You know how they say that some days seem longer than others? This is true for years as well.
In that sense, 2020 is the gift that never seems to stop giving.
Humanity rang it in with high hopes, big dreams and lofty resolutions. Very soon, things rapidly went downhill. President Donald Trump ordered the fatal attack on Qasem Soleimani, the mastermind behind Iran’s deadly anti-west terrorist strategy, causing many to worry the act would start a regional war that could spin out of control. Then there was a horrible shock when Lakers legend Kobe Bryant, his daughter and seven others died in a tragic helicopter crash on Jan. 26th.
Within weeks, new crises erupted. The U.S. House of Representatives impeached Trump and the Senate saved his orange skin, further polarizing an already divided American polity. The tectonic pace of vote counting in the Iowa Democratic Caucuses outraged the nation, raising fears that te party would be easily out-organized by the GOP. After days spent dithering, two candidates claimed victory, neither of whom eventually reached the finish line.
Each of those stories were huge headlines a few months back but today seem like nothing more than relics from some distant, bygone age.
Then a story that was a mere side note in January and February finally exploded onto the main stage with all of the shattering impact of a grenade going off in a crowded mall. A horrid, impossibly lethal little virus emerged from a Wuhan wet market to bring our societal Babel tower crashing down around us. By mid-March, every pro sport was shuttered, projections warned of millions dead and people traded punches to get that last roll of toilet paper sitting almost empty supermarket shelves.
Months passed. After many needless deaths, varying degrees of lockdowns and countless job losses, we started to think we might have a handle on it.
We only thought we did. In the US cases are more virulent than ever, Western Europe has been brought to its knees; Japan and South Korea suffered recurrent outbreaks and Singapore’s dormitories erupted even as its community cases dropped.
It’s 1918, 1929 and 1968 rolled up into one. And it’s only barely half done.
Beyond the most devastating pandemic since 1918, nations are confronted with unemployment rates at their highest level since the Great Depression, and American cities are aflame as the direct result of the repeated deaths of unarmed black people at the hands of police.
The flash points suddenly shifted from COVID-19 to police brutality and systemic racism, enduring echoes of the shameful institution of slavery. When the graphic video of Ahmaud Arbery’s Feb. 23rd killing at the hands of a white ex-cop and his son published online in early May, it sparked a simmering outrage that exploded into the streets following the May 25th death of George Floyd in the custody of four Minneapolis police officers.
Three days after Floyd’s death, officials released the harrowing 911 call made by Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend after the 26-year-old EMT was shot at least eight times by police inside her Louisville apartment during a botched drug raid March 13th.
On June 12th, a white police officer in Atlanta pumped two bullets into the back of Rayshard Brooks in the parking lot of an Atlanta Wendy’s even though he was aware that the black man was running away with only a spent Taser in his hands, the prosecutor who charged the cop with felony murder said.
One after another, these deaths stoked demonstrations in all 50 states amid a groundswell of support for the Black Lives Matter movement and reform of the criminal justice system. Then, as all such movements do, it quickly spiraled beyond its original scope. Malcontents used the peaceful protests as a cover to loot Apple stores , topple statues of Spanish authors, Black abolitionists and threatened to take down monuments past presidents such as Andrew Jackson, Woodrow Wilson and George Washington. Perspective was easily lost in the sea of roiling emotions. These leaders were flawed human figures with their inherent foibles to be sure, we cannot expunge their memories to fit the narrative of our troubled times. In so doing all we are doing is bowing to a mob. Rather it is entirely appropriate to lay out the truth about their beliefs and behaviour as yet within the context of their times and let people make their own judgments. We cannot whitewash their records, yet neither can we expunge them from the record.
The distemper of our times makes it feel like the United States has somehow abrogated its previous role as a stabilizing force in the world by compromising its morals. Through the morphing of “America First” and “MAGA” into near xenophobic hysteria the world’s remaining superpower (sorry, China) seems to have lost sight of what Lincoln called its ‘better angels’ -- an expansive generosity to people other than themselves and their willingness to lead in finding solutions to global problems.
Like some punch-drunk boxer, America is reeling. It is moving through all of these crises as if it were alone. There has been no outward demonstration or consistent messaging that the US is working with its allies to share expertise and resources. Rather, far from leading, or even participating, in response to both the pandemic and the bloody chasm between the races, the US finds itself being mocked and pitied. Americans used to hearing they live in the best county in the world must now confront the reality that that Europe is barring Americans as it reopens is a very powerful rejection of that myth.
These days I tend to approach the news with the same cautious apprehension one might regard a snake coiled up against the corner of your basement: who cares whether it might be poisonous or not -- it’s hissing at me so I’ll treat it as if its got fangfuls of deadly toxin. My logical and historically-trained brain discerns parallels with different historical events, but never so many disparate threads in so shortened a timeframe. Inexorably, in my mind as in those of millions, there's been a slow dawning, an inexorable realization that normal isn't just going to come back. That things will not simply get better anytime soon.
While it's been certain for quite some time that life won't fully resume until we have a vaccine (if even then), there'd still been some wiggle room to play false hope-inspired mind games with oneself: oh, this will all be over by Memorial Day, by the Fourth of July, by September’s Labor Day, by US Election Day or Christmas it just might be different. Confronted now as we are, though, with the onset of the second half of the year, and no significant progress has been made toward mitigating the threat of the virus, or the race-driven rioting, the citizenry are having to come to terms with the looming inevitability that we are in for the long-haul.
In the early days of the outbreak, due to the sheer uncertainty of what was coming, it was easy to feel somewhat optimistic. Major League Baseball initially postponed Opening Day by only two weeks; Disney's live-action film Mulan was delayed from a late March premiere to what at the time seemed to be an overly-cautious date of July 24, 2020. After what felt like the worst of the pandemic, in April and May, you could convince yourself the spread was starting to get under control; cases were going down, and lockdowns were being lifted. States moved ahead with re-openings, only for the disease to flare back up again, as experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci had warned it would all along. Now, as the Donald Trump’s government ghoulishly (or pragmatically, depending on your point of view) prioritizes the economy over American lives, our grasps at versions of "normalcy" (You can get a haircut! How about your nails?) are desperately prosaic at best. It isn't that optimism is being replaced by pessimism so much as it is that ignorance is being replaced by a new definition of being informed.
Still, it's one thing to understand that normal life isn't going to be back by, say, September, and another thing to actually come to terms with that fact. For many, the past few weeks have involved grappling with such a shift not so much logically as emotionally. Sith the cancellation of sporting events, concerts, the shifting of movie schedules and the essential deconstruction of the entire travel industry, reality is that we really have nothing to look forward to in the near-future.
Then again, maybe it's the little things that have added up for you: the way that you might be drinking a Singapore Sling outdoors at your local bar through a straw stuck up in your mask, surrounded by groups carefully spaced a meter or two apart, while contemplating how such a dystopic scene at some point transitioned to becoming merely mundane. Or maybe it'll be the way you greet a friend you haven't seen since the quarantine in your nation began, with the initial awkwardness of not knowing how comfortable the other is about physical touch and proximity. Or maybe it's the way it has already become intuitive to grab a pair of gloves before opening the door for a pizza delivery, or the way a commute on the highway makes one reflect on how the pandemic has thinned out traffic. All this being normal just shows how far the old normal is still from coming back.
And, as if all of this weren’t enough there’s still the spectacle of the American election to survive. What a fitting coda to this year of fire.
Every video you will watch on YouTube will soon be mined with ads calling Joe Biden incompetent, senile, yesterday’s man, Donald Trump the devil incarnate, a lecher, an embarrassment, any congressional politician Manchurian candidates, moral degenerates and devil worshippers. We will see a dozen allegations a week launched at the President, a third of which he’ll either deserve or cause himself, and a handful of vitriolic allegations about Biden, his son Beau, the Ukrainians and corruption. As for conventional campaigning Trump will be desperately trying to recreate his MAGA rallies while Biden restricts himself to the basement in which he appears to be permanently held hostage.
All that drama would normally subside on Election Day, but who am I kidding? This is 2020 we’re talking about. Whoever loses will allege voter fraud and, if the results are close, the recounts will last until the midterms in 2022. And why should we care? It’s because the US matters. What it does or doesn’t do has as much influence on global affairs as COVID-19and race riots. American policies on pandemic handling, climate change, trade matter and it will be ostrich-like to pretend that a re-elected Donald Trump, unfettered by the need to face an election again, would be any more rational or consistent than he is now. The Ultimate Black Swan has already proven to be one of the most consequential presidents ever. What he could do is simply unfathomable.
You might think this is a downer but consider it a favor from a crippled wiseass standing on a beach watching a tidal wave approach. I can’t run. I can’t hide. So, I am digging my cane into the stand and bracing myself for the oncoming onslaught of water. Forewarned is forearmed and this year has been rough enough without me adding false hope.
Look at the upside. We’ve survived this far with the coronavirus and civil unrest. But for the next six months, let's resolve to keep our heads on a swivel to avoid whiplash, spend time with loved ones, and focus as much as possible on the good, true and beautiful.
What is certain, though, is we're not talking about only six more weeks or even six more months. For many, July has been when that realization has emotionally sunk in; that it's useless to project ahead in the short term, and less maddening to accept that life is going to be different for a while yet. Ultimately, though, this shouldn't mean our resignation. If anything, it should stoke our determination — that we have far to go, but we must approach it as a collective. That we're expecting the long-haul, yes, but even the lengthiest journeys eventually must have an end.
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