Please don’t succumb to the hate

It’s currently mid-March 2020. Coronavirus is here.

After two weeks of denial and actively downplaying the threat — even blatantly encouraging people to go out to eat in restaurants or take a trip somewhere because flights are cheap and airplanes are empty — the Trump administration has finally woken up and recognized that THIS IS REAL.

Lives are at stake.

They only started paying attention when the stock market crashed. But now they are taking action. Which is good.

They are scared.

Everybody is scared.

Many people are trying to figure out what this new normal is going to look like, and what they need to do to survive in a world of shelter-in-place and social distancing.

Everybody is scared.

The politicians are (finally!) starting to act in the best interest of the public, to the extent that they can, with the information they have available.

Please know: This will not last.

The Democrats have chosen Joe Biden as their candidate. No it’s not official yet, but it’s going to be soon. Joe Biden represents safety. Stability. Rationality. Calm. It matters little who Joe Biden the person is. The Democrats want the world to be sane again.

Well guess what?

THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF NOVEMBER 2020 IS GOING TO BE FUCKING AWFUL.

Right now, in mid-March, everybody is fluid. Everybody is unmoored. Everyone is casting about, trying to figure out what this means, how it’s going to impact their lives.

VERY FEW PEOPLE HAVE DIED.

As I write this today, it is highly likely that you do not personally know anybody who’s contracted coronavirus, and it’s even less likely that you know anybody who has died.

NO MAJOR PERSONALITIES HAVE DIED FROM IT.

There have been no celebrity deaths.

No politicians have died. There hasn’t even been any announcement (yet) of a political figure in the U.S. who has the disease.

It’s very possible that many do have it, and they either don’t yet know they have it, or they’re keeping it under wraps.

Such announcements have been made in other countries, but other countries are distant. Americans have trouble understanding that something is real when it happens elsewhere on the planet. The only one that we Americans know so far is Tom Hanks. That was the first wake-up call that happened here. That made it real, for the first time.

What’s going to happen though in all likelihood is that starting sometime later this month (March 2020), we’ll begin getting news of celebrities and politicians coming down with it, and people you know will be diagnosed. Or you’ll strongly suspect that they have it, even if they’re not able to get tested.

Then things will change.

The stock market will keep going down.

The President will continue to be flexible, and apparently open-minded, about doing things that are right for the country.

BUT THAT WILL CHANGE.

By the time we get to July of 2020, this will have settled in as the new normal, AND THE PRESIDENT WILL BECOME LIKE A THREATENED ANIMAL IN A CAGE. He will feel cornered, and he will feel desperate, and he will GO BACK TO HIS OLD PLAYBOOK OF HATE.

As of right now, AFAIK, he’s only once so far floated the idea of the “Chinese Virus” in his twitter.

HE’S GOING TO GO ALL-IN ON DEMONIZING “THE OTHER” and unfortunately there will be many, many Americans who jump onto that bandwagon.

It is going to get very, very ugly.

As soon as this fluid situation of imminent doom passes and the institutions, corporations, local government bodies find ways of dealing with the crisis on an ongoing basis — as soon as there is a “new normal” instituted somehow within our social and economic systems — then Trump will go back to his old ways of hate.

He will fan the flames of this hate that live deep inside all of us, and unfortunately, many will respond.

Many will be out of work.

Many will have seen loved ones die.

Many will be feeling desperate.

Many will want someone to blame.

It is going to be fucking awful.

Please do not succumb to the hate.

This disease is nobody’s fault.

Yes it will be painful — likely excruciatingly so, for many, many people, in many, many ways.

But hate never yet dispelled hate.

Only love dispels hate.

This is the law, ancient and inexhaustible.

(Those last lines courtesy of The Buddha, as the opening to The Dhammapada.)

Only love.

Please find a way to keep love in your heart.

It’s our only way through what’s to come.