Take Off Those Masks and Stand Close Together

I might be getting a bit paranoid.

Or I might not be.

But I feel I'm right about that, for Trump, this is not about saving the economy. It's about painting the left as people who want to squelch freedom and destroy the American way. That way, to his followers, Trump can appear as the one who is fighting to restore freedom.

The United States was very much not ready to reopen.

We're being infected too much. We're dying too much.

We're not testing enough. We're not tracing enough.

But we opened. I think almost every American city and state is opening...even Democratic ones.

Some places are doing it slowly. But what's slow to some of them seems quite fast to me.

On Saturday, I went on a car ride for the first time since March 24.  It was very disturbing to see the world looking very much the same as it did before the pandemic.

We went to get Bubble Tea. Jack and I stayed in the car. Tim put on his Bart Simpson mask and went into Kung Fu Tea to grab our drinks for all of us. I was glad to see every person going into Kung Fu Tea was wearing a mask. And Tim reported back that everyone inside the shop (customer and employee) wore masks.

I saw a woman from The Cat's Meow veterinarian place walk out without a mask. I judged her back then, but who knows.  If she was alone in there and then going straight to her car, it's probably fine that she wasn't wearing a mask.

I think sometimes some of us are taking the mask thing too far.

I took a walk with my mask when the mask movement first began. I saw hardly anyone and was definitely not within six feet of anyone.

AND

Jack and I both put on our masks for the car ride.  I think my main reason for doing this was because I bought this damn mask and when else am I going to wear it?  I've learned I don't need it for neighborhood walks.  So....

But this new mask is more uncomfortable than my homemade t-shirt one. I ended up taking it off, figuring I could put it on if, for some reason, we decided to get out of the car.

Anyway, we had our bubble tea and decided to drive around a bit. We wanted to see what was happening in the world.

We drove to the Central Market shopping center. There we saw an employee from World Market putting a box into a customer's car.  He wore a mask. The customers he was serving did not. They were standing quite close to him, chatting away.

I was scared for him and angry on his behalf.  I wonder if he was scared and angry as well.

It really bothers me that people see the employees wearing masks and view it as the employee protecting themselves. And they have this idea of, Well, fine if he's scared of the virus. That's his business. But I'm brave. I'm not scared of any virus.

Well, we're actually kind of lucky if they have that attitude of tolerance. Because from what I'm hearing, there are people who are not tolerant. They're actually getting angry at people for wearing masks.

But really. I wish people understood that the masks are for the benefit of the OTHER person and not the person wearing the mask.

I'm blabbing on and on and totally getting away from the whole point of this post.

So back to Trump and what I think he's going to do.

The last I heard he's been pushing for churches and schools to open.

And I think he succeeded with the churches, right?

Or some churches. In some places.

I'm not sure on the school thing. Is he wanting schools to open in the fall? Or is he talking about schools opening now for summer school or year round school?

Things are opening so fast, and there are so many different rules, I can't keep track.

But let's just say that, in general, Trump wants things to open.

A lot of places are making his wish come true. They're opening. But with rules. Employees have to wear masks, tables have to be six feet apart, paper menus, no self-serving buffets, no passing around the collection plate in church.

I've read so many rules. I'm not sure which are local, which have been decided on by individual businesses, which are mandated by the state, which are recommended by the CDC, etc.

What I think, though, is that soon it won't be enough that places have opened.  I think Trump will start complaining about the social distance guidelines.

It won't be good enough that churches have opened and people are in the same room praying together. He'll complain about the masks. He'll say they need to pass around the collection plate. The congregants need to sit close together. They should sing together. They should hug each other and shake hands.

Okay...now I'm remembering where I got these ideas from Trump. They didn't come out of thin air.

It's from what Trump said about sports returning. We really want to see it back to normal so when we have all these thousands, tens of thousands of people going to your majors and going to golf tournaments. We want them to be having that same experience. We don't want them having to wear masks and be doing what we've been doing for the last number of months. Because that's not getting back to normal.

Now if Trump set a good example by wearing a mask...which would not only protect those in proximity to him but also inspire some of his supporters to protect the health of people in THEIR proximity. Well, I'd be more willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

But Trump has been playing the part of the asshole who thinks he's too cool for a mask.

So I think it's fair that I assume Trump isn't talking about many months from now or maybe years from now when Covid 19 is only a very rare threat.  I think he's talking about as soon as possible.

He's painting a narrative in which the left wants to prevent Americans from crowding together at sporting events and other venues and he and his cult as being the ones who will fight against this infringement on freedom.

I'm wondering, though. If Trump triumphs and crowds are back at the games while the virus is still spreading, will Trump be among those in the crowd?

A part of me says yes, because he did look up at the sun during the eclipse.  The other part of me thinks that Trump knows very well that Covid 19 is a serious and dangerous thing, But his attitude is that as long as he stays safe from it, he doesn't give a shit about anyone else.



Read my novel: The Dead are Online 

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