Timing Is Everything

This virus crisis has demonstrated that, in the main, we Americans are good and decent people. And, another thing – that we are so much better than our President. 

We are acting with tender selflessness. We are sacrificing. We are sharing. We are giving up our comforts for the good of the whole. 

On the other hand, the President cares only about himself. His solipsism is on full display. He singular concern is about how he is being seen. As people die, he talks about his TV ratings. He has less empathy than he has command of the English language.

Yet, despite the utter inability of our leader to adequately take us in the right direction, we are still doing the right things anyway. When we are confronted with a true threat, we band together. We share. Our priorities change. The “Greatest Generation” did it. Now, we are doing it. Bankers and hedge fund managers are not garnering the headlines – caregivers are.

This week also saw the end of Bernie Sanders’ campaign. There is a connection. Had we been attacked by this disease months earlier, and had we shown the same communitarian side of ourselves during the heat of the Democratic primaries that we are showing now, maybe we would have been more accepting of Bernie’s communitarian ideas? After all, what does Bernie ask for except for the same sense of banding together to help each other that we are now so graciously engaged in?

He wants free education. What is that other than better prioritizing the things that are important? He wants us to better share our wealth. What is that other than sacrificing some comfort for the good of the whole? And he wants us all to have access to better health care. The comparison of that goal to what we are now experiencing requires no explanation.

Before Carona-time, it was true that Bernie had no chance of winning the Presidency and the thought of running a losing candidate against probably the worst President in history was totally unacceptable. But, now, well, chalk up another one for the truth of that old saw, “timing is everything.”

I am not proposing that we all get behind a renewal of the Bernie candidacy. It’s too late for that, and the virus has taken that option off the table as well.  A popular political demonstration of support is impossible when you can’t even go outside.

So, Biden it is.  One can hope that the only good side effect of the coronavirus – that it re-ignited our selflessness – will pull us all now in his direction.