In either case, it's simply not true that we're all in this together. The statewide shutdowns have actually divided us into basically two groups of people. There are those who have suffered no, or little, loss of income since last March, and those who have suffered the loss of their jobs, their businesses and their dreams. For members of the first group to claim that they stand together in fellowship with the second group in the struggle against the virus, as though they were somehow just as valorous as those in the second group, is, at a minimum, laughable.
There are other ways in which we're plainly not "in this together." There's a large number of people who want to protect the elderly and at the same time allow those who desire to return to their normal lives to do so, and there's another group of people who want everyone to be treated the same way that we treat those most at risk, i.e. hunkered down in their homes. This second group is comprised of folks who would prohibit healthy adults and teens from swimming in the ocean because the very old and the very young could easily drown in it.
Moreover, many members of both groups despise the members of the other group. Those who want the right to return to the status quo ante are roundly mocked and calumniated in the liberal news media and on Twitter - not the sort of treatment one would expect from those who consider themselves fellow comrades in the struggle against the virus.
Those who want to continue the lockdowns as long as possible, who believe that we must do everything possible to save lives (an absurd assertion that recently appeared in my local newspaper), are derided by those who want to open the economy back up as "pants wetters."
To pretend that there's some sort of solidarity, some brotherhood of the courageous, between these two groups is ridiculous.
Indeed, the pandemic has doubtless exacerbated the divisions between us. In any event, it would be a blessing to have no more treacle from advertisers telling us to ignore what we see with our own eyes and to delude ourselves into thinking that we're all arm in arm in the war against Covid-19.
We surely are not.
