Something is very wrong here
My sister retired last year, and we text throughout the day to keep tabs on each other, share family information, and gossip like crazy. In that respect, we’re like two teenaged girls. The other day she texted me, mentioning Stephen King’s “The Stand,” and my mouth flew open. The way Coronavirus is spreading, it certainly brings that book (and miniseries) to mind. While a super strain of the flu took out most of the world in King’s book, the ultimate result was an inherent fight between good and evil. That part, we are certainly living.
People are suffering. Many have been forced out of work with no pay, no one to look after their children, and no end in sight. Agencies and organizations are begging for help to take care of children, sick adults, and animals, yet all Republicans can do is think of themselves and their bank accounts. Just last week, we learned that several members of the Republican Senate, who are supposed to be looking out for us, began dumping stocks based on information they received in briefings, led by Kelly Loeffler and Richard Burr. Something is very wrong in this country, and we need look no further than Trump and his Republican enablers. Trump can deny responsibility all he wants, but the spread of Coronavirus lies at his feet.
Imagine my shock to find a piece on CNN called, “Stephen King didn’t write this script.” “The Stand” is a horror fiction piece written by King in 1978, which means many of you reading this are too young to have even heard about the book let alone read it. It is “fantasy,” but much of it mirrors what we’re going through with Coronavirus. As I drove into work one extremely foggy day last week, the drive to the expressway, which on a good day takes 12 to 15 minutes, was made in 7.
Once I entered the entrance ramp with the fog enveloping everything, the lack of taillights was extremely unnerving as thousands in my area were staying home, either by force—children out of school or jobs postponed. That’s when this really hit home for me. They took our temperatures at work before we could go to our desks. One employee registered a fever and was sent home. Friday, the powers that be decided to allow us to work from home. As a member of a vulnerable group, I lived in fear. If we had a better government in place in Washington, I would likely not experience this level of fear.
Trump allowed this virus to spread, no two ways about it. He was more worried about the stock market than he was about us. Is this how this pandemic is going to end, with rich people getting richer from everyone else’s misery? Now, they want to look at reopening enrollment for Obamacare, something they should never have closed in the first place. The greed and bad policies coming from the White House have made this pandemic far worse than it should have been.
Shirley is a former entertainment writer and has worked in the legal field for over 25 years