OMC!

 The Climactic Spasm of Covid? 

As pictured here, and note the ratings (click through for a closer look):  

The Omicron Sniper: It is hard to dodge its attack, as it has a long range and quick spatial movement, but its attack is not in itself sufficient in most cases.  Its defenses against our countermeasures are significant but not impregnable.  Most importantly, it has a short projected lifespan. *

As it sweeps over our country at roughly the speed of air travel, our efforts to slow it down seem ever less effective.  The air travel ban of South African countries was particularly useless, just as Trump's ban of Chinese arrivals during the initial wave was blind to the actual transmission here, mostly via Europe.  

I was given to saying to like-minded people (pre-omicron) that, if we had a good Christmas, we could be O.K. in the 2022 elections, and if people felt the holidays too compromised, we would truly be in trouble.  It looks as though the timing and speed of the omicron onslaught was such that Xmas was still somewhat alright, but we had to give up our New Years plans: it would seem pure insanity to engage in any mass activity on the eve of 2022.   

If one nets the one against the other, I'd think we come out ahead, but the loss column may end up including some effect on the hallowed college bowl games, and it remains to be seen in the weeks ahead whether it will extend to the even more sacred (and crucial, politically) NFL playoff circuses. 

There is another sportive aspect about which we must be concerned.  The Winter Olympics are due to start in a matter of weeks in a nation (China) that, after having the most cases, and who knows how many deaths initially, has been willing to go to extremes in prevention and mitigation, and has maintained itself nearly Covid-free.  The Winter Olympics can be contained in a bubble, I believe, but the after-effects in country are likely to be serious--and I don't think their vaccines are top-quality.  If I were Xi, I would be preparing for the worst now. 

So, we now must wait to see if deaths will follow the nearly exponential omicron growth, or more likely, will grow more linearly.  And for how long before the peak?  The UK experience suggests the wave could be a matter of some weeks or a couple of months.  One big unknowable, one that will be critical for the future of the naive unvaccinated who are about to be tested by omicron, is whether exposure to this multi-faceted virus will provide greatly-enhanced protection against future variants, or will the virus outsmart us again?  

Finally, for many of us, even among the exposed asymptomatics, who will be numerous beyond count,  vaccinated or not, there is the danger of long-lasting effects.  Sadly, we are likely experiencing a significant hit to life expectancy that may extend to multiple generations, offsetting decades of progress from medical improvement and reduced tobacco smoking. 

*Photo credit for my son's Heroscape set.  We will ignore that 'n' in its label--probably just a typo.  I've been told too many times not to be so obsessive about spelling.

How Trumpism Changed America

I borrow most of the title from an excellent essay by Clare Malone for fivethirtyeight.com the day that Pennsylvania was called for Biden.   There is now an embodiment for the sentiment that has lingered for long, surged, then congealed, lifting Donald Trump to an improbable Presidency riding a wave of festering froth.  As for so much else he rode, on his route to his current beached state, he gets to brand it. 

I leave it to the semioticians and neuropsychiatrists to explain how one translates his boffo B.S. into something resonating favorably in adult voters' brains.  It does appear now, though, that there is a permanent policy focus to the narcissistic bombast that Dikhead45 foisted upon us.  The January 6 Trump Riot crystallized it. 

I would synthesize Trumpism's real-world manifestation as opposition to the continued functioning of almost all the US Federal Government. Defense, Homeland Security--they get the maximum, but that's pretty much it.  Maybe FEMA, because God.   As for the rest of them, the approach was to sap their energy with bad appointees and dire directives contrary to their mission, whatever it is.  The sad result is that the dysfunction of the Federal departments starved for proper leadership only increases, while even those favored face the curse of being requested to behave improperly to suit their commander's impure impulses. And so the murmurs of disunion, internally and abroad, are not dispelled, as they should be when an evil smell is suppressed.  For it lingers on. 

The Trump Administration's Active Self-Sabotage 

Commerce (Wilbur!) and how he tried to corrupt our Census!  

H.U.D.  - He appointed Ben Carson, who barely knew what the department did, even after four years of doing it. 

D.O.E. - He appointed Rick Perry, who once promised on national TV that he would have eliminated the department's existence if he had been elected.  And if he could remember. 

State - He ruined the department in so many ways, particularly by providing obstacles to its ordinary functions, but also by the ludicrous foreign policies he ordered up.  Finding suitable stooges to execute his bizarre, immoral impulses was a challenge, and he couldn't completely do without international relations--though he preferred it to be done through his zealot loyalist trade guy.  So, he let the rest of it atrophy, putting pompous Pompeo to be the mouthpiece of whatever, with only those of infinite patience able to endure just those four years.                                   

He even tried to obstruct the functioning of the Post Office!    DeJoy, for Ben Franklin's sake!  

His damage was not limited to his executive mismanagement, though his use of his directly authorized powers to corrupt were extensive.  He did what he could, and it was a lot, to further the corrupting politicization of Federal court appointments, which will endure. He attacked, and continues to attack, the functioning of our election systems--criticism surely justified, though not for the reasons, if any, he ever cited--even though his Federal executive has little to no control over them. 

As far as Congressional relations with the White House were concerned, he seemed happy with stasis and stalemate, once he had extracted the tax cuts (less fuel for the Federal government) that he sought.  He was OK with the McConnell debt limit default threat strategy, basically a tactic to deny the government the ability to pay its bills.

--Written Sept. 8, 2021.  

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