OK, were 2+ years into the pandemic that’s killed a million or so Americans and the republican response has devolved into welcoming the carnage as some sort of dystopian survival of the fittest… A strange position for a party that doesn’t believe in evolution, but they’ve been in a lot of strange positions lately. Stupidly unmasked and unvaxxed, they’ve literally been losing their own as well as elections, the best Minnesota example being a republican legislator from St.Cloud who lost both his election and his life to COVID after an election night “victory” party.
Meanwhile we democrats have been model citizens, masking en mass and vaxxed to the max. Until the last couple months, when word must have come down from the DNC or somewhere that masks weren’t polling well and every democrat had best start looking “normal” again. Suddenly we saw democrats full faces again jammed into the same superspreader chambers, and as expected we now have a whole cohort of democratic electeds all the way up to VP with COVID diagnosis. At the same time the democratic talking points have shifted to “living with COVID” and the CDC is contributing for public consumption a county map of COVID spread with suspiciously too much green, and at the same time supplying health care with a map that’s getting increasingly yellow, orange, and red. Ever following the company line, our Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor party has declared that all conventions will be in person, though a few of the smarter local party units honored the higher law of the ADA and held online and hybrid conventions to protect their health and safety. This convention season will culminate in a “made for TV” state convention coronation of the all incumbent statewide candidates, with mandatory COVID tests hopefully giving the delegates attending enough confidence to bare their smiles for the evening news.
This strategy is insanely stupid- When the republicans are accusing you of “shutting down” to slow a pandemic, the worst defense is to back off on the already gravely reduced public health restrictions and try to act innocent! If you poll the whole of the issue instead of using the republican’s “shutdown” language the majority of the voters support vaccines, indoor masks, and any other effective strategy. The strongest support is among the prized elder voters, who have already voted with their arms to be the most vaccinated of any age cohort. Unfortunately from the DNC on down our Democratic Party leadership lacks the courage to take the COVID stopping steps that a majority of the voters support.
Worse yet, the Democrat’s new found COVID denial is driving away the backbone of our party, us volunteers. I’ve yet to catch COVID because I’ve followed the science, N95’d and vaxxed to the max, and isolated for up to a month during periods of high transmission. The data, and I consume plenty of data, says that another wave is beginning of a new Omicron mutant that while looking deceivingly mild spreads faster than any previous COVID. The mild symptoms are deceiving, “Long COVID” is as much a threat as ever because it’s frequency in COVID survivors doesn’t correlate with serious symptoms, and recent studies tell us that even the “mild” Omicron mutant can cause long COVID.
In the last few weeks I’ve attended a few DFL events with from near half to not even a tenth of the participants masked as the case counts rose again. I was elected a state convention alternate but gave up that seat when the State DFL took 2 of our county’s seats away, no big deal because I’ve got 2 other ways to get floor access at the state convention anyway. But I’m less than motivated to attend a DFL state convention that could turn in to a superspreader event, and how much will the required COVID test cost me? Bottom line I’m no good to DFL as a volunteer if I’m sick with long COVID, and if I have to I’ll sit out this election season which doesn’t look too promising anyway so I can survive to fight the good fight in future elections.
Sassy Democrat 