Friends,
Today has been a big day for authoritarianism. Guilty friends of the president got their charges dropped. A beloved institution gets a new boss who is likely to try and destroy it to punish an enemy of the president and disenfranchise voters who are reluctant to expose themselves to the public health risk. States are relaxing stay at home orders prematurely under pressure from the administration to throw workers into the maw of this teensy, devastating beast that has killed over 80,000 Americans.
Experts on these things, who track the rise of authoritarian governments throughout history, note that budding potentates need to get the population used to death. They need for citizens to stop being alarmed and simply shrug off a D-Day’s worth of dead Americans every day for a month.
Maintaining outrage is hard and draining and really annoying to people around you. It’s not healthy, but I think that it’s important to be very angry right now. We need a lot of people to be brave, put on a mask and gloves, and vote these ghouls out in November.
Your pal,
– bob