Look to your self by Debbie Carlson

I agree with Debbie that we must look to ourselves. That is always true but we have never, as a country, been so without leadership. We are alone in ways we’ve never been before.

U.S. COVID-19 deaths surpass 250,000 mark as infections surge—Reuters

Rudy Giuliani Isn’t Even Trying to Make Coherent Legal Arguments Anymore—Slate

‘Standing Up For Our Patients’: Nearly 800 St. Mary Medical Center Nurses On Strike Over Alleged Staffing Issues, Wages As COVID-19 Cases Soar—CBS Philly

November 18, 2020

Look to your self
by Debbie Carlson, Woodinville, Washington

I am angry that our current president failed to embrace simple common sense and unite us around that simple common sense message. Instead of educating, empowering, and encouraging Americans to unite and fight a deadly disease, he politicized the issue and divided us further. As a result, we are nine months into this horrible disease and more Americans have died from it than any other population in the world—with record numbers being diagnosed every day.

Because there is such a challenge with Covid positive people being asymptomatic, we really needed someone in the White House who could articulate the patriotism inherent in caring for each other. I agree that people need to be accountable to themselves, and we should always be wary of overly-centralized, autocratic power. But in this time of Covid crisis, I would have wished for a discerning leader who did not insist on his own individual right NOT to wear a mask (while enjoying the most expensive and privileged treatments when he fell ill). His lack of character bleeds into failed leadership and nonexistent policies.

But in this moment it’s his refusal to concede the election and accept the results of a free and fair process—which is actively preventing the Biden team from getting their Covid response plan set up and ready to go on January 21—that I find impossible to forgive. There were always going to be deaths, but if we’d had a different national narrative about what we could do, together, to make it better, I absolutely believe the final death toll would not be so tragic. One of the primary responsibilities of an American president is to rally us in times of danger and difficulty to make sacrifices and think not just of ourselves, but the good of all. Our current president was never going to be a man who could meet that moment.

We have lost more than a quarter million Americans to Covid, with record daily infections climbing with each passing day. **A quarter million Americans.** Don’t look to toddler Trump for leadership on this—look to your self. We know what we need to do to take care of ourselves and each other. Do it.