It comes down to simple scientific probability. The mathematical chances that tRump would come down with the coronavirus were virtually 100 percent, given how much he was out and about, meeting people, and persistently tempting fate by refusing to wear a mask — and often failing to social distance — in most situations. The only possible way he wouldn’t become infected was if, as he was fond of stating, the whole thing was a Democratic hoax, which now even he (in his stubborn stupidity) is forced to admit that it isn’t.
Nonetheless, in spite of the president contracting the virus, many of his demented followers still evidently believe (based on the fact they are still participating in mass gatherings sans masks or social distancing) the pandemic is either not real or they are somehow immune to it. Some folks are living in their own bubble of magical thinking, and it appears as if nothing can penetrate it. Or it could be their thinking is so twisted they too want to contract Covid-19 as a show of solidarity with their crazed leader. And now that he is leaving the hospital they will become more emboldened to tempt fate.
But it could be something else that’s fueling these ’ foolish behavior. It could be that tRump’s minions, who have been virtually unanimous in their cavalier attitude towards the deadly infection (and remain steadfast in their dismissive attitudes), take this stance because of the pandemic’s built-in democracy. It doesn’t discriminate based on any of the factors racists truly believe in. It respects no one based on hierarchy, wealth or skin color, and this is something that’s anathema to right wingers and their way of thinking. How dare this invader — from China of all places! —think that it can conquer and lay low true-blue, patriotic white Americans?
Don’t these foreigners recall the complete willingness of jingoistic Americans to burn down entire villages in Vietnam in order to save them back in the ’60s and ’70s? Don’t they know these kinds of cultural warriors, who wrap themselves tightly in the flag as a means of warding off any danger presented by any opponent (even an invisible one), are more than willing engage in hand-to-hand, face-to-face combat with this new enemy and wrestle it to the ground — no matter how many of them get sick or die? What the hell do scientists know anyhow?
But realize this is not the first time a group of Americans have foolishly whipped themselves into a fighting frenzy over something that threatens to alter their way of life. And in this instance, just as it was back 160 years ago, race is the predominant factor. Under the banner of “States’ Rights” (the primary of those “rights” being the right to continue to own other human beings), southerners actually believed they could dissolve the Union, and further, maintain that dissolution by force of arms.
Back then, as we are seeing repeated now, mass hysteria and delusional thinking took hold. We actually have a significant number of our fellow citizens who truly believe they can — if their guy is reelected — rewrite the Constitution to favor a form of American Apartheid, and failing in that, they’re completely willing and ready to go to war over their belief they are entitled to have their very own white ethno-state within the borders of the United States. And tRump has encouraged — indeed led them — them in this kind of demented, faulty thinking.
Since the defeat of the Confederacy there has always been an undercurrent of hatred towards those whom the traitors blame for starting the Civil War: Blacks who wouldn’t stop demanding their freedom. The sentiment for a refighting of that conflict has always bubbled just below the surface in the American south, as in many corners of the nation, Civil War battle reenactments are common. These crackers have never given up on eventual victory.
As far back as the 1960s, madmen such as Charles Manson have come up with schemes to start a race war within the United States. His was titled “Helter Skelter,” taken from a Beatles song, and the new rallying cry is “Civil War 2: Electric Boogaloo” taken from the title of a 1984 film. Both scenarios are based on the same premise: That the white race has to be saved from the clutches of those “Big Black Bucks” — those supposed sex fiends these weak-minded white dudes have created out of their own feeble imaginations and have come to fear and loath.
It’s this fear and loathing of blacks (and others who are not exactly like them in appearance and mindset) that has crippled and robbed these poor souls of all reason and sanity, the same kind of emotions that came to a head in 1860 and caused Fort Sumter to be fired on in April of 1861.
The emergence of the coronavirus, however, has proven to be a wild card in the upcoming election, and tRump’s contracting of the disease at this stage only further complicates the issue. The QAnon nut jobs are coming up with all kinds of crazed conspiracy theories, some of them dangerous to the body politic.
The imminence of those dangers is the wacky orders from tRump to his followers, encouraging them to arm themselves and on Election Day go into black communities and attempt to frighten citizens away from polling places under the guise of preventing voter fraud. If this tactic is attempted, officials from boards of elections, by law, are duty bound to inform them that they must stay at least 100 feet away from the entrances to polling places. They are not to be allowed inside.
But what if these militia types pay the officials no heed? Again, by statute, law enforcement is to then be summoned to enforce the rules. However, knowing that law enforcement often favors these thugs over the right of black citizens, they might elect to stand down and do nothing. What happens then? Are blacks going to simply walk away from the polls without voting?
No, that’s not going to happen. Our ancestors fought — and in some cases died — to secure the franchise for us. If the duly appointed authorities do not act to ensure our legal right to vote, then we will have no choice but to ensure that right ourselves — as Malcolm said, “By any means necessary.” This too can be characterized as the “inevitability of consequences.”
From CoolCleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author at http://NeighborhoodSolutionsIn