When someone speaks of “government dysfunction” as the problem, without any explication of what the clearly and obviously “right” policy would be, or any indication of what the specific failures are, it should raise questions in your mind. Especially on this of all topics. https://twitter.com/thomaschattwill/status/1280227252530282504

Throughout this crisis the theory of dysfunction has shifted: not enough ventilators, not enough masks, not locking down fast enough, not enough testing, not enough data, not enough “test & trace,” not being European. Few of these have seen the specific dysfunction identified.

Amidst all this change the specific policy which clearly would have ended this remains consistently vague. The best you can usually get is “test & trace,” which is never given much flesh on its bones. Contact tracing as applied is passed over. https://mobile.twitter.com/TheAgeofShoddy/status/1276583189197144064

Meanwhile the most devastating policy failures are largely ignored: the decision to place virus carriers in nursing homes, the continuing lies about masks, treatments, etc., and the discriminatory and pointlessly brutal enforcement of lockdown orders.

That is not an accident.

What those failures have in common is that they cut across lines of party and sovereignty, making them politically useless for the most part. None of them can, with any fidelity to the facts, be fashioned into an unalloyed weapon. Thus the universal retreat into vagueness.

So if there is a particularly American critique to be made, it’s that the discussion about the virus is still primarily about November. Our response is still seen first through a political lens, and in particular a partisan and juvenile one which ignores systemic danger.

To this day we still cannot have a collective adult discussion about acceptable level of risk, the actual goals of policy, the limits of what is achievable, the systemic risks associated with long-term suspension of normal life, or the costs which policy imposes on its subjects.

What we have instead is a shared and near-universal commitment to outright lies and calculated manipulation of the public, sanctimonious lectures, insultingly condescending framing which reduces self-governance to unruly children begging their guardians for a treat.

Fuck you.

No organized “side” of this debate gets away clean from that one, whether it’s mindless conservative anti-mask agitation or disingenuous progressive insistence that the arc of history will bless their protests, but not their neighbor’s churches, mosques, beaches, or businesses.

That’s where we stand. And no amount of symbolic and vague talk focused on gaining power for this or that coalition is going to move us forward a single step.

ADDENDUM: this gets at something I have found particularly infuriating. We began lockdown with “15 days to bend the curve.” This died almost immediately, but rather than being up-front about the situation, that initial ask vanished from the discussion. https://mobile.twitter.com/MuseZack/status/1280302528941322241

It was replaced not with assistance, not requests, not analyses or plans or recommendations or options for the public to consider, but orders to the effect that civil liberties were simply gone, just like that. Maybe for years, maybe forever. Thus spoke authority.

We were lied to about “flattening the curve.” We looked past the lie and gave months of our lives to this effort while we were told that nothing would ever get us back what we had lost, that this would be the New Normal; but maybe, with great effort, we could spare a few lives.

To be told now- now, after months of brutal sacrifice, businesses going under, family members dying alone, funerals without anyone present, weddings postponed, education abandoned, jobs lost- that if we had just done as we were told everything would be fine, is unacceptable.

Contrary to appearances I do watch my language on this account more than it may seem, so I will not further elaborate other than to say that this is an insult which cannot ever be forgiven or forgotten. It will, and should, inform all else which happens from this moment forwards.