A coronavirus is devastating the United States, sweeping from the coasts inward, as it challenges our health workers, our government leaders, and our families.
But the virus didn’t break America.
The virus arrived at our shores to find an America already broken.
The cure for our broken nation is the same curative needed to face this evil virus: The truth.
The lies that the administration told us will cost lives, maybe only thousands, probably tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands. And like the virus, we’ve seen the scourge of lies coming.
As a nation, we’ve accepted the lies and we’ve punished the truth.
The NY Times Nick Kristof has been tracking a trend in health care. While you’re on your balcony cheering for them, or howling their praises into the night, some health workers are being fired for telling the truth about a lack of personal protective equipment. In other words, they’re being fired for trying to save the lives of their fellow soldiers on the front line.
It’s baffling that the richest country in the history of the world fails so abysmally at protecting its health workers, especially when it had two months’ lead time. And for hospitals now to retaliate against health workers who try to protect themselves — ousting them just when they are most needed — is both unconscionable and idiotic.
Unconscionable? Yes. Idiotic? For sure. Surprising? Sadly, no.
Penalizing honesty and rewarding lies is the new American way.
According to Reuters, Captain Brett Crozier, whose letter likely saved hundreds, if not thousands, of sailors aboard his aircraft carrier is being relieved of duty.
Captain Brett Crozier was being relieved not because he wrote the letter and sent it up through the chain of command but because the Navy believes he leaked it to the media.
So a Navy SEAL who was convicted of war crimes gets commended by the commander in chief, while a guy who saved lives aboard his ship is getting the boot. Pose next to a dead body, get celebrated. Keep bodies from getting dead, walk the plank.
We celebrate the villains and villainize those who tell it like it is.
Welcome to 2020 America:
If you lie a little, you get to keep your job. If you lie a lot, you get to be in charge. If you lie nonstop, you get to be president.
In the past month, we’ve seen acts of heroism, both large and small, most of which will go unnoticed. We should keep cheering those acts. We should be inspired by our friends and neighbors as they rise up and lock virtual arms to fight this beast.
But if America is to truly heal, we need to root out the virus that is rotting at the nation’s core. The brutal, demoralizing, and ultimately deadly, lies.
