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Don’t Worry, 2020 Survivors: The Worst Is Yet to Come
We entered 2020 with fears about World War III. And that was the high-water mark.
Rewind your memories to the distant era of January when President Donald Trump killed Qasem Soleimani, the mastermind behind Iran’s deadly Quds Force. Many worried it would start a global conflagration resulting in even more deaths than the GOP tax cuts or the repeal of net neutrality.
How naive we were. Within weeks, we had a new set of crises. The US House of Representatives impeached Trump and the Senate saved his orange skin.
But democracy was still in crisis. The glacial vote-counting in the Iowa Caucuses outraged the nation. After days spent dithering, two candidates claimed victory, neither of whom was named Joe.
All of these stories were huge headlines a few months back but today seem like relics from a lost age.
A story that was a side note in January and February finally took main stage. A deadly little virus emerged from the other side of the world. By mid-March, every pro sport was shuttered, projections warned of millions dead and, inexplicably, we ran out of toilet paper.
After varying degrees of lockdowns and countless job losses, we started to get a handle on it.
Until we didn’t.
But the news had shifted to the hideous killing of George Floyd and the weeks of protests reacting to it.
Several malcontents used the peaceful protests as a cover to loot Apple stores (what’s up, Jake Paul?) and topple statues of Spanish authors and Black abolitionists. This was more inexplicable than the toilet paper shortage.
Today, the news is back to COVID-19 with the post-protest, post-lockdown spike, and the cameras moved on from that weird autonomous zone in Seattle. Oh yeah, there were murder hornets too.
Maybe now things will get back to normal. Or at least a new normal.
Dear reader, I have terrible news for you: 2020 will get even worse.
The novel coronavirus isn’t going away, nor are the protests or celebrity cancellations, and perhaps even the murder hornets will buzz back to life. But this is an election year and the campaigns haven’t begun to heat up.
You think there’s a lot of yelling on cable news now? You ain’t seen nothing yet.
Every cat video you watch on YouTube will be preceded with ads calling Joe Biden incompetent and Trump the devil. (Here in Arizona, Mark Kelly is a Manchurian candidate, and Martha McSally a devil worshipper.)
So, we’ve got that to look forward to.
We’ll see a dozen allegations a week launched at the president, a few of which he’ll deserve, and a handful of rumors about Biden, the former vice president, and presumptive Democratic nominee, if he ever leaves his basement.
The conventions will follow, but in what format is anyone’s guess. After that, the campaigns really rev up, so the rancor about all of the above will grow exponentially. That drama would normally subside on Election Day, but who am I kidding? This is 2020 we’re talking about.
Whoever loses will say the other side cheated and, if the results are close, the recounts will last until the midterms.
You might think this is a downer but consider it a favor. Forewarned is forearmed and this year has been rough enough without adding false hope to the mix.
The good news is that you’ve survived this far without expecting the coronavirus or civil unrest. But for the next six months, we need to keep our heads on a swivel, spend time with loved ones, and focus as much as possible on the good, true and beautiful.
And maybe, just maybe, 2021 will put normal back on our schedule.
Originally posted on azcentral.com.
Published in Politics
So….should I laugh or cry….stock up on wine or more Advil…..masks…hand sanitizer? Should I plant a Victory Garden or buy more canned goods? Stuff rolls of toilet paper under the bed and dollars under the mattress? Create a safe space and start coloring? You make me laugh, and I think that, along with your message to go to the Bosporus where we will find the only answer, along with stocking up on good coffee, is all we can do – sigh.
What are you talking about? It was a great year.
They say that children are our future.
That is why I’m stockpiling whiskey and ammo.
In interesting related soft drink trivia, 7-Up used to have something like 1 mg of lithium per bottle. The brand was actually named after lithium; the atomic weight of lithium is 6.938, which rounds to 7, and the idea was that it made you feel “up” instead of down.
There’s something to it. On a population basis, there’s less mental illness in cities with lithium in the water source. That’s much less than the therapeutic dose:
Unless the Democrats get control of both the White House and Congress, in which case we’re looking at the creation of the first of many new states engineered solely for the purpose of securing a permanent hold on power for the Democrats, who appear to be styling themselves into America’s answer to Zanu-PF. After Puerto Rico will come North California and South California (with the Bay Area and L.A., respectively, holding down the fort for magical political thinking); each individual Hawaiian island will be made a state after that. Mississippi and Alabama will be conglomerated into the single state of Missibama – two fewer Republican senators to worry about there – while statehood will quickly be conferred upon Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, and the Hamptons (where voting will take place in the middle of summer high season, naturally).
Oh yeah, 2021 is gonna be business as usual…
Well… I had to add a tiny bit of false hope.
Now I know what to do with my used batteries.
The Democrats and Never Trumpers, and that includes financial backers of Ricochet, will ensure the new normal will be a destruction of America.
The Never Trumpers are living rent free in your head.
No Gary, Trump lives rent free in yours.
I just run into you here. In fact, I’d not see any Never Trumper stuff, except for just one person, you.
But, hey, you want to go on being a fool, I should let you.
If Trump loses, I’ll blame the likes of you.
If he wins, it will be in spite of people like you who claim to be for America, who claim to be conservative, but who in fact are for turning the nation over to people who want to destroy it.
Now, now boys, play nice.
I always enjoy sparring with Gary; I think it sharpens my wit just a bit. They say bad arguments make people on the opposite side more sure of their positions. Gary’s arguments are so good that I’m almost at the point where I’m going to vote for Trump.
Almost.
(This is all meant in good fun, since it is completely meaningless.)
I do. Regularly. And you know what, Bryan?
It’s the same. Every one of them. Every time. Even from excellent thinkers. Even from superb writers. No new arguments. No novel takes. Orange Man bad.
Gary, did you ever take a nap next to a large green pod?
My son calls it Apocalypse Bingo. :-) I think you missed the locusts in Africa. :-)
Say what you will, I feel like in 2020 we have a real chance at Sharknadoes.
During the 2016 campaign, Jonah Goldberg pointed out how people who were solidly against Trump slowly found themselves switching to Trump. It felt to him like they had become pod people. I agree.
I turned 16 in 1968. 1968 was the end of my Sophomore year and start of my Junior year in High School. I was still sheltered from the world. I didn’t even watch the Democratic or Republican conventions on TV. I have often wondered what 1968 was like. I think that I now have an idea of what that was like.
2020 will go down as a lost year. The year that the world stopped. The year that I spent 40 days at my mother’s home. The year, I think, of no football. A year until any year I can remember.
Fun Fake Fact: Licking 9-volt batteries will not only give you the benefits of a therapeutic dose of lithium, but may be used in lieu of shock therapy.
I’m not so sure. Regardless of who wins in November, all Hell is going to break loose one way or another. If Biden wins, you’re going to see progressivism advanced as quickly and widely as possible, using emergency powers based on declining coronavirus deaths still being unacceptable. If Trump wins, you’re going to see four more years like the previous four, except the whining will be intensified.
The best way to return to normal is to re-elect Trump, and give him a Republican House and Senate that will work with him . . .
Getting low on moonshine, daughter is coming over today to deplete some of my stock of brass and lead, and we owe the IRS $ (seems Social Security added to our income). You forgot the plague in China.
“I do not recall distinctly when it began, but it was months ago. The general tension was horrible. To a season of political and social upheaval was added a strange and brooding apprehension of hideous physical danger; a danger widespread and all-embracing, such a danger as may be imagined only in the most terrible phantasms of the night. I recall that the people went about with pale and worried faces, and whispered warnings and prophecies which no one dared consciously repeat or acknowledge to himself that he had heard. A sense of monstrous guilt was upon the land, and out of the abysses between the stars swept chill currents that made men shiver in dark and lonely places. There was a daemoniac alteration in the sequence of the seasons—the autumn heat lingered fearsomely, and everyone felt that the world and perhaps the universe had passed from the control of known gods or forces to that of gods or forces which were unknown.”
-H.P. Lovecraft, Idle Musings for the Year 2020
Percival beat me to the Meth-Gators meme, so I’ll go with this one – just think of the duck as the year 2020.
This still makes me laugh every single time I see it, even though it’s been dozens of times. I think it’s the wandering footprints that leave the sidewalk and then come back on.
Locusts in Africa and India too! Maybe it has something to do with the number 2020. We’re getting twice or some exponential amount of everything.
You’re some guy Gabriel.
It ain’t over yet. There’s still time.
“2020 will go down as a lost year. The year that the world stopped. ….The year, I think, of no football. A year until any year I can remember.“
GR finally wrote something I agree with.
The meme maker missed a perfect opportunity: The caption should have read “Because Duck you, That’s why.”
Fun Fake Fact: Licking 9-volt batteries will not only give you the benefits of a therapeutic dose of lithium, but may be used in lieu of shock therapy.
When I was about 10 years old, I wondered if I could recharge a used battery by plugging wires from an electrical outlet onto the battery. It did not go well.
For Mr. C it was a finger in a light socket that sparked his interest. Har!