The emergency I feared Trump could leverage to untrammeled power may, in fact, be the single clearest demonstration of his incompetence and irrelevance. Combine this with a calamitous depression and I’m beginning to wonder if it matters that Biden is the Abraham Simpson of American politics. Maybe Biden doesn’t need to win this thing. Maybe Trump could lose it all by himself.
G.W.
Most plagues have had scapegoats. There seems to be something deep, deep, deep in human nature that responds to existential threats like this one by seeking to blame someone else, or some other group, or even an errant individual. The most intense example of this in history is the Black Death. It was the occasion for a spasm of pathological and eliminationist anti-Semitism that surpassed anything that had happened in Europe before — laying the basis for a future Holocaust.
What's some version of this and how does it potentially affect me? China becomes more isolated. More nationalism in general.
The truth, of course, is that plagues have no meaning. All they are is a virus perpetuating itself inside and alongside us. Period. We know this now — unlike many of our ancestors — because of science.
Reminds me of Marcus Aurelius' "See things for what they truly are." Sex is just the rubbing of two bodies and some liquid. Wine is just fermented grapes, etc.