Thread: For anyone who thinks this will not occur again, please read: The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis and Hiding in Plain Sight by @sarahkendzior. Both are excellent. Here are some thoughts derived from reading. 1/22
The #coronavirus pandemic is not @realDonaldTrump's fault – but EVERYTHING he's done over 3-½ years has taken away our protections and put us in danger. And he did it brick by brick. 2/22
I live in St. Louis. A town which sits atop the richest deposit of high-quality clay in the United States. During the turn of the 19th century, STL became home to one of the largest brick manufacturing operations in the world. 3/22
STL bricks were used across the country – in early skyscrapers and 1000s of homes across the region. Every neighborhood built from brick. The sprawling mansions of Lafayette Square and the CWE, the bungalows on The Hill, and the gingerbread houses in Dutchtown. 4/22
Yet, if you drive through some of the traditionally African-American neighborhoods in the northern part of STL (also built brick by brick) it looks like a tornado swept through. Many homes have huge chunks taken out of them. Some are missing entire walls. 5/22
But while St. Louis has a long history of tornadoes, it was not a tornado that has caused all of this damage. It was neglect. And theft. 6/22
In the 1950s and 1960, when city residents began fleeing to the suburbs, many neighborhoods were left with unoccupied homes. And that’s when the neglect… and brick theft began. 7/22
A pickup truck full of today’s brick today might fetch $300-500. But higher quality, test-of-time STL brick regularly goes for twice that price. Thieves would come into a neighborhood in the middle of the night and pull out the entire back wall of a house. 8/22
And so now big parts of neighborhoods – neighborhoods which had once been filled with lovely, ornate homes built from the best brick in the world – have been gutted and sold off. 9/22
It’s hard to imagine a city responsible for helping build our great country would allow such a thing to happen. But times are tough and the amount of money that can be made selling this brick far outweighs the costs of getting caught. 10/22
And that brings us to where we currently find ourselves. Trump has knocked down the house which was supposed to protect us. Not by swirling in like a tornado, but by taking it apart, brick-by-brick, until the whole house collapses upon itself. 11/22
For those who can afford it, we try to wait him out – sheltered in place. For many others, though, those who need protection the most are trying to get by in homes and communities that are crumbling to their foundation. 12/22
Many of the bricks of support that could have helped prop up and protect communities across our country are missing. Neglected. Stolen. Sold off to the highest bidder. 13/22
Some of those bricks might have been provided by the Department of Agriculture, but instead of feeding families in need, the @USDA is letting food rot. 14/22 politico.com/news/2020/04/2…
Instead of using the @USDA’s $220 billion Rural Development bank to prevent small towns from crumbling, the Trump administration just eliminated the rural development part of the agency. 15/22
Instead of staffing up the inspection teams for many small towns’ biggest employer – meat processing plants – the @USDA relaxed inspection guidelines. And now these plants are becoming the new epicenters of coronavirus infections. 16/22
That that’s not to mention all of the bricks missing from the Department of @Energy which might otherwise find a lost nuclear weapon or a transformer in danger of being taken down by a terrorist or foreign government seeking to further weaken us as a nation. 17/22
Or the bricks missing from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (@NOAA) which, among other things, is dedicated to recognizing weather patterns and warning people of a hurricane or… an actual tornado. 18/22
We *could* have spent the past 3-½ years building up and improving these institutions. Instead, we’ve watched the agencies designed to protect us as a nation be gutted and staffed with people who have both no experience and no understanding of how and why they exist. 19/22
We have stood by as our institutions have been questioned and decimated by the short-sightedness of a man who is not interested in protecting the American people, but only in protecting himself and the “absolute” power we have given him. 20/22
And, we have watched and been spoonfed our daily briefing, which is supposed to inform and educate us about this current crisis and should bring us together as a nation, but is instead led by a nihilistic man who doesn’t “take responsibility at all.” 21/22
Nietzsche, the philosopher associated with nihilism, wrote "That which does not kill us makes us stronger." Yet we have already failed to imagine what could kill us. So if you think this type of event will not occur again – you are sorely mistaken. Next time will be worse. 22/22
