what really gets me about the argument that “americans are so selfish they can’t even care about others enough to stop the virus” is that we fucking did. the vast majority of americans, at great personal and financial cost to ourselves, went inside and distanced and took precautions and isolated and changed our lives to slow the spread and keep our loved ones and strangers safe. we did that for months, even when the government offered piss poor assistance and unemployment skyrocketed and food bank lines lengthened and the death counts climbed and parents with young children reached a breaking point, we still did it. the polling still shows that the vast majority of americans are more worried about easing restrictions too soon even if it hurts the economy. americans give a shit. we care. we made the sacrifices to give our government the time to figure out and implement a plan — to find a way to keep us safe and as healthy as possible and to use the power of the federal government to protect small businesses and feed our children and put a roof over our heads and create education campaigns to get people to socially distance and wear a mask for fucks sake. we did that, and at the end of months of sacrifice they decided that it wasn’t worth the trouble and have left us at the whims of our governors and local officials, left us at the mercy of our employers, left us to die.
americans aren’t selfish — our minority-rule government is — and it’s left us to die.
