There's an old adage about people who forget the past. What do they say about those who forget yesterday?
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" is from Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana's 1905 book "The Life of Reason". The irony of MAGA/Putin memes asking if you were better off 4 years ago illustrates how much reason is in play today.
In October 2020, which research shows was 4 years ago, the world was in the grip of the Coronavirus pandemic. Nearly 1,000,000 people worldwide were dead, including 250,000 Americans. Businesses, schools, and houses of worship had closed because crowds spread Covid faster. The president and first lady of the United States were under quarantine because they had caught the virus at a Rose Garden gathering that flaunted pandemic restrictions.
Tons of people were out of work because most everything had shut down. Most who were working risked catching the virus. Healthcare and service workers, especially, were dying at higher rates because they were exposed to more people. There still wasn't a vaccine and only one drug had been approved to treat the disease.
Sausage, eggs and toilet paper were scarce. Lumber and everything else at Lowe's was getting expensive. Gas was cheap because gas companies didn't cut supply before demand dropped to the floor when no one was driving anywhere. World-wide supply lines were broken. Inflation, worldwide, increased dramatically.
The administration at the time had ignored the warnings of public health experts and thrown away a national pandemic playbook developed by the joint efforts of previous Republican and Democrat administrations preferring instead to hand the response to individual states which meant 50 different public health strategies for a killer that ignored state lines.
Instead of facing the reality of an unknown, deadly virus killing Americans, the White House chose to underplay the issue and stoke conspiracy theories. Worse, the oval office occupant suggested public health professionals trying to save lives were actually the enemy trying to destroy freedom. So were teachers. And mask wearers. And people who suggested you wear one too.
Because everyone knows masks don't do anything but take away your rights. Especially all those medical professionals wearing masks in every legal operating room in the United States. But I digress.
The American public responded by resoundingly voting the liar out of office. The same people spreading pandemic conspiracies switched to election conspiracies before all the votes were counted.The lying loser planned an attack on the Congress and goaded his cult into carrying it out.
Hundreds have been indicted and convicted for crimes related to that day, including the traitor who initiated the violence. The cult denies the attack ever happened and the people who died were actors.
Our country was founded in the age of reason. It was a time when knowledge and science led practices and traditions away from those based in superstition and brute force. The United States was the country where governments based on a church or hereditary monarchy were put in the trash heap.
Can a country founded in a time of reason survive a time when reason is no longer a desired trait for so many?