My travel plans for spending October in Portugal have all been cancelled – unfortunately. The European Union recommended that all 27 member countries restrict travel for people from the United States given the soaring number of cases here. The recommendation is not mandatory for all of the member states and they are free to make their own individual decisions with respect to US residents on non-essential travel. However, even if Portugal doesn’t immediately follow this recommendation, I decided it was not worth the risk of getting caught up in rapidly changing rules and possible quarantine laws. Tourist season will essentially be over in October so I think there is a much higher probability that more onerous restrictions will be put in place as cases continue to rise in the fall and winter. I will regroup and start planning another trip for next spring when things will hopefully be a bit better. It’s so frustrating because it didn’t have to be this way.
What is even more astounding is the complete and utter denial of how serious and how deadly this virus is. Three prominent conservative radio hosts who were constantly spewing anti-vaccine rhetoric are now dead from COVID. The most recent is Marc Bernier who had been a presence in the Daytona Beach media world for 30 years. He billed himself as “Mr. Anti-Vax,” and now he is dead – needlessly. The other prominent conservative radio hosts who spewed anti-vaccine rhetoric and who also recently died of COVID are Phil Valentine (61) and Dick Farrel (65). After contracting COVID, both Valentine and Farrel encouraged people to get the vaccine – no shit! One has to wonder how many people died needlessly because they listened to and believed the anti-vaccine nonsense these men spouted before their unfortunate and unnecessary deaths.
If I were cynical and prone to conspiracy theories, I might be tempted to believe that the conservative media and prominent Republican politicians actually want to ensure the COVID pandemic continues well into next year so they can use that as a political weapon in the 2022 elections. Would politicians really be willing to sacrifice tens of thousands of American lives to further their ‘cause’ of regaining control of the House, the Senate and eventually the White House? It’s hard to believe that could be true but it’s becoming harder and harder to understand any other rational explanation for the virulent anti-mask and anti-vaccine rhetoric being spewed. Getting this pandemic under control is so within reach if people would do two simple things – wear masks in accordance with CDC guidelines and get vaccinated as soon as possible. It must be that some segment of the population just wants this misery to continue. It’s hard to reach any other conclusion.
If the rhetoric surrounding masks and vaccines isn’t bad enough, there are more and more conservative media personnel and Republican politicians who are actually talking about a violent overthrow of the government. I have included an excerpt from the most recent blog of Heather Cox Richardson2 about this very issue. I would encourage everyone to read the entire blog post. It is really quite frightening.
“Last week, Peter Wehner, who served in the Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush administrations, pointed out in The Atlantic that the right wing has moved to such extremism that former president Trump, whose behavior seemed so shocking in 2015 and 2016, is now being sidelined by lawmakers and pundits who are even more extreme.
Yesterday, in an event hosted by the Macon County Republican Party, Representative Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) insisted that the January 6 rioters are “political hostages” and said he wanted to “bust them out.” When someone in the audience asked “When are you going to call us to Washington again?” he said, “We are actively working on that one…. We have a few plans in motion that I can’t make public right now.” He called for removing Biden from office under the 25th Amendment and added, “when Kamala Harris inevitably screws up, we will take them down, one at a time.” He concluded by saying: “The Second Amendment was not written so that we can go hunting or we can shoot sporting clays…. The Second Amendment was written so that we can fight against tyranny.””
In the series Game of Thrones there was a line many people used throughout the entire 9 season run, “Winter is coming.” I think we are in our own Game of Thrones and ‘Winter is coming.’