New piece up at PREVAIL. I'm going to post some of it here.

[THREAD] https://gregolear.substack.com/p/trumps-to-blame-for-this-scared-new

1/ In less than a month, the entire world has changed, maybe forever.

We are all processing what just happened to us. We are all struggling with our conflicting emotions: with grief, with anxiety, with panic, with despair, with depression, with anger—and with fear.

2/ In his inaugural address in 1933, FDR famously said, “first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

3/ But the situation is different now, and those words no longer ring true. There is SO MUCH to fear. We are afraid of catching the virus. We are afraid of having to be hospitalized because of the virus. We are afraid of dying alone.

4/ We are afraid of dying alone. We are afraid of losing loved ones, friends and family members, people in our communities, famous people we admire. We are afraid of losing our jobs. We are afraid of another Great Depression. We are afraid of being evicted from our homes.

5/ We are afraid of running out of supplies. We are afraid of the unknown future. We are afraid of the election. We are afraid of the election being cancelled, of Trump winning, of the republic falling.

6/ We are afraid of the mental strain of being in quarantine for months and months and months. And we are afraid of all of these things simultaneously. "Convert retreat into advance?" How can we even HOPE to advance, when the way to fight covid is to stay home?

7/ Roosevelt also said: “Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment. Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague…” Well, we are. Americans in 2020 ARE sticken by plague. So there.

8/ For most of us, the unwelcome new reality has not yet set in. This is not a brave new world, but a scared one.

9/ As we settle into our quarantined homes, as we set up “online learning,” as we tap into skills we didn’t know we’d ever need, we will have time to look back and process what happened to us—and, most importantly, determine who is responsible.

10/ A pandemic was inevitable. But the response to the pandemic—or, rather, the complete and total lack of response, which was willful, deliberate, and outright fucking evil—is the fault of Donald John Trump...

11/ ...his corrupt & inept administration; his propagandists on Fox News and OAN and Breitbart; and, also, the Republican Party that has enabled him, coddled him, and, this past January, as the covid outbreak hit Wuhan, absolved him of his obvious and odious crimes.

12/ Even now, Trump has done as little as possible to help....He pits governors against each other. He attacks journalists and Senators. And he brags about his ratings, his supposed Facebook popularity, and the “tremendous job” he’s doing. He continues to golf (!).

13/ As I type this, the Trumpist/Putinist/GOP propaganda networks are trying their damnedest to hold someone else, anyone else, accountable. NO! Donald Trump is to blame. This is his fault.

The motherf—ker knew and did nothing.

14/ When your kid’s basketball season is cancelled right before the playoffs, Trump is to blame.

When there are no sports to watch, to read about, to gamble on—no NBA Finals, no March Madness, no Wimbledon, no hockey, no baseball, and probably no NFL either—Trump is to blame.

15/ When the movie theaters and theme parks and summer concerts don’t happen, that’s Trump’s fault.

When you can’t get a professional haircut, or a mani-pedi, or a massage—Trump did that.

16/ When you can’t have dinner at your favorite sushi restaurant, Trump is to blame. When you can’t go to a bar and have a few beers with your mates, Trump did that to you.

17/ In South Korea, which had its first reported case of covid the same day we did in the US, the schools have reopened. When your children are kept out of school until Halloween, Trump made that happen.

18/ When you haven’t had sex, or even made out with someone, in months, that is Trump’s doing.

19/ When you’re barricaded in a small apartment with your abuser, Trump is responsible.

20/ When a beloved actor, writer, athlete dies of the virus, the blood is on Trump’s hands.

21/ When your 401k turns into a pumpkin, Trump waved the cursed wand.

22/ When your cousin, your sister, your father, your wife is hooked up to a ventilator for two weeks, Trump is to blame. When these loved ones don’t make it, Trump is the blame. When the hospital bills come and you can’t pay them, that’s on Trump, too.

23/ No prom, no graduation, no Opening Day, no Easter egg hunt, no brunch with Mom on Mother’s Day, no sleepaway camp, no summer blockbuster, no fireworks on the Fourth of July, no backyard barbeque...

24/ ...no day trip to the city, no beach house rental, no pick-up basketball, no dancing at the club, no dating, no reunions, no weddings, no funerals.

Thanks, Trump!

25/ Channeling his anti-FDR, Trump uttered the six words that define who he's been his entire noxious life—that should be in the first paragraph of his obituary: “I don’t take responsibility at all.”

Ah, but ultimately, the choice of who takes responsibility is not his to make.

26/ We are going to lose a quarter of a million Americans—and that’s a conservative estimate. Whether he accepts the truth or not, it’s all Trump’s fault. All. Trump’s. Fault.

And we shall never forget, never forgive, and never yield in our quest for justice. We know who did this to us. And we will hold him to account.

[END]