Perhaps if I was a Lakota Sioux, an ultra-fundamentalist Christian, or just compulsively superstitious, I might believe that the United States had done something awful to deserve the twin scourges of Covid-19 and Trumpism at the same time. Fortunately, I’m none of these, but I do wonder about our bad luck.
Despite the recent success of two vaccines and several more in the offing, we now face mutations and variants of the virus that threaten to extend suffering and our uncertainty about the future. The light at the end of the tunnel keeps getting fainter. We simply don’t know how all this will end.
Our politics almost mirror the difficulties taming the virus. After an unspeakable end to the last administration, the election of Joe Biden was seen by most as a vaccine to get us back to sanity in Washington and restore faith in our government and ourselves. Apparently, it is not to be, as the Trump virus and its variants threaten to extend our dysfunction and our uncertainty about the future as well. Qanon, the Proud Boys, and rogue politicians exploit our democratic weaknesses.
Almost since the outbreak of the pandemic a year ago, Covid-19 and the Trump affliction have moved along hand-in-glove to bring havoc and death to Americans. It would not be a stretch for some to believe that the United States must have committed an unconscionable act that has brought down the wrath of God upon us