Limbaugh, Fox News and Trump make for one hell of a psycho-active drug cocktail. People end up seeing implanted visions and hearing voices, it seems. Have a close family member, elderly, who is a smart person as a baseline. But Fox & Friends has led her to really question the voting machines -- "you just don't know what to believe anymore." Very sad situation. I gently listen and then share some info from various conservative sources, including WSJ and Forbes investigations, etc. But I'm seen as a (nice) member of the other team, and being a professor casts extra doubt on my motives, in her world. I wonder how many healthcare workers we're going to lose, permanently, due to the pandemic. I don't mean deaths -- I just mean people who leave and never look back. These jobs seem like something out of MASH but now with psychotic patients.
Several friends in their 60's are considering imminent retirement when it had not been a consideration otherwise. The only thing keeping them working is their desire to continue benefitting others. They are exhausted.
One of my best friends/ girlfriend (it was complicated but in a good way) that passed away before Covid hit was a full time respiratory therapist with Dell Children's Hospital. One of her closest friends is a double lung transplant that is also a respiratory therapist at Dell Children's. Her husband is also a RT. They have to live separately for the time being and she has had to stop working at the hospital. She's had her transplanted lungs over 10 years now which is about the usual lifespan extension you get from doing such a surgery, so she was already high risk pre-Covid outbreak. I get so furious with how dismissive people are over this virus. It's altered the lives of people I personally know just try and survive through this all for the sake of a poorly run economy and people caught up on 'freedom' to be assholes.
Like everyone else in the world, over the last 4 years I keep wondering how we got here (by "here, I mean a significant percentage of the American public is fully invested in an alternate reality). There's been no lack of analysis and journalism on the topic. A lot of it focused on Trump and whether or not he has magical powers of manipulation. Others focus on those "left behind", the swaths of white voters who've lost jobs to automation. The many essays on racial grievance. These are all very legitimate. Like many of you, I have numerous friends and family who are conservative, and they are loving, and kind, and smart - except for when it comes to American politics. I think the main culprit of the current mess is a nonstop emotionally addictive entertainment-news cycle that hooks subjects into a continuous stream of fear and hatred, because it's the most profitable version of "news." Almost all of us know lovely, kind, intelligent people who have been consumed by the "news" that they consume. They have Fox on all day at home and right-wing talk radio in the car. Decades of nonstop addictive fear/hate programming has primed their brains for acceptance of almost any information from the trusted source.
It’s just angering when you have pieces of $hit like that Georgia rep Taylor Greene who say my body my choice about masks. I don’t mean to bring race into this but the only reason it’s a big deal to trumpcans is because it got added to the cocktail of white values etc thaybtrump pushed. Therefore like all the other things it’s bad. what angers me more than that, is the kid gloves “nice guy” routine by the people that know better. These people and their stupid mentality is beyond saving, you don’t win by trying to convince them. They are going to end up making those around them pay. You call them out, you use legal methods, you do whatever it takes on something that is a black and white issue. I voted for Biden this time around but Democrats to me are the ultimate nice weak minded individual that thinks that you can accomplish stuff by being nice to everyone. Trump for all his failings is no bullshit and has even managed to convince people of going against their own health. Liberals need to grow and pair, be strong, decisive , and willing to do what it takes.
I’ve been frustrated with all of the people not in high risk groups acting like it’s nothing since mostly only old people are dying. Even though young people have not only died from it but also are suffering long term health consequences it’s not as though the elderly aren’t just expendable.
The main culprit imo is the GOP, who has gone to great lengths to keep a large part of the country ignorant, so that they would keep blindly voting red and help those these GOP parasites stay in power. This has been going on for decades and Trump simply came along and exploited it.
I also think of how widespread the disease is under the misguided belief of herd immunity. We had a chance to completely wipe this virus off the planet by allowing the people positive with it to no longer be virus shedders before going back out to society. Are the chronically ill just expected to live the rest of their lives alone in their apartments/homes for the foreseeable future because it's gotten so out of control in containment? I know we have vaccines coming but is this going to be an annual vaccine like the flu vaccine is for the foreseeable future? What if you take immunosuppressants like my double lung transplant friend? Will the vaccine still be safe and viable for people like her?
Nasty till the very end. If anyone has a solid answer for this I'm all ears. I wouldn't be surprised if even more blame is shifted on establishment types like scientists, health officers and career civil servants. There's no "lobby" for them so it's much easier to externalize costs and hate upon that group. Start going "for profit", losers! They already accusing you of lying for that very reason... Might as well.
If you dont wear masks, then hospitals shouldnt treat you when you get sick cos they are too busy treating the other people your POS behind infected
It's almost unethical/illegal to force health care workers in South Dakota to keep working. They should go to a state with a Covid-19 problem (nearly all of them) and that actually tried to contain it and work there.
Had a friend who's mom died today from it and still doesn't believe it is a real danger. He thinks she caught it but died from natural causes even though the professionals told him what killed her. ¯\(°_o)/¯
That's because they been trained to believe people were given COVID as cause of death to benefit hospitals and states financially. Propaganda from the right.
Both of my parents are 90 years old. Yes, they are very old, and I’m getting there myself. I can’t begin to tell you how proud I am of both of them. They both see right through Trump, and can’t understand how anyone could support such a vile man. They are both Shocked and disgusted That 70 million people would vote for Trump. The other day my mother said she had been watching Fox News to hear other points of view. She said it was rather frightening because after awhile she almost started to believe what they were preaching. It was almost hypnotic, and it was relentless. I just feel sad for all the people out there that have become almost like zombies, watching Fox News and listening to Rush Limbaugh from the moment they wake up to the time they go to sleep. I don’t know how I got so lucky, but not one person in my entire extended family supported Trump or the GOP. And we are all Texans! What are the odds?
