May You Live In Interesting Times, Part Troix
Frank Bruni is my spirit animal
What makes us feel good and what’s wise often diverge.
That’s true with diet. With drink.
And with the way we approach Americans who are resisting vaccination against the coronavirus.
I want to slap them. Scream at them. Tell them that if they insist on elevating superstition over science and a cracked version of personal freedom over public health, fine, they can go live in some epidemiological Wild West of their own. Just don’t look to us when hospital beds run short.
They’re the biggest part of the reason that progress in returning to prepandemic normalcy in the United States is stalled and that mask mandates are coming back. And that infuriating reality is acknowledged even by some of the most conservative Republican leaders. “It’s time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks,” Gov. Kay Ivey of Alabama said recently.
So blame them if you like — but in a quiet voice purged of cruelty and contempt. Don’t indulge in the kind of outburst that I fantasized about above. It may be warranted, but warranted and constructive aren’t the same thing.
I like to think of myself as a kind, caring, and compassionate individual. I believe that, in most circumstances, I hit that mark. Full disclosure, though: I’m somewhat less than perfect.
I know, right? Who knew?? Take as long as you need to recover from that shock, but how I like to think of myself isn’t always spot-on reality, knowhutimean? It turns out I’m just another deeply flawed human being, which I’m usually reminded of whenever I read Frank Bruni’s latest heart-wrenching work of staggering, earth-shattering brilliance.
Frankly, I want to scream at the idiots who refuse to be vaccinated. We are where we currently are BECAUSE of the idjits who are too selfish, arrogant, and dense to recognize that the world doesn’t revolve around them.
I’m tired of stupid people playing stupid games and winning stupid prizes. I’m sick of intellectually bereft people making ill-informed decisions for ludicrous and half-baked reasons. So when doctrinaire Trumpbots like Kay Ivey begin blaming the unvaccinated, one begins to realize the degree to which lies, propaganda, and dezinformatziya now rule the Far-Right.
It IS a maddening reality to look and realize that “The Mediocre Generation” cares only for themselves. Their ignorance, arrogance, and selfishness defy comprehension. Worse, it’s also directly responsible for turning the clock back on the pandemic.
And yet, I know in my heart of hearts that Bruni is absolutely correct. Engaging in a turbulent two-minute hate directed at people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tucker Carlson, and Lauren Boebert might seem the very definition of cathartic, but what would it accomplish?
Anti-vaxxers are immune to our disdain. They repudiate facts and reason. They spurn empirical scientific fact as the province of losers and Liberals. They laugh at what reasonable and compassionate people recognize as their clear responsibility to do the right thing for the right reasons.
Anti-vaxxers are absolutely responsible for the modern-day genocide we are currently in the midst of. It’s a genocide borne of hubris, abject stupidity, and world-class selfishness. The people behind it absolutely deserve every ounce of disdain, antipathy, and ridicule that decent and honorable people feel for them.
We can and should feel as if those who refuse to be vaccinated are accomplices to manslaughter. But, unfortunately, that truth won’t change anything…because these folks don’t care. Period. You can engage in whatever degree of turd-polishing might seem appropriate and necessary, but the truth is what it is.
That said, our disdain for the cretins will, in the end, harm only those who choose to marinate in it. The best approach is, as Bruni suggests, to “blame them if you like — but in a quiet voice purged of cruelty and contempt.” Anger and ridicule may be warranted, but Bruni makes the sensible point that “warranted and constructive aren’t the same thing.”
I’m no naïf. I fully realize that some of the holdouts live in a paranoid dreamland beyond the reach of reason.
But not all of the holdouts. The ranks of those who have yet to be vaccinated include people more conflicted than loopy, more distracted than defiant. (Also, people with limited access or special medical concerns.) That was clear in an excellent article by Julie Bosman that The Times published last weekend. She interviewed dozens of Americans who were only then getting their shots and who had been unwilling “until something or someone — a persistent family member, a work requirement, a growing sense that the shot was safe — convinced them otherwise.”
“How many people ultimately join this group, and how quickly, could determine the course of the coronavirus in the United States,” Bosman wrote.
Frankly, I think “paranoid dreamland beyond the reach of reason” is too charitable by half. I firmly believe that most anti-vaxxers are living, breathing advertisements for the life-altering qualities of Thorazine.
Then again, we should all probably be grateful that I’m not King of the World….
The sad reality is that whatever course COVID-19 takes from here is firmly in the hands of people so arrogantly and willfully stupid that they shouldn’t be allowed to handle firearms or sharp objects. Or reproduce.
Even as angry as I am, I remain rational and composed enough to understand that no one likes to do things that they’re ordered to. There may come a time when that will become necessary. Currently, though, there are far too many unvaccinated people for any effective enforcement mechanisms to be installed.
No, for now- as much as it pains me to kowtow to the morally and intellectually bereft- we must proceed as if we can still appeal to the better angels of the unvaccinated.
Maybe, just maybe, some vaccine-resistant viewers are persuadable.
It’s worth a try. Meantime, the vaccine requirements that some federal agencies, local governments and employers are imposing are just. And they’re wise, so long as they’re not accompanied by mockery of the holdouts who make those measures necessary.
The messaging to the holdouts shouldn’t be: You’re crazy! You’re selfish! You’re reckless! It should be: Look at all the people you know who’ve been vaccinated and show me which of them has grown an 11th toe. Consider how much more easily you’ll move through the world with proof that you’ve been vaccinated. Know that the road to normalcy — economically, socially — runs through a vaccination rate much higher than the current one, so if you want the prepandemic days back, you’re going to have to roll up your sleeve.
And all of that should be said in a kind, nonjudgmental voice, no matter how emotionally and politically unsatisfying that may be.
The sad fact is that the responsible majority is in a position where the only option with any realistic chance of success is to treat America’s lowest common denominator as an equal partner. They aren’t, of course, nor can they hope to be until they do the right and responsible thing. Until then, we must maintain the charade that they’re our intellectual and moral equals.
Yeah, I know. It chaps my hide, too…but if we’re to have any hope of finding our way out of this mess, we have to placate the simpletons. We must hold out hope of appealing to their self-interest to break down their callowness and insensitivity.
I’m not trying to portray myself and the millions of other vaccinated Americans as intellectually and morally superior, though it’s not a difficult argument to make. What I’m saying is that we understand that this is a unique historical crisis, one in which it can’t just be about us as individuals. We- each of us- have a contribution to make, one that can help save America. That’s not an exaggeration; that’s the truth we face.
Yes, some folks are only in this for themselves. They expect others to look out for them, even as they feel no concomitant obligation to look out for their fellow citizens. This horribly selfish “me-first-ism” has already resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of our fellow countrymen.
This irresponsibility is borderline criminal. For now, though, we must look past that sad truth in the name of the greater good.
Yes, if you are refusing to be vaccinated, YOU are the problem. YOU are complicit in genocide, for that is what’s actually happening in America now.
There’s still time to do the right thing. You can still be a hero and do the right thing for the right reason. Sometimes it can’t be just about you.
If you continue to hold out, I will continue to believe that you are crazy, selfish, and reckless. I will, however, refrain from expressing those sentiments, if only because I recognize that such honesty is neither warranted nor constructive.
I will hold out hope that vaccinated Americans will continue to find it within ourselves to swallow our rage and treat you like the adults you clearly aren’t. However, I understand that acrimony and resentment will accomplish nothing save for raising blood pressure and convincing you to dig your heels in even deeper.
Yes, Frank Bruni is my spirit animal.
He should be yours, too.