When will 2020 really end?
Most of us have noticed 2021 isn’t off to a great start, in a lot of ways it just feels like 2020 isn’t over yet. All of the COVID restrictions are still in place, the vaccine rollout has been slow, the economy is still trash, and giant public demonstrations and riots are still a thing (namely Jan 6th at the Capitol). 2021 was supposed to be the beginning of the rebuilding process, what happened? Even though it doesn’t feel like it right now, there are reasons to be hopeful … but only if we can learn from our past. What comparisons and conclusions can we draw from our last national tragedy (9/11), and what can we learn from them?
Anyone with access to a TV or the newspaper in 1999 knew that the year 2000 was supposed to be a tragedy, with every computer in the world going blooey as soon as the clock struck midnight. Anything and everything from the power grid going down, to every nuke accidentally being launched, was predicted to happen. Of course, it didn’t turn out quite the way we were lead to believe, and life went on. That is, life went on another year and a half or so until Sept 11th 2001, and then no matter where you turned, you couldn’t escape the constant reminders and fear mongering about terrorism. How did we handle this tragedy at the government level? With a new branch of government of course! The Department of Homeland Security was opened, eventually leading to police departments becoming increasingly militarized, a new war and then a 2nd new war was started, and then suddenly, to board an airplane meant standing in line for hours and letting someone humiliate / search you once you got to the TSA checkpoint, all in the name of preventing terrorism. Oh yeah, and one more tiny infringement on our rights called The Patriot Act, which was supposed to expire, but has been renewed on a bipartisan basis, time and time again … to this day!
Cue the conspiracy theories and hysteria about how the 9/11 attacks were really an inside job, expertly planned and carried out as justifications for said curbs on our rights. Sound familiar? But Alex Jones did have a point about our rights being taken away, much like our rights are being taken away right now in the name of safety, but to a much greater degree than after 9/11. And no, I’m not talking about having to wear a mask when you enter a building.
But … having a “party” with more than 10 people at your house? Suddenly that’s illegal. Going to a concert? Suddenly that’s illegal. Eating at a restaurant inside a building? Suddenly that’s illegal. Being with a loved one in the same room at the hospital? Suddenly that’s illegal. Buying alcohol after 9pm in Chicago? Suddenly I’m waking up earlier . . . you get the point. Was COVID developed and then released from a lab in Wuhan so the US Government could force us all to wear masks and shut down indoor dining at your favorite Mexican restaurant so that Bill Gates would be able to microchip all of us with the vaccine he created? Probably not. But we must be weary of these restrictions, and question their expiration date, or risk these temporary measures becoming somewhat permanent.
Key differences between post 9/11 and post covid / 2020
One big difference will be that we have a centrist democrat as our president / figurehead during our period of rebuilding. Had Al Gore been president in the aftermath of 9/11, would we have started 2 wars . . . or maybe just 1, or maybe none? Perhaps. Would he have created a new branch of government that would lead to the militarization of police forces across the country? Maybe not. Would he have implemented a color-coded “terrorist threat” meter that would be displayed on the news every single night?
Had Al Gore been president, some people question that 9/11 ever would’ve happened in the first place, much like the theories that our COVID response wouldn’t have been a catastrophic failure had Hillary been president. Unfortunately we’ll never know if that were the case.
Look for Joe Biden to at least have the ability to form a functioning government, and his attempts to restore some faith in our government at home and abroad. Heads of the different departments of government will actually go thru the normal nomination process, and we’ll have qualified individuals running them instead of Trump’s “acting” department heads.
Joe Biden is also in a unique position to be able to speak in a way that is needed right now, without outright vilifying entire groups of people like the police, or BLM, but will offer a more tempered approach to his discourse (a much needed break from the brash Trumpian ways of the last 4 years). He will ask everyone to wear a mask for 100 days to help get the virus under control, lets humor him.
I have friends and family that have already received their vaccine, and hopefully I’ll be able to get one by summer 2021 or so. Lets hope that this gives us immunity for at least a couple of years and brings the virus cases down to a more controllable number. Keep in mind, everyone in China right now is largely back to normal, nobody is wearing masks and everything is open (with a few regional / isolated exceptions). There is hope.
The civil unrest that lead to mass demonstrations and rioting will begin to subside as “lockdown” is lifted and the economy improves, and as the Biden Administration works to reform (not defund) police departments across the country. Will we ever get to the point where there aren’t any murderous police officers or purge all the bad actors to a level where we’ll never hear of police brutality again? Most certainly the answer is no. That would require a fundamental rebuilding of the entire concept and practice of being an American police officer, a tall order. But, we can improve it enough that lives are spared instead of taken, and that bad actors will be held accountable. That will be the key.
Will we ever be able to go to concerts again?
Maybe I think about this one a lot because I’m a musician, and have a lot of friends who literally had their livelihoods taken from them when lockdown began back in March 2020. To me, this will be the biggest indicator of how the recovery is actually going. People crowding into a building to watch their favorite artist, or even just people crowding outside without masks would be a giant win. In an interview a few months ago, Metallica postulated that really big concerts would be the last big step in the recovery, and that they were betting on late 2021 as the beginning of that. My guess is that they’re more or less right, give or take a few months. Lets hope 10k seat and lesser sized concerts are able to get started sooner, so that my friends can get back to their day jobs.
Will Joe Biden do anything to help normal people?
This is my single biggest question mark, and biggest worry for the next 2–4 years. “Normal” people (meaning those of us without a 4 year college degree) have had an increasingly difficult time achieving and maintaining middle class status since the 1970’s. Globalization, austerity, the disappearing of any “new deal” type of politician, and the blaming of regulations, unions and high taxes for all of a corporation’s failures is to blame. The town where I’m from used to be home to several automobile related, and other factories, employing well over 10,000 people at one time. These were secure, high paying jobs that allowed someone with a high school diploma a chance at having a house, 2 cars, and a family with some money left over. “But wait…there’s still manufacturing in Muncie Indiana!” … Yes, there absolutely is. But it employs a much smaller pool of workers and pays a fraction of what the old jobs paid. None of these workforces are unionized, a lot of the workers don’t work directly for the company but are “temporary” employees who have no rights and can be fired at any time for any reason. Not to mention the lack of access to good healthcare, vacation time, or sick leave.
What can be done about it?
Trump failed to put the coal miners back into the mines, not because he failed to de-regulate the industry but because those jobs were being replaced by automation. They were never going to come back anymore than self scanning checkouts are going to suddenly disappear. If you lost your job at 50 years old, faced the prospect of 4 years of school to work in a new industry for a whopping 11 years before retirement, all while figuring out a way to pay for the schooling, you might decide that it’s a futile effort. But becoming a manager at Taco Bell is equally futile. Getting stuck in a dead end job, whether at 18 or 50 years old, has been the reality for many people across the country, and is the reason a lot of them voted for Trump. Both political parties need to step up and act on normal people’s behalf, not on the corporations behalf. The difference in the amount of help available to regular people vs businesses during this pandemic is all you need to see to realize how high the deck is stacked against normal people. Businesses (including sole proprieters) have now had TWO large “forgivable loans” available to them due to the pandemic, which essentially amounts to a grant or free money from the government, totaling as much as 2.5x the amount of their monthly payroll, EACH! That’s in addition to other ultra low interest loans available to them as part of the stimulus packages. To add to the insults piling up for regular folk is the fact that there are practically no strings attached to this free money, like keeping people employed if you agree to take it. Yep, it’s just free money for busineses to use for certain expenditures within a certain timeframe. How much does my business of one employee (me) qualify for in free money from the “forgivable loans”? $20,000. How much money were regular people given? $1800 in about a 10 month span and a temporary boost in unemployment payment amounts. Or in other words, about enough money to buy $40 worth of groceries each week of the 10 months, or enough to make 10 months of payments on a (very) used Camry, or 1.5 months worth of rent, but you can only choose one. The message in America is clear, if you’re a business, we’ll take care of you. If you’re a person? Well…good luck.
Here’s what needs to be done. Some improved form of social security payments needs to be implemented for people under the age of 65 in a few different tiers. Work full time but still making less than $35k a year? A simple Social security payment makes up the rest without endless hoops to jump thru in order to obtain it. A household making less than $75k a year? Medicare becomes available for those under 65 either for free, or a very low buy-in amount tied to your income bracket. Need to go to college or a trade school? This needs to be subsidized entirely or nearly entirely by the government. Afterall, someone working at TacoBell making $23k a year is not contributing as much to society and the tax pool as someone who is trained and working in a skilled sector making $85k a year and having a normal work schedule. The new work force will pay back into the tax pool, multiple times what the government’s initial investment in the worker was to begin with. How the government has not realized and acted on this already, is beyond my comprehension. One more big improvement will be finding ways to bring bigger firms of various industries, to struggling cities and states. Detroit will never make a comeback until a handful of industries decide to relocate or expand to Detroit, but it takes getting the first few to come at the same time so that it isn’t just any one business or industry that’s helping rebuild the community.
Happy new year 2021!
2020 Will finally be over, when we can go to a bar and breathe in everybody else’s beer breath. It will be over when the crime rate drops back down to 2019 levels. It will be over when police brutality is actually addressed and corrected, it will be over when Trump the person and the brand largely fades into obscurity and most of his supporters become embarrassed to fly their Trump flags and wear their Trump hats, either because he’s perceived as a loser, or because they realize he might’ve been a hateful, divisive, incompetent laughingstock afterall. It will be over when the government actually does something to help normal people beyond sending them a one time $600 payment. 2020 may not be completely over for a couple of years!
But wait! It doesn’t have to take forever. Ending 2020 will take the collective effort of all of us feeling a shared sense of responsibility to each in addition to putting pressure on our representatives to take the necessary steps. We can make sure 2020 is over in far less time than it took for us to figure out and get past the failures of 9/11 and the aftermath. Simply stated, we can make it happen if we all put our minds to it.
We got rid of Trump and Mitch McConnell, and Georgia became a blue state. None of those things were conceivable just a few months ago. The effort to rebuild our foundations is well underway, and that will soon lead us to the day that 2020 will be really, and truly behind us.
