These are strange times in which we live, to quote Plato and a multitude of people since he was around. Today – as so often happens in times of civil stress and disruption – folks seem, almost by instinct, to self-organize as givers or takers.
And in the current case of this pernicious coronavirus – COVID-19 – we have one well-known party lining up squarely with the takers.
I mean, of course, Donald Trump, our president. You know, the guy who should be leading the nation, mourning and offering solace to the survivors as he mobilizes the might of the federal government to protect the nation and its people from the further ravages of the pandemic.
But, hey, we know Donald Trump! We’ve been watching him celebrate his gaudy and self-involved existence for decades. He has been a taker all his life. And he clearly views this international calamity as yet another chance to enrich himself.
Turns out that a major provision of last month’s $2.2 trillion coronavirus bill – pushed through the Senate at warp speed by Mitch McConnell – contained a $170 billion tax giveaway appearing to be tailor-made for wealthy real estate investors. You know, like Trump and his omnipresent son-in-law and henchman Jared Kushner. Who is, by coincidence, also running one of his father-in-law’s coronavirus task forces.
Whoever would have imagined profiting from this horror?
Well, Trump, for one. The same President Trump who was thwarted in his desire to have his own personal signature on the stimulus checks going out to taxpayers because, it turns out a president – by law – isn’t authorized to sign government checks. Which didn’t stop the ever-obsequious Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin from making sure that the words “President Donald J. Trump” were printed in bold letters elsewhere on the checks. Should recipients conclude that the government aid was in fact solely due to the beneficence of the man in the White House, well, that was just fine with Trump and his minions!
It marks the first time an American president’s name has ever appeared on a government check – but, if the incumbent has his way, likely not the last.
Well, we all knew when we (using the word “we” very loosely) elected him that Trump was inordinately fond of stamping his name on anything that didn’t move. Never let an opportunity for self-promotion get away is Trump’s lifelong motto.
That $170 billion for real estate investors, by the way, stands in fairly sharp contrast to the measly $100 billion set aside for hospitals. You know, the places that are currently overwhelmed by trying to treat the nation’s thousands and thousands of coronavirus sufferers. Hospitals that can’t find enough beds for the patients pouring in. Hospitals scrambling to find medications, to find protective gear for the people on the medical front line.
And it’s hospitals, remember, that employ so many of the selfless medical workers who are themselves falling victim to the disease. It’s those caregivers – in nursing homes and hospitals – who are manning the front lines of the fight against COVID-19, and as of last Tuesday 9,200 of them had contracted the disease.
The medical workers, the caregivers – they’re the givers in today’s crisis, standing in contrast to our taker president. As are so many more ordinary people who step forward in extraordinary times. They’re documented all over the web.
In one much-shared Twitter thread, a young woman explained how she was stopped on her way into a grocery store by a couple, in their 80s, who’d been sitting in their car for 40 minutes, too frightened of the virus to go into the building. She took their money and delivered their groceries and change to them. It was simple – and extraordinarily important to the pair she helped.
When a woman in Seattle learned that staffers at the Seattle Times were working nonstop over a weekend to dig up and share with others information on the disease outbreak in the Pacific Northwest, she sent the reporters enough pizza to tide them over.
The popular Nextdoor app, in Concord and elsewhere, is helping people seek help from neighbors, who happily help higher-risk individuals with whatever they need as they self-isolate.
Disneyland and affiliated parks now shuttered announced they would be sending all their unused food to area food banks.
A friend of mine, adept at using her sewing machine, ran up a number of face masks for her less-skilled acquaintances. (Thank you, Beth!) And a neighbor of ours has a box at the end of her drive filled with scraps of material, thread and other face mask makings, free to passers-by, and another neighbor passed out jars of fixings for Theresa’s Friendship Soup. (Thank you, Theresa!)
An elderly woman who was social distancing with the goal of staying healthy was treated to some music by her young neighbors when the two young cellists set up shop on her porch and played their instruments to the woman inside. Another neighbor recorded the small concert to share with others.
And with the NBA season suspended various well-paid owners and players have stepped up to make life better for the more modestly paid underlings who provide vital support to the teams and arenas. Milwaukee Bucks marquee player Giannis Antetokounmpo himself pledged $100,000 for the Fiserv Forum staff whose incomes have been interrupted by the season closure.
“It’s bigger than basketball!” he explained in a tweet. Indeed, Giannis, it is.
(“Monitor” columnist Katy Burns lives in Bow.)