In her article “The Great Mortality,” writer Elisa Gabbert wrote about the plagues that are coming for us, even when we pretend we don’t want them. 

Ironically, the article was published less than two years before COVID-19. 

Gabbert wrote that one aspect of how we deal with pandemics was what she called “performative death wish,” a social media phenomenon. This is where humans now respond to threatening news as if it were welcome.

Whenever a story on the threat of an “extinction-level event,” like an asteroid or comet headed for Earth, is making the rounds, people quote-tweet it to add, “Finally, some good news!”

The Great Mortality

That doomsday emotional response seems to have crept into a few other human interactions lately. 

I’m referring to the current state of Trumpism and the march to Fascism in the United States. 

Trumpism that is the cause of the second civil war. 

The one between “real Americans” and those liberal-leftist-progressive-communist so-called Americans who have sold out to communist China (an actual accusation in a political ad). 

There is serious nonsense being passed off as prognostication about the future of this country. Forget COVID, measles, and cyclosporiasis, a parasitic infection that causes explosive diarrhea; we may not be around for the next pandemic. 

Well, that’s one way to fight a virus.

I’m more worried about the virus that is infecting us now, Trumpism, which carries some weird shit inside us, like racism, nationalism, ethnocentrism, and antisemitism.

Hell, it’s a long list, and the “performative death wish” we have is that we deserve this and, worse, welcome it with open arms. 

The right-wing (there he goes, another liberal, leftist, progressive, communist so-called American who sold out to communist China) in this country is working hard to make it all happen. 

They’re good at infecting young and older Americans with lunatic idiocy, fear factors that crawl into our souls and make us say and do cringy shit. 

If we hadn’t elected that damn Black guy (thanks, Obama), we’d have just another white guy in the White House reassuring Americans that everything was all right. 

If we just had voted for…Donald Trump.

Oh yeah, how’s that working out for us?

It’s hot out here, yet every time I seek verification of the virus’s status and its infection rate, I’m told there’s nothing to worry about, and that I should blame the mainstream and social media for the hysteria. 

Calm down, I’m told.

How many are willing to rise up and sell their souls to ensure the current GOP remains in power for a hundred years?

They’re not talking about a civil war (except, when necessary, like ICE murders).

No, it's a different kind of civil war. They don’t need a shooting war when they already control most of the levers of power. 

The GOP and the right wing in this country have been planning this takeover since the 2010 census. 

It was a project called REDMAP, the Redistricting Majority Project (Read more HERE).

The right wing seems to believe that all they need to do is control those levers of power at the local and state levels, and, yes, in the halls of Congress and the Supreme Court, and that they will have everything they need to control all of us. 

The bottom line: take over state houses and gerrymander the state to death so you not only control the legislatures and governors' offices but also stack the deck to control the Senate and House seats. 

That strategy, voter suppression tactics, and their willingness to burn the house down in their quest for power, along with the Democratic Party's namby-pamby approach (what a bunch of wussies), make you suddenly realize how easily they will be able to walk right in and take over. 

Okay, I may be overreacting. 

The November elections haven’t happened yet, and maybe all those election deniers running for office, including those who will control how elections are supervised in 2026, will lose. 

Or not. 

All I can tell you is that there has been a rise in the virus I mentioned earlier (not since the mid-sixties have I seen this much BS), and there are enough people, even if they are a small minority, who believe they are so aggrieved that all it will take is a spark, an incident like January 6, to set them off.

The worst-case scenario is that Trump and MAGA take control of the November elections, the Republicans in the House and Senate, as well as the Supreme Court, go along with it, and then we’re really f*cked.

The best-case scenario for stopping them is for Democrats, Democratic Socialists, and Independents to take control of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate, and for us to put a stop to the virus that is Trumpism.

Deep in my cold heart lies the faint hope that we, the rational people, will refuse to accept that first scenario. 

We not only outvote them but also use all the peaceful tools at our disposal to keep them on the defensive until the coming generations outlive them and relegate them to the dustbins of history. 

Hey, I can dream.