2020 would be a Louis Burg-style roller coaster ride.
On January 19, a 35-year-old man who had returned home to Snohomish County, Washington, after traveling to Wuhan, China, checked into an urgent care clinic after suffering bouts of coughing, fever, nausea and vomiting. He was hospitalized, where his condition grew worse and he developed pneumonia, although his symptoms abated 10 days later. The lauded and trusted Centers for Disease Control announced on January 21 that his was the first recorded case of a coronavirus called SARS-CoV-2 in the United States.
To too many citizens of Dallas City, COVID-19 was a faraway, fake disease only affecting the Chinese, who “lived in crowded, filthy conditions anyhows. And ate bats”. They seemed more consumed by the upcoming presidential election in November judging by the “TRUMP” flags that were nearly as prominent as the Stars and Stripes—the patriotic septic tank guy flew his on a pole topped with a Christian cross—without hoisting the Stars and Stripes at all! A vexillologist, a person who studies the history, symbolism and usage of flags, heraldry, and banners, would have had a field day driving down 2nd Street watching hate and ignorance flutter in the breeze.
Even if the fake disease that the President promised would be gone by April did reach the hinterland, many of the small-town folk seemed to be sending out an SOS for divine protection if one considers all the “Jesus I Trust in You” yard signs posted about town, a divine prophylactic against the virus as effective as a string of garlic would be versus vampires touted by the same religion back in the thirteenth century.
Roger Ailes and Mark Zuckerburg, instigators of tribal warfare and purveyors of “alternative facts,” a phrase coined by Kelly-Ann Conway, counselor to the president, had the red-cappers in Dallas City believing that up was down and that black was white. Trump Christians here and in store-front churches across the country who felt compelled to “Save America” fervently believed that their president was a good, moral Christian destined to win a second term because Jesus will prevail.
They were also taught to believe, later, when COVID was killing Americans by the hundreds of thousands, that injecting bleach and horse dewormer would cure the ’Wutan flu” should they catch the fake virus drummed up by the fake mainstream media that had been intentionally created by the Chinese government and spread by George Soros for the sole purpose of radical liberal world domination, or whatever nonsense Tucker and Hannity and Ingraham were scaring them with on their prime-time Fox News shitshows that particular evening.
Real journalism was lies--they received their news from a mysterious letter of the alphabet, a trusted “former high-clearance government insider” who leaked to them that Demoncrat politicians were drinking baby’s blood to keep themselves alive. Or from their new “news media”—social media memes— equivalent in intellectual depth as the stuff learned in third grade. Green Day’s American Idiots.
Hitler’s henchmen would have been proud of the Fascist legacy they left behind for future political megalomaniacs to follow. And what was that blueprint, ideally suited to Donald Trump, as Leni’s Riefenstahl’s film was to Nixon, as Nazi propagandist, Joseph Goebbels was to Hitler?
Historians, political scientists, and other scholars have long debated the exact nature of fascism. Historian Ian Kershaw wrote that “trying to define ‘fascism’ is like trying to nail jelly to the wall.” In his book How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them, Professor Jason Stanley observed: “The leader proposes that only he can solve [problems] and all of his political opponents are enemies or traitors.”
Political scientists Cas Mudde and Cristobal Rovira Kaltwasser argue that although fascism “flirted with populism ... in an attempt to generate mass support,” it is better seen as an elitist ideology. They cite in particular its exaltation of the leader, the race, and the state, rather than the people. An expert on Naziism during World War II, Robert Paxton says: “[Fascism is] a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity.”
Historian Stanley G. Payne describes “Fascist style” as a political aesthetic of romantic symbolism, mass mobilization, a positive view of violence, and promotion of masculinity, youth, and charismatic authoritarian leadership.
Fascists promise (and enact) radical politics to rescue the nation (or state) from what they decide is decadence (although many of them are more decadent than the people they demonize); they claim moral superiority by playing their “Jesus card,” a tactic echoing Manifest Destiny.
Fascist states pursue policies of social indoctrination through propaganda in education and the media, and pursue the regulation of the production of educational and media materials. They attempts to purge ideas that are not consistent with the beliefs of the movement and to teach students to be obedient to the state. Paxton goes on to say: “Ultranationalism, combined with the myth of national rebirth, is a key foundation of fascism.” He argues that “a passionate nationalism” is the basis of fascism, combined with “a conspiratorial and Manichean view of history” which holds that “the chosen people have been weakened by political parties, social classes, unassimilable minorities, spoiled rentiers, and rationalist thinkers”.
Fascists advocate for the goal of achieving national economic self-sufficiency through protectionist and economic interventionist policies. The extreme authoritarianism and nationalism of fascism often manifests a belief in racial purity or a master race, usually synthesized with some variant of racism or bigotry of a demonized “Other.”
Aforementioned World War II scholar Robert Paxton writes: “Making the country ‘great again’ sounds exactly like the fascist movements...that is a fascist stroke. An aggressive foreign policy to arrest the supposed decline. That’s another one. Then, there’s a second level, which is a level of style and technique. He even looks like Mussolini in the way he sticks his lower jaw out, and also the bluster, the skill at sensing the mood of the crowd, the skillful use of media.”
He further writes, “Trump has signaled encouragement for some of his more violent supporters, and he’s sent federal forces into cities where protests were simmering. His ‘Make America Great Again’ slogan does sound a lot like a call for a national rebirth. He has publicly flirted with holding onto the presidency beyond the legal limit of two terms, and has repeatedly refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the 2020 election — prompting critics to warn that those look like steps toward authoritarianism.”
In 1944, British novelist George Orwell wrote that “the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless...almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ’Fascist.” Had he met America’s 45th president who checked all the boxes, Orwell might have had to redefine his definition.
2
On April 8, Hancock County, Illinois recorded its first confirmed case of COVID-19. (Did you hear? So-and-so caught a cold. Of course, they are calling it COVID to scare you into thinking it’s a real disease—and, by the way, sheeple, the hospitals get $3000 for each “case” that comes in!) Eight days later, Hancock County surpassed 100 total confirmed cases. Just five weeks later, the county passed 200, and only four weeks after that zoomed past 300, out of 20,000 or so residents.
The folks who thought it ludicrous that a microscopic virus could grow exponentially like this must have either forgotten their high school health lessons, or they had already been indoctrinated that science was “’the work of the devil” by their parents and Sunday-school teachers when they were kids rolling along the floor of Little Italy on skates; even as they became proud and vocal members of Richard Nixon’s “Silent Majority”, then televangelist Jerry Falwell’s oppressed and victimized “Moral Majority” in the decade following.
3
On May 12, a pick-up truck that made Keith Cumberland’s “company car” look like it just rolled off a Motor City assembly-line, pulled up to the little house on Cottonwood. It bore Iowa plates and had a “NOT TODAY SATAN!” sticker plastered crooked on the cracked back window.
That old place, constructed for under $12,000 with building material that were apparently spun from Keith Richards’ DNA, was still upright, its yard green again, the grass uninhibited by Keith Cumberland’s “company inventory”. A man and woman in their 20s got out and unlocked the back door. They have three teeth between them, observed the neighbors peeking from behind the drapes. Here we go again, they sighed.
The neighbors sighing, in this case, were not the Mayhews--Jack and Julia got the check, a financial planner, and el casa en Mexico! They had grown weary of winter; were disillusioned and disappointed with the Dallas City folks whose facade of niceness and rationality had crumbled like the Castle; with America and its turmoil at 212°.
They sold the house in 2019 (donating most of the money to local animal rescues and worldwide causes as they saw fit), bought a beach-front condo near Tulum and now enjoy life without the stress en el norte. For fun, Julia volunteers to teach Mexican schoolchildren on the computer and help administrators iron out technical difficulties. Jack enjoys snorkeling, reading, painting, and, most of all—hearing again!
This came about by way of a “miracle ear”--not the brand name hearing aids, but something better--a cochlear implant. And it was indeed a miracle, of sorts.
They were past the border, south, separating ’muricans and Mayas, cruising down the 307, enjoying the sun and scenery, the SUV packed with the few items most needed or wanted (everything else was sold, tossed, given away, and in the case of winter clothes, very happily bonfired!), when a yellow butterfly streaked in front of the windshield, avoiding becoming a splotch de amarillo, but gaining Jack’s attention. He laughed as Julia drove south. “Got rid of the flying monkeys. Now, Baby, it’s going to be all yellow butterflies,” he said, convinced, this time, of a happy ending.
His casual throwaway line proved prophetic. Three days later, they were touring the Zama ruins, Jack’s favorite place besides the sea, when he saw a middle-aged couple admiring El Castillo, the woman wearing a loose-fitting t-shirt silk screened with a yellow butterfly. “Hola. ¿Hablas ingles?” he asked, approaching her.
“Si. We’re from Canada.”
An easy speech-read. “Please don’t think I’m a rude ’murican. We just moved here, we’re actually expats,” he told her loudly. “I saw your shirt and I think I’m supposed to meet you.”
The woman’s sunburned face looked askance.
Julia rushed over. “I’m sorry. Hi. My name is Julia and he’s Jack, my husband. Please excuse him, ma’am, he’s deaf. Deaf people tend to talk really, really loud.”
“Don’t I know that!” she exclaimed. My husband’s an otolaryngologist from Toronto. Harry, come over here for a minute,” she yelled to him. Come meet Julia and Jack. He’s deaf.”
“Hello, I’m Doctor Harold Lindermann. Nice to meet you both,” he said cheerfully, signing his greeting to Jack. I help people like you hear again.”
The four sat in the shade of a Cohune palm as Doctor Lindermann told them of the wonders of a thing called a cochlear implant. “It’s a small electronic device that electrically stimulates the cochlear nerve, the nerve we use for hearing. The implant has external and internal parts. The external part sits behind the ear. It picks up sounds with a microphone. It then processes the sound and transmits it to the internal part of the implant,” he explained methodically to Julia.
“The internal part is placed under the skin behind the ear during an outpatient surgery. A thin wire and small electrodes lead to the cochlea, which is part of the inner ear. The wire sends signals to the cochlear nerve, which sends sound information to the brain to produce a hearing sensation. Although normal hearing is not restored, with appropriate therapy and practice, Jack will be able to perceive sound again, as well as communicate easier through easier speech-reading. I’m assuming he speech-reads.”
“Yes. Found that out the hard way,” she laughed, “when I called him a not-so-nice name and he understood the words,” Julia said, intrigued and excited, yet surprised, wondering why Dr. Hanson didn’t tell them of this device in Quincy. “So he will be able to actually hear again?” she asked incredulously, her hope piqued.
“Certainly! The implant is for someone with complete hearing loss due to non-functioning cochlear hairs. It restores the ability to hear and understand sounds and speech, although the results are a bit different from natural hearing. A CI is also different from a hearing aid, which of course is useless in Jack’s case. A hearing aid makes sounds louder but may not significantly improve speech understanding. When the CI is tuned appropriately and the recipient is committed to rehabilitation therapy, it can work wonders. They are my specialty.”
Jack could use a cochlear implant right now; he grew more curious over his wife’s growing excitement as he sat at the end of the bench being ignored again.
I’ll tell you later, she signed as fast as her fingers could fly, springs on her Crocs.
On June 16, Jack Mayhew checked into St. John’s Hospital in Toronto and was implanted, cochlearly. On July 1, Dr. Lindermann switched on the device and gave him the miracle of sound.
4
By mid-July, 2020, the United States was ranked among the world’s leaders in daily new COVID-19 case reports as the country’s total cases approached 5 million with nearly 160,000 deaths. The president mused that if we can keep the numbers under 200,000 deaths, I will have been judged a success! (“now go bribe Ukraine and get some dirt on ‘Sleepy Joe’!” he might as well have added to his loyal staff of sycophants who would later deny knowing anything about any of that at his first impeachment hearing).
According to the Centers for Disease Control’s dashboard, that magic number for fatalities in the next week or two would surpass the maximum limit he had set. It could be chalked up as another one of Trump’s many failures in the normal world, but to his “fans” he was a patriot--wearing masks to stop the spread of “the hoax flu” was impinging on their freedoms and was only wrecking the “beautiful economy” that he alone had built from the ashes of the Kenyan’s tax-and-spend socialism.
5
By August, Trump was falling further behind Joe Biden in polls as he struggled to contain the growing pandemic and the consequent recession. Advisors tried to get him to focus more on the economy and project a sense of control, as now he appeared shaken, giving more-disjointed-than-usual speeches in the Rose Garden and making grand gestures that backfired, including a biblically-prostituted photo-op at St. John’s church near the White House after protesters were forcibly removed from the area; commuting the sentence of Roger Stone, his longtime political confidante who was convicted of lying to Congress.
“Right now, it wouldn’t matter if we had Jesus running the campaign,” said one person involved in Trump’s reelection, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “He’s been really unfocused. But I think he’s getting more focused. I think this is the candidate waking up.”
On Wednesday night, July 15, the president shook up his staff, announcing on Facebook that he had replaced his campaign manager, Brad Parscale, with another longtime aide. This was around the same timeline that Trump began asserting “that the only way he could lose the election was if it was rigged.”
6
On November 3, Trump did lose the election and it wasn’t rigged. Fearful of being branded by history as a “loser “ he turned up the heat full blast, even as he lost by over 7 million votes and got clobbered in the Electoral College vote 306 to 232, convincing his cultish fans that he had, indeed, won fair and square and that his opponent’s win was illegitimate, just as the Tea Party had convinced them that Obama wasn’t “our real president,” either.
In the real world, Democrat Joe Biden became the 46th president of the United States and offered himself to the nation as a leader who “seeks not to divide, but to unify” a country gripped by a historic pandemic and a confluence of economic and social turmoil.
“I sought this office to restore the soul of America,” Biden said in his victory speech, “and to make America respected around the world again and to unite us here at home. It’s time to put away the harsh rhetoric, to lower the temperature, to see each other again, to hear each other again, to make progress we must stop treating our opponents as our enemy. We are not enemies. We are Americans.”
Biden’s victory was a repudiation of Trump’s divisive leadership and the president-elect inherited a deeply polarized nation grappling with foundational questions of racial justice and economic fairness while in the grips of a virus that had killed more than 236,000 Americans (as of election day, November 3) and reshaped the norms of everyday life.
Kamala Harris made history as the first Black woman to become vice president. The California senator, who is also the first person of South Asian descent elected to the vice presidency, became the highest-ranking woman ever to serve in government, four years after Trump defeated Hillary Clinton.
Biden crossed the winning threshold of 270 Electoral College votes with a win in Pennsylvania. His victory came after more than three days of uncertainty as election officials sorted through a surge of mail-in votes that delayed processing.
Trump refused to concede; departing from long standing democratic tradition and signaling a potentially turbulent transfer of power, he issued a combative statement saying his campaign would take unspecified legal actions. And he followed up with a bombastic, all-caps tweet in which he falsely declared, “I WON THE ELECTION, GOT 71,000,000 LEGAL VOTES.” Twitter immediately flagged it as misleading.
Trump pointed to delays in processing the vote in some states to allege—with no evidence—that there was fraud and to argue that his rival was trying to seize power—an extraordinary charge by a sitting president trying to sow doubt about a bedrock democratic process.
After his election loss, Trump ramped up the rhetoric, filing court challenges in battleground states trying to get the judges to reverse the outcome.
“.@senatemajdr and Republican Senators have to get tougher, or you won’t have a Republican Party anymore. We won the Presidential Election, by a lot. FIGHT FOR IT. Don’t let them take it away!” he tweeted December 18.
The month after the election, and growing more and more belligerent, Trump began issuing a battle cry to his supporters, encouraging them to gather on his behalf on January 6:
December 12: On the day of the pro-Trump rallies in Washington D.C Trump tweeted “Wow! Thousands of people forming in Washington (D.C.) for Stop the Steal. Didn’t know about this, but I’ll be seeing them. #MAGA.
On the same day: WE HAVE JUST BEGUN TO FIGHT!!!” he said in another tweet.
December 19: Trump tweeted his praise for a report by his advisor Peter Navarro alleging election fraud: “A great report by Peter. Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election. Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!’
7
Ian and Terry went with a contemporary decor this Christmas season as a hurried afterthought; their focus was mainly on Terry’s health--after he had endured more night terror episodes, and noticing how his body sometimes jerked violently when he walked down the stairs, Ian was adamant he see their doctor right after Thanksgiving.
An MRI suggested that sudden, random electrical disturbances in Terry’s brain most likely was causing his loss of muscle control—generalized atonic seizures with an unknown onset,” Dr. McBrennen diagnosed it as, assuring the couple that the tremors and jerks could be controlled through medication. This was good news for Terry—suffering a “generalized atonic seizure” would make the perfect excuse for when he was being poked and pulled and pinched and scratched by Ian’s girls, which, of late, have become more robust and full-bodied.
Although the decor was less than splendid (for their taste, anyway) and they canceled tonight’s annual get-together (not to get Terry excited), this Christmas Eve was special. Ian did the whole proposal thing--champagne (checking to see if alcohol would interfere with the carbamazepine Terry was prescribed to take for his seizures, first), flowers (a poinsettia), the one-knee bow-down. When he accepted the marriage proposal, the moment of magic was interrupted when the power abruptly went out.
“Me thinks the girls want us to get romantic,” Ian purred as they nestled on the settee in front of the fireplace. “But first, I’d better go down and check the breaker box. I’ll be right back.”
“I’ve got a better idea,” Terry replied. “Why don’t we take the evening upstairs. I’ll grab the bottle and glasses, draw a bath, and you can join me after you get the electricity back up. Then we can come back downstairs and open a few gifts. Mine won’t be nearly as exceptional as an engagement ring, but hopefully, you’ll like them anyway. What a surprise, Babe, I’m still in shock. Love you madly!” He grabbed the libations and the candlestick holder and was joyous.
“Love you madly too. Meet you in the claw-foot.”
Terry held on to the staircase railing tightly, the bottle and glasses tucked under the arm holding the candlestick, and made it up to the second floor landing with only one hair pull, although it was violent enough to force him back down two steps; luckily he held his grip with his free arm or he might be splayed out underneath the Tiffany glass like poor Mrs. Burg.
Girls are getting stronger, he thought as he plugged the drain, turned on the taps, lit more candles, and tossed in a homemade vanilla-and-orange bath bomb. Mr. and Mr. Terry and Ian McDermott-Noonan or would it be Mr. and Mr. Terry and Ian Noonan-McDermott? he wondered as he made his way down the darkened hallway and into the bedroom to disrobe.
“Damn!” he cried, stubbing his toe on the chifferobe, and the hearing the girlish titters. “You can dislike me all you want,” he shouted into the darkness, “but I’m here to stay, so come on, let’s be friends.” He received no reply.
The tub was filling, the power had been restored, but Ian had yet to come up from the basement. “What’s taking him so long down there?” Terry said, his voice echoing off the chilly white porcelain tiles, testing the water with his toes, shivering naked. “Water’s nice and warm, I guess I’ll start soaking without him then.”
Several more minutes went by and still no bathmate. Ian was perfect, except that he was a “putzer”, one of those types of people who seldom comes when called directly, but has to stop to adjust, clean, fix, examine, or rearrange something along the way, so a slight time delay was expected, although not always fully accepted. Patience is required when living with a putzer.
“Sorry, sorry. I’m coming,” Ian shouted, finally coming up the stairs carrying a silver tray arranged with cheese, crackers, fruit, and hand-dipped chocolate candies. “I thought we might as well make a party of it, so I put together some --”
The tray rattled to the tiles like Ian’s hope for happiness.
The candles cast a surreal, yellow flickering image of Terry’s face underwater, his eyes as big as bath bombs, as if drowned in fright; his face distorted by the rippling waves made by the dripping tap. Ian could hear a faint reverberation of girlish titters wafting off the walls in time with the rhythmic droplets plunking in the tub. He pulled the stopper and stared into the claw-foot with bath-bomb-eyes himself, as he watched his life eddy down the drain.
The official cause of death was listed as drowning caused by a seizure, but Ian knew what really had killed him after mopping up the watery footprints of various sizes before the coroner got there. Terry Alexander McDermott was no longer in the scheme of things at Blackstone.
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