UC Recap – April 27th – May 2nd
April 27 – May 2
Uptown Love in the Time of Coronavirus: Trumpland 2020
According to the models the Trump administration was touting just a few weeks ago, the death toll by August 4, 2020 would be 60,308. Well, guess what? As I write this, we are nearly at 75,000 in early May. According to the latest bombshell in the NY Times, an internal Trump administration document reveals that “the daily death toll will reach about 3,000 on June 1, a 70 percent increase from the current number of about 1,750.” Let that sink in. Our new normal is not going back to the old normal anytime soon.
Add to that the Depression-era levels of unemployment and we are a country suddenly adrift, unmoored and leaderless at the national level. Trump has never been fit for the office he now occupies but it has never been more apparent than now. What is also apparent is that so much of the death, despair and agony that the novel coronavirus has wreaked upon this nation could have been avoided. America the mighty should not have been brought down so low by a virus.
The outgoing Obama team left an actual pandemic playbook and a robust pandemic response team designed to act both locally and globally. The Trump administration, in its hubris, gutted those vital pandemic-preparedness systems. And here we are.
Oh, did I forget to mention the good old American terrorists that Trump keeps stoking with his vile rhetoric and all caps “LIBERATE” tweets? I don’t know about you, but all those pictures and videos of armed vigilantes besieging state capitals protesting sensible social-distancing measures is frightening. We are a nation at war with itself, the future and science.
Welcome to Trumpland 2020. In just one term, Tyrant Trump has brought this country to the brink. Misery and malady really do stalk the land. While other developed nations are starting to slowly reopen and returning to some sort of normalcy, the United States is still in the throes of this pandemic. This is what happens when a racist reality tv star in serious mental and moral decline becomes president and turns existence itself into a wholly owned subsidiary of the Trump organization. The situation is dire and perilous. If we don’t end our long national nightmare this November, it might become permanent.
Pa’lante, Siempre Pa’lante!
Keep checking us out at www.uptowncollective.com.
Led Black
Editor-in-Chief
The Uptown Collective
The UC’s mission is to become “the” definitive, transformative and community-based force impacting the arts, culture, business and New York City’s overall perception of Upper Manhattan. Its objective is to reset, reboot and positively redefine Uptown’s artistic, political, cultural and business spheres via the online space as well the collective’s initiatives and functions.
