I Know Joking About How The Writers Of This Season Of "America" Need To Calm Down Is Hacky, But COME ON NOW, THIS IS TOO MUCH.
So like all of you, I went to bed last night and woke up this morning to find out that the president of these United States, the man who lied to the American people for months about the seriousness of the virus, who held in-person rallies wherein very few people wore masks except those the main cameras could see, whose actions have in some way led to the deaths of over 200,000 people—a number, btw, that has inched from tragedy to statistic with every day—a man whose administration has applied political pressure on the CDC and changed their website, who demands this country be re-opened whilst nearly every member of the medical and epidemiological establishment say HELL NO, a man without empathy or self-awareness or kindness… the president has tested positive for COVID-19.
I want to be as classy as Vice President Biden was in a tweet this morning. I do not want to wish this awful illness on anyone.
But in the past days alone, he has put so many people, including Biden and his family and staff, in danger. Stories are emerging that the Trump family, including Melanie who has also tested positive, refused masks offered to them, despite the safety precautions the election commission put in place. Trump stood on that stage and SCREAMED at Biden for an hour, all while likely expelling virus particles into the air. And when Hope Hicks did test positive for the virus, Trump STILL went to an in-person fundraiser in New Jersey.
Trump is a one-man super-spreading event formerly just of the misinformation kind—Cornell just released a study showing that the “single largest driver” of Coronavirus misinformation is Trump—and now he may have put countless people—including the future president of the US, god willing—in danger because of his willful ignorance and ego. As you can tell from the above, I am screaming.
So here’s some stuff to consume this weekend when you’re not phonebanking to help ensure a landslide victory that can help put an end to this madness.
Noreena Hertz, Why loneliness fuels populism (FT)
David Siders and Holly Otterbein, ‘Everyone sees the train wreck coming’: Trump reveals his November endgame (POLITICO)
Casey Newton, Why Coinbase will struggle to ban politics from the workplace (The Verge)
Shirin Ghaffary, Democratic Party leaders are “banging their head against the wall” after private meetings with Facebook on election misinformation (Recode)
32 days until the election. What are you doing to help ensure a Biden victory?
xoxo Amy