WuFlop – The Trumplandia Report

#COVID19 Threat Assessment For March 18th, 2020: I’ll Give You Something To Cry About

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Here are some threats on the top of my mind right now:

Continuation of Government
Now that members of Congress are beginning to get back COVID19 positives on their tests, it seems at least possible that it’s going to whip through the halls of power at a rather alarming rate at some point between now an April 1st. We could see many Senators and a few Constitutional Officers be unable to fulfill their duties (for various reasons.)

This is ominous because a lot of different things could go wrong all at the same time to such an extent that we will reach 9/11 levels of fear and terror across the country. Throw in everything from Trump going full-Caligula to some obscure Trump MAGA hack being able to appoint nearly the entire SCOTUS to Nancy Pelosi having to save the Union and we could be in for a wild fucking ride.

Or not.

It could be things work out fine and I’ll be (thankfully) wrong.

Race and Political Violence
We’re about two weeks and one Trump tweet away from Asians and liberals being hunted down and murdered in cold blood by MAGA. If Trump finally feels he might have some actual political accountable on an existential level, he’s likely to lash out and “joke” to his fucktard cocksucker base to “remind Asians and liberals of the power of the 2nd Amendment.” MAGA goes on a rampage and The Little Terror happens across the nation in a rather End of Days type of way. We come out the other side ashamed of ourselves as a nation and we endup apologizing for it all in a few decades.

House Trump: Caligula
This is one of those things that is a serious wildcard. I have no idea if Trump is going to explode or implode if it occurs to him that his handling of this clusterfuck really is his Chernobyl. He’s barely functioning as it is, and if we’re lucky, he becoming a mental puddle and we don’t see him that much. Or he explodes and whips his cock out every chance he gets. Or tweets out racist diatribes to any notable minority leader he doesn’t like. I have no idea how likely any of that is, but it’s something to think about.

Emperor Trump
Trump may eventually turn himself into an Emperor in a rather dramatic fashion. He’ll really lean into the “war president’ thing and simply ignore the Constitution even more than he already does. And, really, the only thing that would save us at that point is he’s very dumb. And he’s a self-own artist. So he might finally make the average American realize what a moronic tyrant he is and THAT would be the cause of his final undoing. But I find the idea that Trump will ever have any political unaccountably rather dubious at this point.

A New World Order
The one place I could see maybe pushing us into a totally new world order is the DPRK. It’s such a black box that if it freaks out because most of the population is sick or dying, then, well, yikes. And Trump could very well bungle the whole thing. AND, China might decide to accomplish some of its long-term geopolitical goals at the same time for no other reason than everyone else is too sick to do anything about it. There are just a lot of surreal twists and turns that might occur on a global scale if this preventable clusterfuck lasts for 18 months.

The Gray Plague
If this happens, and about a million elderly people die over the next 18 months, then, well, yikes. I’m really concerned about this as a possible future. And, yet, there’s probably a lot going on that I don’t know about. Maybe this prediction is just too dark for it to become a reality. I mean, could we really handle a few months of 10,000 old people dying every day? If we realized there was nothing we could do, but just let it play out? And remember, we’ve put a whole lot of our future on the shoulders of elderly people. It wouldn’t take too many powerful — and old — people being felled by The Gray Plague for history to change in a rather startling fashion.

The WuFlop
I only call it the WuFlop because I don’t know the scientific term. But it wouldn’t take a lot of people being recorded passing out with the WuFlop for that to spook people on a rather existential fashion.

But maybe Trump’s announcement tomorrow is a cure and we can all go back to waiting for the ICE camps to be weaponized. Good times!

Coming To America: The ‘WuFlop'(?)

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I don’t know anything about anything, so you should probably ignore me. But simply empirical evidence suggests that the extremely rare (I think) symptom of COVID19, known as “the WuFlop” (I only call it that at this point because I don’t know what the scientific term is.) may appear in the United States simply because the number of people who have COVID19 will be large enough that it begins to happen.

If the WuFlop does come to America, it would likely freak people the fuck out. It’s extremely eerie if someone who is otherwise healthy looking faceplants. It’s even more surreal when they do it and start to convolse uncontrollably. It’s highly unlikely we would ever see it a recorded occurrence of this on TV, but it definitely would be all over social media if it happened in the United States.

And, yet, maybe (hopefully) I’m wrong. Or if it does happen in the States, it won’t be recorded. I don’t know. I just don’t know. It seems inevitable if 100 million Americans get COVID19, that we’ll begin to see recorded of WuFlop across the country at some point.

What I Got Wrong #COVID19

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Well, we’ve reached March 15, so let’s look over in general terms my predictions about COVID19.

I got a whole lot wrong. A whole lot. But in general I did, at least, make some relevant observations. Two things haven’t happened (yet): the Gray Plague and Wuflop. Neither one has happened in the United States and maybe never will.

It’s possible that while we have a short, severe two weeks of social distancing, in the end, Devin Nunes will crow he was right. Trump will simply use all of this to consolidate power, win re-election through any means necessary and get impeached again in his second term. But by that point Don Jr. will be his veep and House Trump will be firmly established. We’ll have Trumps for about 30 years until the browning of America reaches a tipping point and AOC topples House Trump through a popular uprising.

Or something.

I did get right, in broad terms, the idea that America might buckle by the March 15. But it didn’t happen the way I thought. It’s not that everyone has gotten sick, it’s a psycho-social situation. The powers that be have decided to take “flatting the curve” seriously and, as such, the country is shutting down as a preventive measure. In real terms, the death toll, for the moment, is relatively low.

And, really, I don’t see an endgame where House Trump isn’t stronger. Either this kind of fizzles out in April and they use it to discredit everyone who freaked out, or we have something akin to the apocalypse and House Trump uses THAT to consolidate power. There’s just no stopping our inevitable slide in to the Fourth Reich. The Thousand Year Trump is going to happen one way or another.

For it NOT to happen, things would have to grow eyepoppingly surreal and dark in just the right way so House Trump was blamed for a shit ton of preventable deaths. And, I, for one, am not thrilled at the idea of 1 million people dying over the next 18 months, regardless of what Crown Prince Don Jr. may think.

Anyway, the point is — I can’t predict the future. I got the general outlines of what is happening now, but the death toll isn’t rising as quickly as I predicted. That may be an issue of it just takes time for exponential growth to pop up in the real world given how big the United States is on a geographic level.

Or something. Why are you even reading this. Go read something from someone with credibility. Wink

#COVID19 Threat Assessment For March 12th, 2020: This Seems Sub-Optimal

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While the country is beginning to buckle, for the time being, it seems to be purely a psychological event brought about by criminally poor leadership on the part of House Trump. What’s happening is we’re in something of a panic because people realize we can’t test enough and so we just don’t know the extent of contagion’s spread in the country.

We’re finally doing what we need to mitigate the situation as much as possible, but it’s more a matter of a collapse in public confidence as opposed to a controlled shut down in “an abundance of auction.” As of right now, there’s a good chance that we’ll escape the fate of Iran or even Italy. In ten days, we’ll realize we’re safe and Trump will crow that he “meant to do that” and he was right along and fuck you liberals.

But I have no idea if that’s going to happen. It seems self-evident that we’re a crisis. If we begin to see medical situations that indicate that some of my worst fears are coming true, then that’s a different matter all together. As of the moment, this very well could just be “The Small One.” But a combination of Trump screwing everything up, the Gray Plague and the “WuFlop” might take this otherwise manageable situation to the next level so we have THE BIG ONE on our hands.

I’m feeling rather calm right now and even I have to admit the prospect of an uncontrolled Gray Plague makes me rather nervous. If a huge number of elderly people begin to die on a daily basis, it would be a horrific tragedy of such a historical level it might take us a while to process it all. But it might not even be that. It might be that just the right people in power get sick, causing a sea change in our politics for no other reason than history has decided to wake up rather abruptly. Or, put another way, if we endup somewhere in the Italy – Iran spectrum of the contagion being spread here we all may have made some rather surreal days ahead of us.

The entire power structure of the United States may come to a grinding halt. Now, I will note, some young insane conservatives have “self-quarantined” because of their potential COVID19 expose at CPAC. So, it’s reasonable to assume that if the absolute worst happens on Capitol Hill, they would be the most able to swoop in and take political advantage of this situation. Now, I’m sure there are some of you who salivate at the idea of Ted Cruz suddenly going from Zero to Hero and, like, rebuilding America in the imagine of CPAC. If you are one of those people — please eat shit, you fascist fuck.

I say this for a number of reasons, one of them being Death Be Not Proud. It could be not Ted Cruz but, say, Nancy Pelosi who gets to play hero. And if that’s the case, all you shithead conservatives will do is bitch and moan about how everything was going your way until the media’s coverage of the contagion made people panic.

Anyway, we haven’t even gotten to the WuFlop part of all of this. If that starts to happen around the country, then what is, for the moment, a matter of criminally bad leadership on the part of House Trump will escalate to something far, far, bigger and darker in our nation’s history. If you’re not prepared to see the WuFlop you’re in for a surprise. When an otherwise healthy person passes out and starts to convulse on the ground, it’s rather spooky on a visceral level.

I have no idea what’s going to happen. It could still go either way. If it gets as bad here as it’s gotten in Iran, then, well, it may be such a massive tragedy that neither side will be all that happen with whatever policy advantage they gain from it.

And tomorrow is Friday the 13th.

#COVID19 Threat Assessment For March 11th: ‘It’s Not A Toomha’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I am feeling pretty good right now. Now that understand what’s going on happen — there’s going to be a sharp, brief spike in cases across the country before the situation stabilize — I’m not feeling as nervous. At this point, the only reason why I’m really concerned at all is what’s going on in Italy and Iran. China and South Korea have proven that with the proper measures, you can have a suddenly severe spike in cases that subsides to a manageable level rather abruptly. We’re probably going to get the shit scared out of us on an unprecedented level nationally, but we will live to fight another day.

At least, that’s what should happen.

The biggest threat to American security right now is not COVID19, but our own president’s reaction to it. He’s probably going to switch gears tonight and go full paranoid racist demagogue on the situation. He will see this pandemic as an opportunity to further consolidation power, not to bring the nation together.

Trump never loses on a political level because of his nature as an avatar for the MAGA base’s hatred of liberals, the browning of America and feminists. So, for the time being, Trump, is as always, his own worst enemy. In a sense, Trump may become a “War President” and, as such, he will have far more power than he might otherwise. If he really was the “very stable genius” that he and Maggie Haberman would have us believe, he would be in a very good position to dominate Joe Biden. Trump’s dream of losing the popular vote and winning the Electoral College in the fall would be a foregone conclusion.

But.

This is Trump we’re talking about, so he’s going to self-own. I’m not prepared to say his self-own will be existential. He’s just too lucky for that to be an issue. But the context of his ultimate, inevitable victory in the fall may be a bit more different than he would like. He’s such a malignant force in American politics that 60% of the electorate is going to be seething about House Trump’s surreal control of America going into his second term. How that might manifest itself is anyone’s guess.

My best guess is he gets impeached again at some point in his second term, but by that point, Don Jr. or Steve King will be his veep so, lulz.

Another option is Trump implodes or explodes on a mental level just as the crisis reaches its denouement and there’s a momentary pause in the rise of the Fourth Reich and the Thousand Year Trump. I don’t want that to happen. I really don’t. That would be among the absolute worst case scenarios out there — I mean, do we really want all 328 million of us to see a picture of Trump’s cock on our phones via the Presidential Alert System?

Or, to put it another way, the only way House Trump doesn’t endup on top because of this crisis is Trump himself. That’s it. Otherwise, no matter what, they will be far more powerful, far quicker than they might have been otherwise in two years.

But, sadly, there are some other things that could make what might otherwise be a short, scary event in our nation’s history turn into not The Little One, but, THE BIG ONE. Besides Trump’s generally fuckery, there is The Gray Plague and the WuFlop to worry about.

If the Gray Plague begins to strike in any big fashion, then that would be a preventable tragedy of such proportions that I don’t want to think about it all that much. It definitely would give one pause for thought. The WuFlop, too, would likely cause so much panic in the United States if a recorded instance of it showed up on TV that the nation might buckle for a few days in abject terror.

Or, put another way, there are simply too many wild card known unknowns for me to properly gauge what is going to happen in the next, say, 60 days. In general, we’re going to get the shit scared out of us a few times, but House Trump will simply grow stronger and more hateful in the end. But if history decides to wake up in a big way, we all –even me — may be shocked by how surreal, how weird things get in a rather abrupt, unpredictable fashion.

Possible Dangers Ahead #COVID19

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I can tell from the Webstats of this site that absolutely no one cares about anything I have to say on this matter, but I’m going to humor myself and layout the possible dangers ahead of us.

The key thing is — we’re probably in for about 60 days of exponential growth in COVID19 cases, then they will subside rather abruptly. That seems to be what has happened in China, Singapore and South Korea. It may linger and come back in the fall, but for the time being, this initial outbreak is on path to do something along the lines of what Trump rambled about. It may “magically” vanish sometime in May. Trump will use this as proof that he is, in fact, the Son of God and why even have an election?

Having said all that, let’s go through some of the risks of the next 60 days.

The Gray Plague (Rest Homes)
This will be a key element of how severe this particular outbreak of COVID19 is going to be. If it gets into the rest home system, what would otherwise be a painful, brief situation might turn into a real-life horror movie. There are 15,600 rest homes with 1.4 million residents. If what happened in Kirkland County is any indication of what is possible, then things might get really astonishly bad on that front at some point in the next 60 days.

The Gray Plague (Political)
This is probably the volatile danger we face. A lot of the levers of power in the United States are control by the statically elderly. If a large portion of the Federal government was culled by COVID19 in a very short amount of it in the next 60 days, it might throw us all for a loop in a rather historic fashion. Some pretty basic assumptions we are making about America’s political future over the next 18 months may be thrown into doubt. I’m not advocating, I’m just explicating. This is simply an unknown wildcard that could scramble things in some rather dramatic, unexpected and surreal ways. Or not. Who knows. I can’t predict the future. It’s just something to be aware of.

Violence (Racial)
We live in the dumbest timeline. When you have a deranged racist asshole as president, it’s not too difficult to assume that his moron MAGA followers may attack Asians for being “responsible” for COVID19 if things grow dire at some point over the coming 60 day crisis. It will be a national shame that will linger for decades and spawn a lot of hand wringing and political discourse. About 40 years from now, Congress will have to apologize at gun-point when AOC’s junta demands it after it overthrows President Barron Trump.

Violence (Political Mob)
The American political system is about as taunt as it could be. When Republicans gleefully — and conspicuously — embrace election help from Russian, then, well, lulz? If things get really bad, if only briefly, there could be some pretty surreal — and unprecedented — violence. I could see it go something like this — Trump goes bonkers and goes transactional on Twitter. His followers begin to attack celebrities and members of the press. I could see a mob of them rushing, say 30 Rock, and gutting it. Of course, the 60% of the electorate that is growing to hate House Trump would likely respond in kind and the offices of FOX News might meet a similar fate. Or something. There could be a brief, surreal “Terror” as the two sides piss each other off. It might even be The Little Terror, in the sense that while not that many people die, it’ll shock us that it happened at all.

Violence: (Governmental)
My home state of Virginia is a pretty much the sweet spot for some sort of brief, insane, attempt to overthrow the state government by moron Confederate gun nut cosplayers. I don’t know how exactly it would happen, but if there was, say a week or so when bonkers Trump was ranting about how much the Deep State was out to get him, I could see some sort of spontaneous attempt to overthrow the Virginia state government in Richmond. It would probably have a very John Brown at Harper’s Ferry vibe to it. But that’s really taking the what is possible and taking it to its logical extreme.

Economic
The fundamentals of the economy are fine. We’ll bounce back, probably pretty quick. But there’s a good chance that the economy will lock up and crash for the duration of the most severe part of the crisis. This would probably scare the shit out of the average person, especially since we have no leadership and what national leadership we have is racist and demagogic. I would go so far as to say that all is happening is a recession that may have already been brewing in the economy may happen a few months earlier than it might have otherwise have done. After the initial shock, the average might not even notice.

Wildcard: The WuFlop
If there are any major recorded instances of the WuFlop (or whatever you want to call it, I’m being racist, I just don’t know the scientific term yet), that might set off a major panic. If you see someone simply pass out out of the blue, that’s bad. But for them to go to next step and start to convulse uncontrollably, that’s even worse. That will be something of an eye raising event.

But, really, the issue is, while there are some major wildcards floating around, at this point, everything we assume will happen in the coming months will happen. Trump will lose the popular vote and win the Electoral College. He will consolidate power. He will weatherize the ICE Camps. There will be American Enabling Acts via a Constitutional Convention. The Thousand Year Trump will be established.

#COVID19 Threat Assessment For March 9th: Back In Black

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There must be a psychologically term for when you reach the crisis moment you’ve feared and then think to yourself, “Gee, this isn’t as bad as I expected.” I felt that a lot today. Psychologically, I’m about two weeks ahead of everyone, and I’m feeling rather calm. It was interesting, however, noticing how many cable news anchors were wearing black today. They were taking the pandemic seriously, if no one else.

The Economy
I have said for some time now, that our metric should be saving lives at this point, not the stock market. I would, in fact, write it off for the time being. Do whatever is necessary to save as many lives as possible, even if it spooks the markets. But, in a sense, we’re now so far beyond the ability to warn the market in advance about this that, well, we’re all very fucked. We should have let the steam out of the market slowly over the last, say six weeks, not wait until the entire economy implodes over a 48 hour period as the severity of this situation grows apparent and extreme “social distancing” is mandated by state after state.

Continuation of Government
This is, for the moment, a low level threat. Trump is so oblivious as to his own personal risk that he’s freaking out about some Deep State operative journalist intentionally getting infected to hurt him that he doesn’t realize that he should stop shaking people’s hands altogether. But there he was, shaking people’s hands. We know from Iran that it’s possible for the power structure of a nation to become immobilize by COVID19 and given how poorly we are managing this situation, there’s on reason to believe the same thing won’t happen to us. All of Congress — especially the older members — may be, well, “indisposed” pretty soon. We’re not prepared for what happens when COVID19 lops off the entire Federal government’s political command and control infrastructure.

A Political Gray Plague
Don’t sleep on how history is often made by some rather prosaic events. That a bunch of bonkers CPAC attendees were not on Capitol Hill at this point could be huge. They could endup being some of the only law makers not knock out of commission as the crisis advances. They will, of course, use this to consolidate power and, like, found a real-life Gilead. If you think this is great possibility, then, well, fuck you, you piece of shit. If you think the best case scenario of a pandemic is a dystopian state the, fuck off and eat shit. Or, they could simply be overwhelmed by the crisis and be responsible for the military stepping in to keep the nation safe. There are a lot of known unknowns on this front. I just don’t know how bad things may get. If we go the Iranian route, they will get very bad, indeed. It gives me no pleasure to contemplate how dark things may get on that front.

“Crisis”
Remember, history is still asleep right now. The Queen is well. The President is well. The Pope is fine. Biden is fine. Sanders is fine. All is well. No one has dropped from the WuFlop in America, or at least recorded having done so. There is no indication that the Kirkland rest home situation has been replicated elsewhere. If we manage to get through the next two weeks without some jaw-dropping history being made, then, great. I’ll be quite content. I do have a novel to develop. The next two weeks are crucial, however.

“Death Cult”
I just don’t know on this one. For MAGA thought leaders to distance themselves from The Dear Leader, things would have to get so horrific that it just wouldn’t be worth it. For them to finally, like, tell the truth and stop worrying about Hillary Clinton’s email server, things would have to be so demonstrably dire that it just wouldn’t be worth it. That’s the thing that Twitter liberals keep missing. They’re so exciting about a pandemic giving them a potential policy advantage they they totally miss the astonishing human toll we would all have to go through to get it. It will be a tragedy and we will only give it value later, out of desperation and grief.

Trump Hasn’t Bit Bonkers…Yet
Trump isn’t taking this seriously, yet. While his plutocrat friends are nervous, the base is obviously not concerned. When THEY are concerned, then, well, YIKES. When the base makes it clear that they are unhappy with his performance — if that ever happens — then Trump could snap mentally in a rather dramatic fashion. Historic fashion. Like, oh my God, what is happening fashion.

Anyway, no one listens to me. I have a novel to develop.

The Fortnight That Shook The World #COVID19

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

“These are the times that try men’s souls,” as Thomas Paine said.

You could not write a more surreal, disturbing scenario as is about to begin. In large part, what we’re facing is a problem of perception. For the time being, we’re going to be in free fall until the psychological “re-calibration” that needs to take place is wrapped up. I am beginning to believe, however, that this is going to be a really bumpy two weeks on a global scale.

Things will stabilize after that, however. While there are a lot unknowns going forward, it’s possible that COVID19 really will begin to subside dramatically in April. Trump will crow that he was right all along and because of the personal fidelity of the MAGA base and his ratfucking of Joe Biden as part of the campaign, he will, again, cruise a popular vote loss and an Electoral College win. It may be just one vote, but he’s going to win.

But.

A lot can happen in two weeks. A whole lot. So, even if things stabilize sometime in April, the world may be so changed by that point that Trump may, at last, find a minor amount of “accountability” on his hands. He will still win the general election, of course, because, lulz, but the context will be a little bit different.

But.

If you really want to be a bit more adventitious in your scenario, you might two things might so shake up the whole world on a historic and political level in the next two weeks that when we finally catch our breath, we won’t recognize the world we now live in.

If the Gray Plague strikes, if even for a severe two weeks, that, in itself, is a wild card I can’t predict. If we count the dead in 10s of thousands, not hundreds, then, that’s kind of a bad PR situation for House Trump. Maybe. But MAGA is a death cult, so lulz.

But.

If the Gray Plague struck the right type of old person, then, that, too, might at least make House Trump a tiny bit more uncomfortable than it’s used to being. It’s not like their enables in and out of government are going to actually care that Trump’s historic, criminal mismanagement of all of this costs lives because, well, they’ve invested their entire life, entire identity into the Trump Train and, lulz.

But.

If things, even for about two weeks, grew extremely severe and not only did the Gray Plague strike, but there were multiple recorded instances of the WuFlop, then, and only then, might House Trump face an existential threat. It might be a little bit more difficult for Hugh Hewitt to defend Trump if 100,000 elderly people die in two weeks, but I’m sure he’ll try. Or he’ll just freak out and blame Asian people for and say they have to be put in the ICE camps for “national security” reasons. I’m not joking. That’s a very real possibility. The WuFlop, too, would likely highten the crisis to unprecedented levels. The bolts of our political and economic system might pop off. And even then, it would be, at most one election cycle. Give them four years and Don Jr. will, at last, wear the purple robes of the House Trump throne. So, we might have, about two years of a functioning government before the usual bullshit pops up again and the new Republican House impeaches the Democratic president out of spite.

But.

The last “but” is the darkest — Trump goes completely nuts at some point in the next two weeks. I have no idea what happens then. But I do believe Trump’s enablers would defend anything he did far, far, far longer than any of us might be willing to admit.

Lulz!

‘Acceptance’ #COVID19

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I feel I’m about two weeks ahead of everyone else psychologically when it comes to this pandemic. As such, I’m feeling rather calm. I’ve reached acceptance.

The key thing is I accept that absolutely no one is going to give me any credit for, in a sense, calling some major elements of this crisis. I’m just a no body. I am an aspiring novelist and the I’m very pleased with what I’ve managed to develop so far. I am rather worried that its context will be dramatically different, however. Though given how overtly political and anti-MAGA it is (in a very diffused, non-preachy manner), I guess if we manage to make it through alive, there might be an audience for a rumination on the Trump Era hiding under the guise of a thriller.

I’m going to assume that’s the case gong forward, anyway.

We do have some significant milestones ahead of us. Trump hasn’t gone bonkers yet. We haven’t had The Event that will “re-calibrate” our perception of the world for years, maybe decades, to come. That Event will either be the first conspicuous culling of the elderly associated with The Gray Plague and / or recorded instance of the WuFlop somewhere in the United States. Given how fucking racist MAGA is, I probably need to stop calling it “the Wuflop.” It has an actual scientific term, but I don’t know how to spell it — yet.

Anyway. The issue at this point is how bad, exactly, is it all going to get? I could get a lot worst than we imagine right now given the cold hard fact that there are about 15,000 rest homes in the United States with a total of 1.4 million residents. Each one of those rest homes not only could potentially be felled by COVID19, but also serve as something of a “signal amplification” site for the virus because it’s not like prison where not that many people go in and out. People go in and out of rest homes all the time — often from outside the community — and, as such, well, yikes!

It may get very dark within the next two weeks until our minds acclimate to what’s going on around us. We haven’t even gotten to the part where global bad actors decide to strike while the going’s good.

And still Trump won’t be held politically accountable.

You Got This, #NYC #COVID19

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have said more than once that when New Yorkers feel that same feeling they had on 9/11 that America’s knees will buckle and the country will fall to its collective knees. I’m not a New Yorker, but I am an American and empathetic.

What made 9/11 so bad on a national level was that the otherwise fearless New Yorkers were gobsmacked. Stunned. The one city in the world that can kick the ass of any other city in the world was cowering in fear. It bounced back in a few hours, but when America saw NYC wasn’t functioning, we became equally dazed.

So, here we are. It’s now probably inevitable that NYC is going to become a hot zone. All we don’t know is when and how severe. As we start to test more and more people, the numbers are going to rise rather dramatically. There is likely to be a rather dramatic “re-calibration” of New Yorkers’ world view, just like there was on 9/11. But they’ll bounce back soon enough and start to thrive in The New Normal.

The thing New Yorkers probably need to realize is the WuFlop is going to pop up in the city soon enough. When it happens, a lot of New Yorkers are likely going, indeed, feel that same gut punch feeling they felt on 9/11. The WuFlop is extremely disturbing. Eerie. Frighting. But don’t let how spooky it is get to you. You’re a New Yorker and hayseed rubes like me in the hinterland look up to you for how tough you are otherwise in the face of adversity.

Now, let me address something — I don’t see the above as Fear Porn. I’m not trying to scare you by pulling bullshit out of my butt. I’m simply using what is known and then extrapolating into the future using the facts. New York City — especially mid-town — has a shit ton of world tourists every day, every week, every month. So, COVID19 is going to pop up in NYC in a pretty brutal fashion soon enough.

But I believe in NYC. Maybe one day I’ll get to live there, just like I did in Seoul. Let’s rock.

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