By Donald A. Collins | 26 August 2020
Church and State
As the full impact of the Coronavirus became so evident I wrote on July 6th that this pandemic could save our democracy. Let me repeat the crux of my arguments then:
I can’t help thinking that for many of us the impact of Coronavirus did not really become apparent—certainly not to me and my family here in Washington DC—until sometime in March. Recently I found a restaurant receipt in my wallet dated March 6 which was the last time my wife and I had eaten at one of our favorite bistros. Egad! We felt so warmly toward many of those people in our favorite restaurants that we know they must be suffering keenly.
It is that the significance of COVID-19 and the dreadful tv murder of George Floyd must be combined to offer all Americans the chance to save our weakened democracy from Trump’s re-election on November 3rd!
What would have prevented a powerfully buoyant economy with a continuing great upturn in the US stock market from rendering Trump a landslide 2nd term?
Obviously nothing including no shame at our unheeded racism!
And don’t be surprised Trump partisans still give this dangerous, racist, populist that next 4 years which would allow for example him to further pack the US Supreme Court.
Let me make one major point which I as a white male who has been accorded countless unearned advantages.
That George Floyd’s murder will hopefully rank as one of the major awakenings to whites here about the massive white failure to understand how people of color feel about the racism which whites—often unknowingly—practice daily!
Those of us (all of us??) must have watched the collapse of Trump in dealing with a real crisis such as Coronavirus. His failure to manage a coordinated national solution was scary, even to some of his 40% base.
Who will defect and vote for a change, particularly, as his hatred and divide rhetoric keeps seeking support from his 40 percent base—many of whom are now badly impacted?
It can only be hoped that the best instincts of all Americans can take succor from our best traditions and vote for a new President in November.
You can read my full July 6, 2020 piece here.
Will COVID-19 Save Our Democracy? https://t.co/56p6sMXvUy via @ChurchAndStateN
— Church and State (@ChurchAndStateN) July 6, 2020
Since my July piece , many more of us have been affected and we have seen the repeated failed management of the Trump Administration in dealing with the virus with over 170,000 American deaths. These deaths represent 25% of all deaths from Covid in the world. The USA has only 4% of the world’s population.
Perhaps, as you watch this week the continued claims of Trump’s success at the Republican virtual convention, you will take a more accurate look at the character and motivations of the incumbent, who now owns the Republican Party!
Without that chance to see Trump’s utter failure in facing this major pandemic challenge, it might have been that the prosperous economy he inherited from the Obama Biden years would have given him a free ticket to re-election.
In short, it has been this terrible virus which has exposed him and all his life time cronies and family who have been seen to treat our institutions as a chance to profit.
In the bright light of media coverage (no wonder he wants you to think the free press is “fake media”) this terrible virus could be considered a gift of clarity beyond price.
The world’s humans now number almost 8 billion, up from 2 billion at my birth in 1931 with many more people impacted more acutely than us around our overcrowded planet.
In case people think my earlier de-growth messages about our planet’s incapacity to handle that number peacefully and democratically are no longer urgently in need of recognition and action, the current climactic events worldwide should disabuse them of that illusion. I hear nothing from the Trump side except their bloated claims of how great he has made things in his tenure.
Finally, if you happen to read my 8/23/20 piece, “We Need to Vote Biden in 2020” which is now currently on page one of this Church and State site, I strongly suggest you also listen to Amanpour and Company clip at the end of the Walter Isaacson interview of Kurt Andersen the author of Evil Geniuses, a book which explains so well how our present elites got so powerful and how the wealth gap got so dangerous.
Former US Navy officer, banker and venture capitalist, Donald A. Collins, a free lance writer living in Washington, DC., has spent over 40 years working for women’s reproductive health as a board member and/or officer of numerous family planning organizations including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Guttmacher Institute, Family Health International and Ipas. Yale under graduate, NYU MBA. He is the author of From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013.
From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013
By Donald A. Collins
Publisher: Church and State Press (July 30, 2014)
ASIN: B00MA40TVE
Kindle Store
Kurt Anderson: “Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America” | Amanpour and Company
‘Evil Geniuses’ Looks At ‘How Greed Was Unleashed’ | Morning Joe | MSNBC
Joe Biden speech at the Democratic Convention | Joe Biden For President 2020
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