Wayne O'Leary

Open Sesame

Tooling around my state in the last few days on rock-bottom cheap gas my 1988 Saab hasn’t enjoyed since, well, 1988, a few COVID-19-related realities came to my attention. First, the right-wing crazies are back in peak form.

Small, but aggressively enthusiastic groups of diehard GOP partisans were gathered on street corners with signs bewailing “fake news” about what Anthony Lane, writing in The New Yorker on a rail excursion to Scotland, called the wee virus. Trump supporters, glorying in their ignorance, don’t fear the wee virus; they plan to intermingle freely, pursue the almighty dollar, shop ’til they drop, and party hearty throughout the pandemic. Dr. Anthony Fauci be damned. Their inane leader, peddling contradictory and dangerous magical thinking day in, day out, provides Trumpsters sufficient moral support to believe what they want to believe.

To a disturbing degree, public attitudes have taken on a partisan cast: If you’re a Democrat, you wear a mask and gloves; if you’re a Republican, you go without either one. If you’re a Democrat, you abide by health rules and regulations; if you’re a Republican, you flout them whenever possible. If you’re a Democrat, you avoid big crowds and minimize group activities; if you’re a Republican, you seek them out. To some degree, the response has become an exercise in machismo: Real men don’t cover up.

The flag has even become involved. In a reprise of the Vietnam era, conservative pandemic deniers, like war supporters a generation ago, are waving the stars and stripes in an attempt to co-opt patriotism. Their god-given right to self-immolation, they’ve decided, represents “freedom,” and they’ve seized on the flag as their symbol. In my area, mini-demonstrations demanding the state instantly open up in its entirety usually contain more flags than people; they resemble, in that respect, banner-filled MAGA rallies, themselves reminiscent of the Nuremburg rallies of the Nazi Party in 1930s Germany. There’s something about the right that insists upon overpowering symbolism in place of articulated thought.

There’s also an infantile selfishness to the clamor for an instantaneous return to perceived normalcy. A Trump supporter’s right to self-gratification outweighs anyone else’s right to feel safe and secure. If there’s a risk of spreading infection and illness to you and yours, Trumpsters just don’t care.

There are, of course, people at open-up rallies who are not part of the Trump base; rather, they are worried about jobs and income. In Europe, such folks have been rescued by comprehensive government wage-support programs designed to bail out workers, not just companies, by underwriting their salaries for the duration. Here, by contrast, such workers are at the mercy of employers that may not retain them and an unemployment-insurance system that may not cover them (30% are not); those glaring inadequacies should be the focus of their ire.

But most of those demanding a total end to the lockdown in my state appear to be profit-losing business owners and not unemployed wage earners. Although they attract media attention, their numbers are not great — 1,000 or so at a rally in the state capital, a few dozen at various local demonstrations — and judging by their signs, the cause célèbre is Trump’s reelection as much as any end to economic suffering. Our Democratic Gov. Janet Mills has become the focus of their outrage, despite a commitment to gradually loosening restrictions. Ex-Gov. Paul LePage, bless his cold Trumpster heart, is talking about challenging her next time.

This is ironic because Mills, no left-wing populist, has pursued very moderate, almost lenient policies, seeking to pacify the opposition. In a way, you could call her approach a form of coddling. For example, Maine’s “essential” vested economic interests have avoided extensive sanctions. An early effort to close gun shops ran into a storm of protest and was reversed; evidently, we’re going to shoot our way out of the pandemic.

Also deemed essential are animal feed and pet-supply stores and veterinary clinics. The love affair of Americans with their pets knows no bounds; Maine’s stage one reopening on May 1 included dog grooming businesses along with barber shops and hair salons. Nice to know Rover is getting his hair trimmed as we get our locks shorn.

So far, Maine’s lockdown has been largely spared the worst extremes of religious fundamentalism. Gov. Mills’ May 1 reopenings limited church attendance to in-your-vehicle worship services, and the mainstream Christian churches have raised few overt objections. To date, there have been no mass law-breaking convocations led by right-wing pastors as in other states, just isolated outdoor gatherings by a few small, rural evangelical congregations.

In one respect, however, our governor’s cautious reopening has been laxly regulated. A 14-day quarantine for all people entering or returning to Maine, established early on, was selectively violated at will on Memorial Day weekend. Statewide, probably only a handful, those returning to their summer homes where they could easily self-quarantine, did so. Our quarantine, loosely enforced like others (no cadre of state police lined up at the New Hampshire border), is on the honor system. This raises the specter of the wee virus migrating from New York, New Jersey, or Massachusetts to the downeast coast this summer. Stay tuned.

An informal survey of crowd behavior since the warm spring weather arrived indicates that face masks will be the big sticking point for the public at large. Some people, chanting the “freedom” mantra, just won’t wear them. Guys in pickup trucks seem particularly averse. Social distancing is another problem. Golfers, for instance, allowed access to Maine’s links starting May 1, won’t abide by this rule, gathering instead in close proximity on putting greens and traversing the back nine in blissful conviviality.

President Trump has by his own bad example apparently convinced a minority that the pandemic is no big deal. It will take a few more fatalities to reach Americans wedded to a twisted antisocial concept of liberty and individualism; a mere 100,000 lives won’t do it. Europeans and Canadians may follow rules designed for the public good, but lots of Americans won’t.

Regardless, the wee virus is out there, waiting. It doesn’t care who you are. As long as Donald Trump is in the White House calling the tune, it will be at the dance.

Wayne O’Leary is a writer in Orono, Maine, specializing in political economy. He holds a doctorate in American history and is the author of two prizewinning books.

From The Progressive Populist, July 1-15, 2020

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