My, but we Americans are a hearty bunch. In spite of readily available information agressively broadcast, global outcomes that repeat themselves from country to country that can be seen and studied, we maintain the Myth of Exceptionalism even at our own peril. Sure, Italy is a mess, but that won’t happen here! This is America. That’s crazy!
So today I interacted with countless people that acted as though they were watching a reality show, and you know those are all fixed anyway. They seemed immunized. As if they believed it was happening, but not to them, it couldn’t happen to them.
Funny what cracks through. Probably different for different people, but I watched it happen to someone today, and it seemed to personify us in some way.
Multi billion dollar sports leagues have shut down. Libraries and school closings in more and more states will create a crisis in the workforce as child care remains unavailable or unaffordable. It hasn’t hit yet. People just can’t believe it.
A colleague of mine was checking her news feed on her phone when she saw something she didn’t even understand the first time she read it. The words simply didn’t seem to make a logical sentence. She looked completely flummoxed, and she read it again. As the plain words assembled, unchanged before her, the realization came and her expression turned to unbridled horror. This was real!
WalMart had closed its stores in the Houston, Texas area. As far as I can tell, that’s not true. I can’t find that info anywhere, though it seemed completely plausible to me. I bought it. Update me with anything you know, please. I’m trainable.
But at that moment, it WAS true. I was somewhat unfazed by it, as such things are coming and I’ve stayed engaged with it and expected it, but this was the moment of epiphany for her. She actually goes to WalMart. They are in her neighborhood. This isn’t millionaires not able to bounce a ball or make a glove save. This is WalMart. Friends work there. A family member made management just in November. She goes there for all kinds of stuff. For some it might even be their supermarket.
She excused herself and took a lunch break at 6:30 pm. She was just going to the market to pick up a few things. She was gone an hour.
So many things spread like this virus. They are backburner issues, over there, but not here. They fester and grow exponentially, and early on the numbers are so low they seem insignificant, almost faintly humorous. Hard place to be for the early converts. But the funny thing about exponential growth is it gets away very quickly. Two to four? To eight? Big deal. 50k to 100k. Different look but the same unmistakable math.
Our engagement with this is very much like that. First a view snowflakes crying about some Chinese affliction. Then a few more. Then the events start to roll in and different folks respond to different stimulus. For some it’s sports leagues. Others Tom Hanks, or Prime Minister Trudeau’s wife, or over a dozen seniors dead in Washington state.
Or WalMart. The point I’m trying to make is your WalMart is coming. Whatever your tipping point is, you will reach it. You will understand the seriousness of this moment.
As a progressive, it is imperative to me that the most number of people are helped through this crisis that possibly can be, with absolutely no concern or test for their worthiness. Equal victims all. Nothing else seems conscionable. $1.5 trillion of nearly interest free loans have been made available to businesses by the Treasury. Nothing has the green light yet for the WalMart part timer. It’s in the works, hopefully even imminent, but this is what must happen for me.
It’s about, not “the” people, but people. Everyman and Everywoman. Just folks. This emergency, finally declared such by a lethargic executive, may have the unexpected result of unifying us, if just a little bit. The personal failings that many of us have felt defined the entire adult life of our President have begun to be revealed to his supporters, the cracks in Trump’s wall starting to show. His actions hurt every single American equally, an egalitarian menace, and the repercussions will be felt for a very long time.
If you think this is hyperbole, if my doomsday machine is pitched too high for you, I refer you back to the premise already stated. Awakening spreads exponentially and it hasn’t gotten to you yet. Not your fault. Just a function of time.
Your WalMart is coming.