This, this, this.
Every expert, every projection, every model I have seen says that if we end the necessary measures early (they aren't even in place everywhere!) the virus comes roaring back.
Best case is we go back into hiding, again and again.
Every expert, every projection, every model I have seen says that if we end the necessary measures early (they aren't even in place everywhere!) the virus comes roaring back.
Best case is we go back into hiding, again and again.
If we have to keep stopping and restarting the economy because we didn't wait long enough or resume cautiously enough... it will be so much worse than if we did it right from the start. Each time more businesses will fail, with no break for new ones to start.
Going back to business as usual is, best case scenario, a death spiral.
Worst case is the political will to reopen insists on riding the bomb all the way down rather than admitting it made a mistake.
(We can call this "the brexit model.")
Worst case is the political will to reopen insists on riding the bomb all the way down rather than admitting it made a mistake.
(We can call this "the brexit model.")
20% of the people with the virus are sick enough to need hospitalization to survive. So what's the death rate when hospitals are full, or closed because they ran out of personnel or money?
20%.
20%.
The damage to the economy by staying closed is manageable. The Republicans just don't want to manage it, because the solution is to do all the stuff they've been trying to convince us isn't possible and doesn't work.
We cannot manage the economic fallout of a sick work force, a nation where everyone has friends and family who are dying, many of them of treatable symptoms.
I don't know how we come back from that. As a people. As an economy. As a country. I don't know how we keep going on.
We're not going to have hospitals. We're going to lose a generation of medical professionals. Business owners are going to watch as their workforce and customer base both dwindle.
The pandemic is not the apocalyptic scenario. The apocalypse is when we decide that the cure of socialist relief programs are worse than the disease of capitalist greed.
It's when we let an egomaniac who would rather burn this country to the ground than admit fault rule us.
It's when we let an egomaniac who would rather burn this country to the ground than admit fault rule us.
Donald Trump, courting the Evangelical Christian vote, said he has never asked forgiveness for sins because he's never done anything wrong. A man who lies like breathing can't even say he said he's sorry as part of a lie to win power.
That's terrifying, for a head of state.
That's terrifying, for a head of state.
If Donald Trump tries to push everything to reopen while experts are telling him not to... the fact that he was told not to becomes his motivation for never backing down or reconsidering. It's how his ego works.
He'll destroy this country, and say "I did it my way."
He'll destroy this country, and say "I did it my way."
I mean, he danced to that song at his inaugural ball. Rang in his reign with a song about facing the final curtain.
He has spent his whole life testing boundaries, doubling down, daring someone to stop him so he could find a final showdown, his Bolivian Army ending.
He has spent his whole life testing boundaries, doubling down, daring someone to stop him so he could find a final showdown, his Bolivian Army ending.
I'm his heart of hearts, he wants to go out in a blaze of glory, and because no one stopped him sooner he will take everyone else with him if he can, that's the kind of power he has now.
And the GOP will go along with it.
And the GOP will go along with it.
Because they think they have a better chance of coming through the apocalypse with political power intact than they do coming through a New New Deal.
Even if they get shared credit for the bill, the actual full measures needed to ride out the storm are pure progressive values in action. They are more afraid of what that means for their party than they are of what Trump and the virus willl do to the country.
