Sit Still Sit Quiet: An Increasingly Unfocused Screed About A Nightmare That We’re All Having

by Jordan Rock
Part 4

Every morning I get out of bed (not wake up, mind you, just, you know, get out of bed), and prepare myself for whatever horror the news cycle is going to throw in my face. Since bad news keeps on rolling in, it’s the especially egregious bits that become the most memorable.

 Usually it’s about the growing pandemic. Today it’s about Trump threatening legislative action to prevent Twitter from fact-checking the bile and bullshit that he vomits onto his feed every day. 

It’s astonishing: How can a man throw two trillion dollars at companies that have been “troubled” by the ongoing pandemic, without disclosing all of the recipients to the public, mind you, and fail entirely to even feign interest in lending that kind of support to the American people…and then turn around a couple of weeks later screeching about how Twitter won’t let him spread blatant political lies about his ‘perceived enemies,’ (like the cable news host and former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough, whom Trump says should be investigated for ‘murder’ of an aide who accidently hit her head on a desk and died) and ‘massive’ voter fraud, because he cares more about getting re-elected than lifting a finger in the interest of dealing with COVID-19? Pretty evident where his energy is going right now.

I haven’t had a chance to say it in written words until now, so I’m taking my shot here; racist white folks across America were so pissed at the very idea of a black president that they rallied behind a man who made a career for himself as a blatant swindler, so that he could swindle the entire country, and all because he’s a crusty old white man like back in the good ole’ days.

Now the administration is caught in this endless game of Russian Roulette where somehow Trump gets to pass on each of his turns.

Oh, I’m sorry, did you think I was going to finish talking about life in contemporary America without talking smack about Trump?  Please.

Trump is, at the very least, the perfect poster boy for the modern G.O.P. That is to say, he is a white supremacist ghoul, who belongs in a maximum security retirement home.

At least watching this failed Orwellian Kickstarter that he calls an administration gets a bitter laugh out of me now and then.

Where was I? Right, life in plague world.

In review, I’d like to say that the way America has handled this pandemic is a train wreck, but that would imply that the train was ever on the tracks in the first place. In truth, our present circumstances are the ultimate result of the bluster of Trump and his administration’s failure, and that tweet from this morning is a flawless example. The most powerful nation in the world is being led by a man who wants to shakedown Twitter in an alleyway for fact-checking him, when he could be doing something, ANYTHING, to help America recover from this virus.

We get to watch the rest of the world recover from their quarantine because they took this virus seriously from the jump. Compared to every other developed nation in the world; our hospitals are understaffed, our healthcare workers are overworked, our citizens can barely afford to make rent, let alone go and get checked, let alone further taking preventative measures or getting treated if they are infected.

And meanwhile? The rich get richer. Because our current administration is being run like every Trump enterprise thus far; a business intended to fail. That’s the takeaway here; like every business that Trump has defaulted on and subsequently declared bankrupt, the last four years have just been one long con to line his own pockets and the pockets of anyone lacking in enough scruples to profit off the misery of the American people.

So, before I sign off, there’s something I’d like to say. There’s been a lot of talk about being productive during quarantine, which I think is bunk. There’s been responses to that rhetoric about how millions of us are showing tell-tale signs of depression and PTSD due to this ongoing catastrophe that we are all limping through. There’s been people rioting in the streets with assault rifles over being told to stay indoors to police indifference, and there’s been peaceful protests over the deaths of people that look like me that have naturally been met with tear gas and pepper spray. This is the America I know. I wanted to say to you, whoever it is that’s reading this, that you deserve better.

And while you’re at it, make sure that you allow yourself to live. Really live. Not by the standards of our late capitalistic society, but by your own. You don’t have to reinvent yourself while you’re sitting still and quiet in quarantine. You don’t have to be exercising, or changing your diet or working, working, working. All you need to do is survive. Because the world we live in right now is so beyond horrifying, the only thing we can control, that we can rely on in any capacity, is ourselves.

So survive. First and foremost, survive. And while you’re doing that, demand better. Rest assured; this is a fight for your own survival. The government won’t help you. There are going to be people out there determined to pretend nothing is wrong, but you and I know better.

Wear your mask. Only go out if you have no other choice. Work if you absolutely must but survive. And when it comes time to vote, do us all a favor, and vote that great blubbering windbag out of office and straight into court for all that he’s done. These are desperate times, and no man is more desperate than a shyster who knows when his time is running out. This long, obvious con is coming to an end, and most people want this man out of office, at least so that we don’t have to listen to him squawk anymore. Don’t let a loud-mouth minority sabotage this country again. Don’t let this man cheat his way into another term.

Demand better, America. Because if you don’t, whatever comes next will make this pandemic seem like a dream and the Trump-dominated nightmare we’re in will never end.

We can survive this. But only if we stand together.