Hattip to Amanda Servello for the above cartoon.
A comment made by TAC contributor Elaine S. at Midwest Conservative Journal echoes what I have been hearing from other people:
Elaine S. said…
The more time passes the more I become convinced that the Current Unpleasantness and civil strife would not have been nearly as widespread nor as shattering if it had not been for the pandemic lockdowns that preceded it.
Coop everyone up in their houses for almost three months with nothing to do but troll the internet, yank kids out of school with little or no warning, totally upend everyone’s daily routine, deprive them of almost everything that builds a sense of community cohesion — school, sports (amateur and professional), church, community celebrations and other events, special interest/hobby groups, neighborhood watering holes, weddings, funerals, proms, graduations — feed them continually shifting and conflicting information and directives (wear/don’t wear masks, etc.), and deprive them of their livelihood on top of it, and it’s no wonder the entire nation was on the verge of a nervous breakdown long before George Floyd died.
I suspect that if Floyd had died a year earlier, when there was no pandemic and the economy was humming along fairly nicely, the riots/demonstrations sparked by his death would have remained largely confined to Minneapolis and a few other large cities, and I also suspect that there would have been a much more muted reaction in STL. Didn’t seem like anyone was in the mood to burn down the city last year!
Personally I think the #1 thing that the nation needs to do is get back to a normal routine as soon as possible….open up schools and summer camps (give the youths something to do), bring back pro sports (something else to cheer for or against), get churches up and running again, let people have family gatherings again, bring back community events and celebrations even if they have to be scaled down a bit. Of course this might be easier said than done in riot-devastated cities but just giving people a sense of normalcy and hope that life will go on — and away from all the wild rumors, speculations and trolling on social media — would do a lot to defuse tensions IMO.
Go here to view the thread. I mostly agree, although I also think anti-Trump animus was one of the main driving force both behind the lockdowns and the current bout of rioting. The moral of this story is next time take the plague rather than the mass idiocy of shutting down the entire nation.
This is orchestrated, and it is 100% directed at ousting the President. Then again, so were the lockdowns that preceded these riots. The complete silence by the Left as to the purported public health threat posed by the mobs in the streets proves it. Suddenly, the Chinese virus either doesn’t exist to them or doesn’t matter. The continued destruction of the economy is what they’ve been after all along.
Well, thanks for the shout out Don! (because I go by a slightly different name on that blog) In the last few days I have noticed a significant divergence between The World According To The Internet — which is little else but chaos, violence, and doomsaying, including among conservatives/religious folk convinced that The End of America, And Possibly the World, As We Know It is nigh — and life outside, which (at least here in Springfield) looks pretty much normal. We’ve had 3 BLM protests so far, all without incident and none disruptive, and there have not been any further reports of looting or vandalism since Sunday night. There was definitely anxiety in the air Sunday and Monday but it seems to have dissipated — I think because restaurants, stores and other businesses are finally reopening and people are just happy to have them back. If everyone “keeps calm and carries on” as much as possible and remembers that all our nerves have been a bit frayed lately, I think we can get through this.
4 endless years of shouting about how Trump is Hitler (actually worse, because at least Hitler liked dogs – yes, really) and then do the lockdown telling everyone they’re about to die. What did you expect to happen? Or to sum up:
Left: “You’re a fascist!”
Trump: “No I’m not.”
Left: “Then we’re going to behave in such a way you’ll have to be.”
Not only was the guy on the left deemed a “dangerous lunatic”, he was frequently referred to as a “bio-terrorist.”
Meanwhile, people engaging in ACTUAL terrorism and violence in the name of revolution are lauded …
There was no script, so public health authorities were bound to make mistakes. What would have been optimal would have been to suspend the sort of activities which generate superspreader events, wear protective equipment (which we did not have stockpiled in March), respect certain rubrics (especially in enclosed spaces), and take care to isolate people over 60. Some of this is 20-20 hindsight, but some things done two months ago were really random, e.g. closing schools and closing parks. Now we’ve learned that some states did things that were frankly malicious, like channeling people into nursing homes. Many among our political class are unfit.
Personally, I don’t think the lockdowns are a generator of this mess. The latent riot is an abiding problem. Fractions of the Democratic Party allow this out of a mix of political gamesmanship and malicious stupidity. What’s interesting is reading the pontifications of street-level Democrats on Fakebook. The malicious stupid goes all the way down.
News Alert: Democrats in mass mourning. Employment expands far beyond negative expectations, markets soar.
Excellent Elaine S.
And, excellent from Art Deco: “. . . mix of political gamesmanship and malicious stupidity.”
Twain had a way with words. We are seeing [Twain’s words] criminal and idiots – dumber than a flea” running amok in the mayoral and state houses and in the dysfunctional black ‘communities.’
KRUISER, “What we have seen unfold in the past few months — and especially the last week — is beyond disturbing. Law-abiding citizens have been sandwiched between egomaniac government tyrants and lawless mobs. Lawless mobs that are being cheered on by the aforementioned government tyrants, by the way.”
I can only imagine what it’s like to go through life blaming every white man for my sins and temporal failures.
KRUISER, “What we have seen unfold in the past few months — and especially the last week — is beyond disturbing. Law-abiding citizens have been sandwiched between egomaniac government tyrants and lawless mobs. Lawless mobs that are being cheered on by the aforementioned government tyrants, by the way.”
I believe the entire Covid crisis was orchestrated to maximize economic damage in order to turn folks away from Trump. This morning, with a good employment report, the Dow is up 720 points and very close to its all time high. Hopefully, enough voters will blame the Democrats for this fiasco so Trump will win.
Speaking of things opening, Don, do you have any inside information on where the legal machinations against Pritzker stand? It seemed as if Mr. Chief Justice Roberts put a torpedo into the “reopen the churches” ship last week, but perhaps the facts of that case are distinguishable from the Illinois situation. Checking the websites of the parishes near our summer hideout, I find that all are still bound by Bishop Malloy/Cardinal Cupich’s 10-person limit for Mass and are not even trying to hear confessions outdoors, as is being done in Democrat-run Dallas County, Texas. The only way to get admitted to Mass is to pre-register or get lucky in a lottery drawing. As hot and nasty as it is already getting here in the Lone Star State, we will stick it out until the practice of the Catholic faith is once again permitted in Illinois.
In the Peoria Diocese the churches are beginning to reopen this weekend. I think the size will be limited to 25 percent capacity. Right now there are no government restrictions on churches in Illinois. Pritzker waived those rather than engage in federal litigation, ironic because he would have won thanks to turncoat Roberts. The cases against the lockdown orders are making their way through the Court, but truth to tell, at least in Central Illinois they are less observed with each passing day.
I think we should demand Masses for the soul of George Floyd and no restrictions.
And if we’re really feeling out oats, that the Masses be prayed in Latin.
I think the reaction of Democratic politicians to what’s been going on the last several days (as well as some academic epidemiologists) has just about destroyed anyone’s inclination to listen to them. And that includes local police.
I’m not sure if it’s still going down after being pointed out yesterday, but New York City is very loudly forbidding Jews from celebrating the Sabbath– while letting a “protest” of the sort that turned into a looting riot every other time go ahead, today, in the middle of a very heavily Jewish district.
Thanks, Don. And Art and Ernest, agreed wholeheartedly! And Foxfier…good grief. Every day I think DeBlasio has descended as low as he can, and then he proves me wrong.