
The Unraveling of America - amiga_500
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/covid-19-end-of-american-era-wade-davis-1038206/
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treis
This article is placing way too much weight on Covid changing the world. It
will accelerate some trends, sure, but it's not a seminal change.

100k or 200 or 300 sounds like a lot of people but when a normal year sees 3
million dead it's barely a blip. Especially since many of those dying were
likely to die within a couple of years anyway.

The US has not done worse compared to the rest of the west. Our deaths per
capita are in line with France, Italy, Spain, and the UK. Germany is the only
outlier.

This sentiment is entirely because of the dislkke of Trump. I don't like him
either and think he sucks, but he's not ruining the country. The US will
survive him and continue to be the strongest nation in the world.

~~~
AlexandrB
I don't think this article is saying that COVID is changing anything. I think
it's saying that COVID lays bare how dysfunctional the US has become. It's a
crisis that tests the ability of societies to come together, and the US is
doing pretty badly.

~~~
treis
>I don't think this article is saying that COVID is changing anything

?

>Pandemics and plagues have a way of shifting the course of history, and not
always in a manner immediately evident to the survivors. In the 14th Century,
the Black Death killed close to half of Europe’s population. A scarcity of
labor led to increased wages. Rising expectations culminated in the Peasants
Revolt of 1381, an inflection point that marked the beginning of the end of
the feudal order that had dominated medieval Europe for a thousand years.

>The COVID pandemic will be remembered as such a moment in history, a seminal
event whose significance will unfold only in the wake of the crisis. It will
mark this era much as the 1914 assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, the stock
market crash of 1929, and the 1933 ascent of Adolf Hitler became fundamental
benchmarks of the last century, all harbingers of greater and more
consequential outcomes.

------
RickJWagner
Good grief, what a whiner.

We're half a year into covid, I personally know a handful of people who have
had it and they are all recovered. Business is mostly moving forward, the
stock market is fine, and there is no shortage of food, medicine, toilet
paper, etc.

Vaccines are on the way. Every day brings us closer.

This is not a nation toppler.

~~~
9999px
Most of my family are now jobless. Many of them now can't afford necessary
medication due to that fact.

My state's pandemic unemployment insurance site launched in May with gross
security issues and had to be shut down. Thousands of workers and freelancers
have yet to receive their first check.

My sister-in-law and her husband both came down with COVID and lost their
jobs. They have three kids and now my partner and I are helping them
financially (which we really can't afford to do).

There isn't a food shortage because corporations are forcing migrant laborers
into the warehouses to work, and they're being infected and dying in higher
proportions. Martyrs for the meat industry (Tyson's profits were up 600% Q1).
There are human costs to "stock market is fine."

I personally am down thousands of dollars helping my friends/family/neighbors
with their groceries and rents. My "rainy day fund" has long been drained and
my one nest-egg land asset is probably a few months away from having to be
sold to continue supporting my loved ones.

The state is on track to open schools in a couple of weeks. A recent study
shows that closing schools can reduce the mortality rate per month by 58%;
this research is being ignored in the name of profits. Business leaders and
their cronies in the state are pushing for this to get parents out of the home
and into work.

My more-rural family members flat-out refuse to wear masks and have already
proclaimed that they will not take the vaccine should one become available.

You may be right that this isn't a "nation toppler," but nations are far more
resilient than people. I'm happy for you that this isn't affecting you.
Consider yourself lucky.

~~~
RickJWagner
Wow, that is amazing.

I'm sorry you've been hit so hard by this. I really have painted an accurate
picture-- in my part of the world, things are not changed that much.

I hope things get better for your area soon.

