff Greenfield, Fox News and seemingly some commentators on CNN have called for Joe Biden to suspend his campaign while Our President fights for his life.  Ah, what would we do without Rachel Maddow?  I expect nothing from far right-wing media, of course, but it's going to be an education to see our responsible mainstream media showing their mettle (or rather, their asses) as this story plays out.  Meanwhile, I'm grateful to the commentators of Left Twitter for their savage and on-target mockery of Trump and his liberal apologists.  You can have my Schadenfreude when you pry it out of my cold, dead hands.

Daytime Thoughts on the Pandemic

Because I'm lazy, I just lifted the following from my journal today.  I'm leaving in street names and such, for vividness and because I doubt anyone knows this town anyway.  Indiana is beginning to re-open, and many businesses are taking the first steps starting on Monday.  The stores I passed that were announcing their re-opening mostly had signs up imploring customers to wear masks  My barber is taking appointments, and I'm not sure whether to go for it or not.  By luck I got my last haircut just a couple of days before the shutdown, and I'm not very shaggy yet.  It can wait.

I didn’t get anything done all morning.  Had a late lunch, then rode downtown.  It was in the 50s and still sunny, though the west wind still had a bite to it.

There was one brownie left at French Press cafe, which I bought and carried with me to eat as I walked around.  I tried calling the barber shop, hoping that the problem lay in where I was calling from; but no luck, I got a ring and a beep.  I could see from Laporte and Michigan an unusual number of cars parked in River Park, so I walked down that way.  There were maybe three dozen or so cars and an all-white crowd milling around, none of them wearing masks, none maintaining social distance.  One pickup truck had a big TRUMP 2020 banner on a staff.  But, for some reason, almost no MAGA hats.  I took some pictures.  A helicopter scoped out the scene, hovered over the crowd for a few moments, then flew away, and I also walked, to Garro Street then back to Michigan.  Got my bike and rode home.  Well, the state is beginning to re-open, so maybe these fools will simmer down.
 

I later wondered: it’s understandable that they’re unhappy about being out of work (if they are: I see a lot of working-class white guys at work around town -- construction, maintenance, transport; the bank next door is repaving its parking lot), but why be so stupid about their health?  It’s clearly a point of pride for them not to wear masks or keep apart, just to spite the Governor and the virus and the libs.  I imagine there’ll be a new cluster of cases around the county, just as there is now in Wisconsin in the wake of the anti-shutdown protests, and probably will be in other places.  It also looks like there will be one in the White House, now that two high-placed staff members have tested positive: one of them is Mike Pence’s press secretary.  Trump must be sweating a little.  What will he do if he gets sick?  As Jon Schwarz tweeted today, "It's unfortunate that Covid-19 has reached the inner circles of the White House, but I view our great president as a warrior."  I hope he doesn't die, just because the pious eulogies to Trump's decency, brilliance, compassion, integrity, from all over the political spectrum will be too nauseating to bear.  Let his rehabilitation by the Democrats begin later.

On my after-dinner walk I noticed a red convertible pulling out onto the street, driven by an elderly man in sunglasses and a MAGA hat.  Sometimes I forget that I'm in Trump country; today I was reminded pretty forcefully.

Only in America?

Another fun tweet today, reacting to the spate of anti-shutdown protests around the US: "Are other countries seeing these types of protests or are Americans being exceptional again?"

A self-styled clown replied: "No, because other countries understand fucking nuance. Demanding people stay at home as much as possible & avoid gatherings during a pandemic where the virus can be infectious & asymptomatic for half a month ≠ tyranny."

This, uh, person is confusing "countries" with people.  I agree that shutdowns for public health reasons do not equal tyranny, but that's not the point.  Does he think that people only protest rationally, with nuance?  I began by recalling pro-Trump rallies in South Korea, by religious nuts every bit as loony as our native wackos.  I wrote about a rally I observed in Seoul in 2017, on the eve of Trump's first visit there, but I see I didn't include any of the photos I took there.  Here's one.

Not only did they believe that Trump would remove Moon Jae-in from office with his bare hands and restore impeached and disgraced Park Geun-hye to the Blue House, they begged him to nuke North Korea.  Luckily, their petitions never came to Trump's attention.

By my next visit a year later, there were weekly marches in Seoul on the same theme, which I wrote about here, with plenty of photographs.  Here's one:

The mixture of US and ROK flags (plus at least one marcher, whom you can see in the post, who carried US, ROK, and Israeli flags) exemplifies the shared sensibility of the Korean and US far right.  There are plenty of contacts between the US and the South Korean far right.  The clown disagreed, saying that these protests had nothing to do with COVID-19 shutdowns, but I was more concerned with the fascist mindset that produced the anti-shutdown protests here.  And I'd really just gotten started.

Another person tried to correct me: "Not true. No other country has people protesting against these stay-at-home orders. Some may not like it, but they aren’t protesting. Outside of the US, healthcare is universal so paid for with tax dollars. People aren’t selfish enough to further risk the lives of frontline staff."

However, there have been protests in South Korea against the shutdowns there, by churches that refused to observe them -- not anymore, though, because all protests have been forbidden there. So no, you won't see religious fanatics marching in the streets, but you will find them fighting with police sent to observe and enforce social-distancing in their services:

A video uploaded by a purported member of the church on YouTube showed a woman lying on the ground while another was heard shouting “Why are you doing this? Is this North Korea?”

South Korea is even more connected to the Internet than the US, and broadcasting or netcasting worship services is no less common.  Korea also has universal health care.

So does Israel, where ultraorthodox Israelis ignored shutdown orders, holding public funerals without masks or social distancing,

In Mea Shearim, video from Israel police showed officers showered with cries of "Nazis" and "murderers" as they made their way down the labyrinthine alleys of the insular Jerusalem neighborhood. A medical team from Magen David Adom (MDA), Israel's emergency response service, was pelted with rocks in the same neighborhood while trying to carry out a coronavirus test, a spokesman from MDA said.

(You may remember a previous occasion when the ultraorthodox protested against "Nazi" repression of their right to spit on eight-year-old girls and call them whores.)  Thousands rallied to protest against the shutdown from the left, and Netanyahu's government has relaxed restrictions somewhat.   And as in Korea and the US, the devout have found that their god doesn't protect them from the virus.

Some Islamists have also ignored warnings and congregated in large numbers, in Pakistan for example.  As of March 12 this year:

Pakistan has so far recorded 20 positive cases with zero fatalities while two people have recovered from the disease. But with its poor health infrastructure, the country has tested fewer people despite bordering China and Iran, where more than 90,000 cases were reported.

Meanwhile, the Pakistan Super League, a nationwide cricket contest, is attracting tens of thousands of spectators to stadiums across the country of 210 million people.

Now, none of this has been obscure.  The connection between reactionary Korean Christianity and COVID-19 has been well-reported here, or so I thought.  CNN reported on the ultraorthodox rebellion too.  Why, then, were these fine, smart people so sure that only Americans were stupid enough to flout warnings and attack their government for trying to protect their health?  I suppose that in part they don't see themselves as belonging to the same America as the protesters here, a sentiment that's mutual.  But it takes self-imposed tunnel vision as disabling as the Right's to ignore well-known examples of jingoistic petulance outside the US, simply in order to preserve their own smug certainties and feelings of superiority.

Our Green and Pleasant Land

I wanted to post this before, but I spent a long time trying to find the tweets that inspired it.  No luck.  This wasn't the only one I saw, but it's the only one I could find.



I've seen a number of people saying that although the pandemic is terrible and it's hard having to shelter in place, it's still wonderful to be able to spend time with their families, to go for walks and talk to their neighbors (from a safe distance of course), to walk the dog, to pasture their souls for a moment.

This is true, and it's good, but it overlooks some things.  In Jake's case, I know he's a trust-fund baby (his own term) with a secure income, working from home.  The other tweet I recall was from a probably similar person, maybe not as well-to-do but still comfortable.  So my first reaction is that their comfortable retirement is supported by essential workers - truck drivers, supermarket workers, nurses and doctors, the restaurant staff supplying their takeout orders - many of whom are working extra hours, often at risk from heavy-breathing customers who think that "social distance" means getting in their face to let them know they're praying for them.  And then there are other people who have no income and are scrambling to find gig work to feed themselves and their families, knowing that if they get sick they have no insurance.  Jake knows this, but I don't assume that those who are celebrating empty streets being "reclaimed" by wildlife know it, or care.

So there's that.  It's true, Americans have lost the leisure time that is vital to healthy human functioning, as even white-collar workers and management are expected to be on call even when they're not spending too much time at the office.  Vast numbers of other workers have lost reasonably secure eight-hour-a-day jobs with benefits and had to cobble together a living from multiple part-time gigs.  Like the fabled boiled frog, incrementally rising capitalist abuse has crept up on them, and now perhaps they are seeing what they'd lost.  But the middle-class, no less than the rich, are always nervous that the proles will have too much free time, or freedom of any kind.

Will they remember it if and when "normalcy" returns?  I don't know.  It's often said that rebellion happens not when conditions reach rock bottom but when they improve a bit and people remember that things had been better and could be again.  Our oligarchs are consolidating their power as they loot the Treasury, so I'm not optimistic.  Trump and the elites of both parties certainly have no interest in any improvement for most Americans; often their fear leaks out in their talk about re-opening the economy.  Most people do want to work, but they don't want to be worked to death, as their masters would prefer.