I think the major thing, in my mind, that sticks out in this situation and that was very different than the AIDS epidemic is Trump's commitment to appearances and optics surrounding American exceptionalism. There was such a strong desire to downplay covid-19 as just "a flu" and that we had "the virus contained", but nothing could have been further from the truth. The short attention span of media cycles is concerning in this regard, because now an incredible amount of people think Trump's response has been of quality and agree with him when he said that he "Knew it was a pandemic before it was even called a pandemic".

I wish American culture allowed for a more humanistic approach to holding people accountable. We don't want leaders to recognize that they fucked up. Instead, they should just spin, pivot, and deny. Our country wasn't ready for covid-19 to hit us, and it shows. Own up to it and take action.

it doesn't help that we're all being pulled in two directions.

people are getting smarter, but with google in your pocket you don't need to remember shit.

people are getting more critical, and being conditioned to question everything.

sexual liberation of women, women are not to be seen as sexual objects.

social connections via social media, social disconnect via social media.

in a macro lens its honestly tough to tell if we're improving or stagnating on average. we're a pack of average yahoos being carried by elite scientists and computer programmers. we're basically the sixers with AI on the roster getting carried.

America is crippled by success. we're the strongman in the football game. we cant prove our technique is best, or our game knowledge. but good luck stopping us from hitting the endzone. this kind of proven pattern makes it hard for anyone to admit we're struggling. I have been wondering lately how different a progressive potus's path would be. surely not as braggadocios, but would anyone except maybe Bernie do a south korea shut down? the reality we have here is people, corporations, and even churches are showing they're paycheck to paycheck. its a machine that cant be stopped, unless we stop it.

Christian guy: {Makes 50,000 masks per day to save lives}
Liberal sphere: "Fuck christianity your god is false fuck the bible boycott mypillow"

That was todays events basically

yep. they will turn on whoever implements any sort of treatment for this virus and also whichever governors allow said treatment to be used in the state the govern

that's a triple fail:

- first of all, why "even taiwan"? they hate china, and would have all the reasons in the world to lie about them if they had to
- secondly, they don't have to because ofc china lies. i've been saying that over and over again
- lastly, the point i'm making here is that it's hypocritical for someone to defend trump's behaviour and propaganda, but then point out that believing china is stupid. BOTH is stupid

that was 'today's events' from the perspective of a professional hack, who completely ignores the serial bungling, pettiness, and indefensible behaviour of his cult leader, and desperately looks for idiotic tweets of some nobodies, trying to misrepresent them as 'the liberal sphere', in order to manufacture outrage. you're worse than fox news.

absolutely pathetic.

Literally seeing 70+ year olds out in public everywhere i go.
Self isolating 3 weeks now, only going out to walk my dog.

I saw a lot less people out today than I did last week, so that's good. My town has just crossed the 100 mark a day or two ago, so we're getting ready to go into full "oh fuck" mode as the exponential takes off.

19 cases one death here.