The big coronavirus lie: "We're all in this together"

“We’re all in this together.”

Of all the insulting, disturbing pieces of propaganda to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic, this has to rank near the top.

It’s become a mantra of sorts, parroted alongside the ever popular “this virus doesn’t discriminate.”

“We’re all in this together” isn’t a rallying cry. It’s a means of control disguised as a soothing balm. It’s false reassurance that urges us to follow bad advice, like not wearing masks, and distracts us from the harsh reality: This pandemic is making the health and economic gaps between us grow wider, not narrower.

The person who says, with a plastered-on smile, “We’re all in this together” doesn’t give you a choice. He’s not pressuring or shaming you into conformity, he’s outright assuming it. You’re already “in this.” You can’t decide you don’t want any part of it because, we’re told, the virus doesn’t discriminate, and we’re all in the same boat.

But, in fact, the opposite is true. The virus does discriminate. And, worse, so do we.

The virus discriminates by affecting people with chronic health conditions more than those without them. It discriminates by hitting the elderly far harder than the young. Some geographic regions are harder hit. There’s even research that suggests people with certain blood types are more susceptible. Long story short: We are most certainly not in this together, even from the virus’ perspective.

And we make things worse by discriminating ourselves, as a society. Some people are being forced to choose between their health and their livelihoods, while others are not. The laid-off blue-collar worker who struggles to keep the heat on while self-isolating in a studio apartment is not “in this together” with the independently wealthy jet-setter who doesn’t have to work and can hole up in a six-bedroom, 3.5-bath McMansion.

“We’re all in this together” creates a false sense of buy-in, urging us to ignore the fact that this pandemic affects individuals very differently. In fact, the pandemic has become an excuse to spew propaganda aimed at brushing other forms of suffering under the rug. If “we’re all in this together,” suddenly no one has a right to complain if they can’t afford the rent or can’t find the money to feed their family, because the virus becomes the only valid concern.

“Be thankful you don’t have the virus,” is the unspoken (and sometimes spoken) rejoinder. “If celebrities and politicians are getting it, you’re the lucky one. What do you have to gripe about?”

Yes, some celebrities have gotten sick. Some have died. But these deaths get reported. Meanwhile, thousands of non-celebrities die in anonymity and are left as faceless statistics, except to the few who know and love them. The news reports celebrity deaths, with faces and biographies. Everyone else is just a number. Clinical and impersonal. So it seems like celebrities are being hit as hard (or harder) than everyone else, when in fact, the opposite is true.

Here’s the thing: People at the lower end of the economic spectrum — those non-celebrities whose names are never mentioned — are 10 percent likelier to suffer from a chronic health condition than anyone else. And they’re less likely to seek treatment for it, because they can’t afford it. Without that care, chronic health problems get worse. And remember: People with chronic health problems are being hit harder by COVID-19.

Some workers have paid sick leave, others — generally those in low-paying jobs — don’t. NBA players earning millions a year got tested for the virus quickly, even if they showed no symptoms, while ordinary factory workers, schoolteachers and truck drivers who were obviously sick had to wait.

If you think “we’re all in this together,” think again. We’re not. In the midst of the virus, no one’s talking about the wealth gap or the individual cost of health care anymore, but that doesn’t mean those problems have gone away. The virus has actually made them worse. We’re even less “in this together” than we were before. Far from being the great equalizer, the pandemic has widened the chasm between the haves and have nots that had been growing on its own for decades, and now that same pandemic has become an excuse to ignore it.

Under the false premise that “we’re all in this together.”

That’s like saying plantation owners and slaves were “all in this together” because both were part of the same cruel and dysfunctional economic system in the antebellum South. Or saying the worker who earns minimum wage and company executives who earn millions are “all in this together” because the same firm supports them both. Yet the worker can get laid off at the drop of a hat, while the fired executive gets a cushy buyout and, probably, another gig when some headhunter comes calling.

Yes, the virus discriminates, and yes, so do we. We can stop both kinds of discrimination by focusing on protecting our most vulnerable — to the disease and to economic hardship. In many cases, they’re the same people. But if we continue to turn a blind eye because we believe the false narrative that everyone’s in the same boat, more and more life rafts will keep sinking. And all the while, the privileged few keep will keep sailing blithely along in their luxury yachts, oblivious to the storm that’s wrecking everything around them.

Why Democrats care more about stopping Sanders than beating Trump

It’s Super Tuesday. This is why I’m not a Democrat. It’s not about the issues, it’s about the way the Democratic Party treats people who don’t kowtow to its leaders. Like we don’t matter and we need to get in line. We need to “unite” for the common good.

“Unite.” I cringe when I hear that word. When politicians use it, they really mean this: “Do it my way, or else.”

It doesn’t mean getting together and solving problems in an actual give-and-take. It doesn’t mean collaboration or even compromise. It means either you get with the program set by our corporate donors, or you’ll be labeled a troublemaker or worse: a poser or a backstabber or a spy.

Oh, Democrats don’t come out and use these words the way, say, Donald Trump does. But they exert the same kind of political pressure under the table to make sure you don’t rock the boat. They badmouth you on social media and blame you for elections they lost through their own incompetence – because taking personal responsibility has never been their strong suit.

Whenever Trump talks about unity, what he really means is loyalty. Blind loyalty. And the events of the past few days show that Democrats, for all their talk of openness and inclusivity, operate by exactly the same code.

We know where blind loyalty got the Republicans: It got them Trump, a president who’s made a mockery of our nation in the eyes of the world and more than half our own citizens. But not only that, he’s also run roughshod over ideals the Republican Party itself once held sacred, whether you agree with them or not, like free trade and fiscal conservatism.

And now, the Democratic Party is doing precisely the same thing. It’s easy to think of Democrats as the party wrought by the Clintons and, to a lesser extent, Barack Obama – a party of caution that teeters on the verge on paranoia about the mere possibility of offending anyone. Don’t offend the PC police on the left, but don’t offend your corporate donors on the right, either, by daring to defend people who are being forced to choose between the cost of their prescriptions and bankruptcy. Or death.

The idea of free healthcare isn’t “revolutionary.” Every other civilized country does it (or perhaps I should say every civilized country does it and omit the “other,” because any country that puts profits over people isn’t civilized in my book).

The media labels Democrats who hold this position as “moderate,” but that’s a relative term. You’d probably consider the coronavirus as moderate when compared to ebola on the one hand and a common cold on the other, but that doesn’t mean you wan’t to catch it. Letting people die for lack of healthcare isn’t a “moderate” position, it’s an inhumane one.

Democratic devolution

We forget that it wasn’t always this way. The Democratic Party wasn’t always a creature of Super PACs and safe spaces. Once upon a time, it was the party of bold ideas that shone a spotlight on inequity and dared to dream of a better world – and not just dream of it, demand it! Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson fought for the kind of programs today’s Democrats are fighting against. Hell, Republican icon Teddy Roosevelt fought harder for equality and social justice than any of today’s “neoliberals.” These are men and women who give lip service to such ideals ... while taking money under the table to maintain the status quo.

Correction: Not under the table. The rules now make it perfectly legal to pursue financial conflicts of interest. This is the world we live in.

I remember a time when a gay politician named Harvey Milk died fighting for equality. Today, a gay politician named Pete Buttigieg would let Americans die to protect insurance company profits.

And he’s not alone.

In fact, the “neoliberals” spawned by Bill Clinton’s shift to the right a quarter-century ago are fighting harder against the idea of universal healthcare than they are against Donald Trump’s corporate giveaways.

Want to talk about unity? Why is the Democratic Party uniting against Bernie Sanders – a candidate whose platform builds on the bold social and economic ideas of FDR and LBJ? And why are they willing to do so on behalf of a two-time loser known for verbal gaffes who hadn’t won a primary in 32 years of trying before Saturday? A candidate who voted in favor of the Iraq War and didn’t stand up for Anita Hill?

Protecting their turf

There’s an easy answer to that.

But first, I’ll tell you why they’re not doing it. They’re not doing it for “Uncle Joe.” They’re not even doing it because they think it’s their best chance of defeating Trump. Oh, that’s their excuse, but it doesn’t hold up against polls that show Sanders does just as well against Trump as anyone else in the field.

Lately, they’re also saying it will hurt down-ballot candidates to have Sanders at the top of the ticket. Of course, they have zero proof of this, and it fails to take into account that the Sanders’ base is far more energized than the Biden base could ever dream of being.

Energized voters drive turnout. Democrats saw what that did for Trump, but they don’t care about that, either.

Nor do they care about the “next generation.” If they did, they’d be fighting for free education (something we’ve managed to provide at the primary and secondary levels for more than a century) and the forgiveness of student debt. No, to them, the younger generation is a nuisance, just as it was in the 1960s when they were protesting Vietnam and demanding equality for minority citizens. Back then, they said young people should be seen and not heard. They were too loud and cared too much, just like Sanders’ supporters today.

That’s why the old-guard Democratic leaders don’t like them. They like them even less than they like Trump.

They may say they’re fighting against Sanders because they want to beat Trump, but that just doesn’t pass the smell test. Otherwise they wouldn’t be following the exact same losing strategy they did in 2016, when they nominated the least popular Democratic candidate in history because she was the darling of the donor class. Like Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden the kind of candidate that loses every time – establishment hacks who rely on big-money donations and believe they should inherit the presidency because it’s “their turn.”

Hubert Humphrey. Walter Mondale. Al Gore. John Kerry. Hillary Clinton. What do they have in common? They were all career politicians. And they all lost.

The candidates who’ve won for the Democrats in the last half-century have all been outsiders who galvanized the youth vote: Carter, Bill Clinton and Obama. Bernie Sanders fits far better into that tradition of winners than does Joe Biden, but it scarcely matters, because, again, Democrats don’t want to win. (Remember, they wanted Hillary Clinton in 2008, too.) They’d rather keep the younger generation in its place and keep the money flowing in.

Incidentally, that’s another reason Sanders scares them: He’s a heretic who relies on small donors rather than super PACs. He’s cut the purse strings. And to make matters worse he’s not even a Democrat.

Oh, the humanity!

What scares Democrats

If Democrats really wanted to beat Trump, they’d be attacking Trump, not Sanders. But the fact is, they view Sanders as a bigger threat to their power than Trump is. And it’s their power, not the country, that matters most to them. Of course, this is the exact same approach taken by Republicans in remaining loyal to Trump – despite the fact that he’s a blithering idiot and a con man. They do so because they see Republican “Never Trumpers” as a bigger threat to them than Democrats. Trump himself referred to them as “human scum.”

Again, the Democrats aren’t as blunt about expressing themselves. They may not say Sanders is human scum, they just treat him like he is. Because they’re scared of him the same way Trump and his minions are scared of the “Never Trumpers.” They back Trump, not because they like him, but because they’re afraid what will happen to them if they don’t.

Democrats are backing Joe Biden for the same reason. These are the same Democrats who railed against GOP senators for their lack of courage during the impeachment proceedings. And they’re showing the very same kind of cowardice now.

Why? It’s not because they’re afraid Sanders will lose. It’s because they’re afraid he’ll win and remake the party the same way Trump has. Except he wouldn’t remake it as a protection racket with a two-bit mob boss at the top of a shrinking pyramid. He’d remake it as a party that values health, the environment and education as human rights, rather than as commodities to be exploited for profit or denied to those who can’t afford them.

The ones who are doing the exploiting are the same corporate control freaks donating to the Democratic establishment. They cover their bets by contributing to both sides: Dems and Republicans alike. It’s not that they care whether one side or the other wins: They couldn’t care less. They merely want to keep both sides in their pockets, so they win regardless of the outcome.

Democrats used to believe in things like bold social and economic reform, the programs championed by FDR, LBJ and, now, Bernie Sanders. It doesn’t anymore, and that’s why I’m not a Democrat. I agree with many of the ideals Democrats claim to espouse, I just happen to believe those ideals are more important than labels or tribal loyalty. Those are things Trump promotes, which is one of the reasons I’m not a Republican, either. I can’t speak for Bernie Sanders, but maybe that’s why he, too, is not a Democrat.

If the Democrats succeed in foisting off a status quo candidate on the electorate this fall, I won’t forget it, and neither will a lot of other people. They can talk about “unity” until they’re blue in the face, but all I’ll hear is a bunch of rich, bought-and-paid-for puppets trying to tell me what to do. Sorry, I’m not buying it. And I will never forgive the Democrats for forcing me to choose between two parties that have utterly abandoned their principles: one led by a corrupt corporate class and the other by a two-bit wannabe dictator.

If they lose, the Democrats won’t blame their own shortsighted, sellout strategy. They’ll blame voters who stayed home because they weren’t excited about the guy they nominated. Or they’ll try. If they do, most of the people they try to blame will probably just shrug and continue staying home. They’ll have had enough of the bullshit, and they’ll figure they just can’t make a difference – which is a shame, because that’s supposed to be the purpose of democracy: making a difference.

Even if the Democrats win, the damage to the party will be incalculable in the long run. Disillusioned young people will become more disillusioned and less engaged. But then again, I don’t think the donor Democrats really care as long as the money keeps rolling in. A New York Times headline said it all: “Democratic Leaders Willing to Risk Party Damage to Stop Sanders.”

It’s not a risk. It’s a guarantee.

Photo by Gage Skidmore, used under Creative Commons 2.0 license

Healthcare and highways: Lessons of history forgotten

We Americans have a selective memory. And we trust labels over facts.

Anyone who doubts this only has to look at two words: Infrastructure and healthcare. Infrastructure is supposed to be something that “everyone agrees on.” Who doesn’t want better roads? And who has a problem with the government paying for them?

We view good highways as a human right. Healthcare? Not so much.

But it wasn’t always this way. There was a time, back in the late 1800s, when our roads were in terrible shape. If you wanted to use yesterday’s highways, you had to depend on private businesses to surface and maintain them.

Why would businesses want to do that? The only ones with any incentive were merchants, and manufacturers who needed them to distribute goods. Naturally, the roads used by these merchants and manufacturers were in decent shape. The rest of them were barely passable – if at all. If those businesses weren’t on a direct route, tough luck. You, the ordinary traveler, had to go out of your way to be sure they were getting their money’s worth.

Sometimes, a long way out of your way. Halfway decent roads back then were a maze of twists and turns and double-backs.

The private businesses that forced everyone to go out of their way weren’t in it as a public service. Like today’s insurance companies and drug makers, they wanted to make money. If travelers happened to benefit, that was fine. If they were inconvenienced or got stuck in the mud, that was fine, too. It didn’t matter to them.

Cyclists to the rescue

If you like the fact that today’s roads aren’t a bunch of rutted, muddy dirt trails, you’ve got the bicycle to thank for it.

Cyclists back in the late 1800s weren’t happy about the sorry state of the nation’s roads, so pressed for legislators to dedicate more money to improve what we now call “infrastructure.”

The prospect was expensive. The federal government resisted setting aside money for highways, preferring to kick the can back up the (dirt) road to states, counties and those private businesses.

But the movement picked up steam once farmers joined the cyclists in calling for better roads.

One cycling activist, Isaac Potter, published a plea to farmers detailing the cost of bad roads to their bottom line: He put it at $2.35 billion, which would translate to about $56 billion today – pretty close to Michael Bloomberg’s net worth.

Wagons broke down as a matter of routine; sometimes people were hurt or even killed.

Potter made another point, too: Roads in places like France, Belgium and Italy were well maintained – even country roads. The condition of these foreign roads stood in marked contrast to the terrible shape American highways were in. One early road advocate ranked them alongside Turkey’s roads as the worst in the world.

This was all back around 1900.

Flash forward to today, and the arguments on healthcare are eerily similar. Poor healthcare coverage costs the American economy billions of dollars in lost productivity. When people go bankrupt to pay obscene medical bills, it kills consumer spending: They’re no longer fueling the economy by spending on things like cars and Christmas gifts. And that’s not even mentioning the real price: People without health care suffer. They die. They leave loved ones behind who don’t know what they’ll ever do without them.

More than 100 years ago, other countries were building and maintaining roads while the United States was doing neither. Today, other countries are treating and curing patients, while the United States is – that’s right – doing neither.

The opposition

Back then, Americans responded. Starting in the 1920s, the federal government began kicking in serious money to build and maintain the nation’s highways. As part of that, the feds got to decide where the new highways went.

That didn’t sit too well with the merchants and manufacturers who had controlled where roads were built up to that point. They didn’t like the government deciding to bypass their businesses for the good of those who actually needed to use the road. They did everything they could to stop it from happening.

But they failed.

Today, drug companies and insurers won’t like being bypassed, either. Not for the sake of the people who need to use healthcare. Not for any reason. That’s why they’re fighting the idea of universal healthcare tooth and nail.

We’re all used to government funds paying for our roads. We don’t remember what it’s like before they did. Today, we view good roads as a human right. If we don’t have them, we get mad at the government and demand them. We don’t remember what it was like before the government paid for them, because we weren’t around then.

History and hypocrisy

If we did remember, though, we’d realize it was exactly what it’s like now with healthcare. Other countries provide it; ours doesn’t. Other countries are saving money because they’re willing to invest in something worthwhile. Something noble. We’re not.

If you want to dismiss universal healthcare as “socialism,” you’ll have to dismiss the federal road system, too.

But maybe we should flip things around and look at it the opposite way. What if we started viewing healthcare as human infrastructure? Without it, our society will break down, just as wagons broke down on those muddy, potholed 19th century roads. Our economy will suffer. People will die, too – and a lot more of them.

History forgotten is hypocrisy unleashed.

The history of our highways holds lessons for today’s healthcare crisis. It’s time we start listening and doing something to save the human infrastructure that’s crumbling right before our eyes.