I don’t know how the folks who get paid to write do it. I guess it turns into a reflex at some point, seeing the types of stories to write, the analyses to be done, like riding a bike. I often write several pieces before deciding what to post, either because a topic takes priority or I decide to save something to be reworked, or a variety of other reasons (including lacking both judgment and editor).
This week I was writing about fixing the legislature, before more than 100 Republican legislators joined an insane action by Texas seeking their day in the Supreme Court to challenge the right of states to hold free and fair elections during a pandemic. Then I was writing about the moral rot of some Republicans, when conservatives for years have lamented moral decay but never told us it was their moral decay that was the real threat.
But the pandemic grows worse. The government response grows worse. Vaccine approvals and rollouts now seem kind of hopeless if, while people wait for protection the community, the country, keeps getting more folks sick.
How do you write about how the same folks who seem prepared to terminate the American experiment for a schlub like Donald John Trump are the same folks who are yelling about masks and malaria drugs and it’s hard to see how they could be more pitiful. You try to empathize, to understand their position. Good luck!
And they will turn around, already are turning around, to run the same boring scripts against Biden they ran on Obama. I want good leadership, good governance, but I can’t take them seriously. Even if they say things that are agreeable—issues with revolving doors or transparency, they’ve burned that bridge by failing to do anything with Donald John Trump, et al.’s numerous conflicts, obfuscations, shenanigans. I simply do not, cannot, believe most Republicans even when they make valid points.
But not all Republicans. Some of them do speak out. Not enough, and only occasionally. Those who do, good for them, but at some point—if you’re saying your leader is a nut to question his election loss, but you voted for him? Supported him? Then it’s hard to not shove you into the circle on the Venn diagram along with the rest!
I was going to write about Doug Jones’ farewell speech to the Senate, where he called for compromise and collegiality. Talked about getting them all to sign baseballs, how the time up there, even if long, is short. The urgency to do the work for America so that America can be its best self. But his Republicans colleagues mostly seem uninterested. They can’t even say President-elect Biden.
It’s hard to write these days, other than fiction. Writing about reality feels like stirring pitch with a cooked noodle. Can’t get anything to move in that mess.
The reason it’s hard to write is that it’s all so obvious, and yet these folks will not see. If you have eyes? See!
See that a mask, skip unnecessary errands, and not breaking bread with folks you don’t live with, see that these will cut the spread of this virus until the vaccine’s broadly deployed.
See that an election took place, we all went through the efforts to cast our ballots, and the outcome is what was tallied: President-elect Biden. It’s the same election that chose all 435 members of the House and a third of the Senate (excepting Georgia, which is having two runoffs). Anyone who tells you different is taking you for a ride. Is saying bullshit to sell you other bullshit, which is all conservative media is: bullshit to sell bullshit. See!