Before we get too polarized:
Joe is a gym owner. Makes a decent living. Lives well, has a family, owns a home. His livelihood has been cut off. He has no money. He wants — needs — to reopen NOW. He doesn’t care if you think that’s dangerous. It’s also dangerous to lose everything you built your life on.
Joanne is a marketing director at a large company. Her paycheck didn’t stop. She works from home, while doing home study and cooking and is generally going a little crazy, but she’s getting it done. She thinks Joe is an asshole for going to #reopen protests and calling her a snowflake.
Why don’t you two try trading places for a week.
Joanne, look at Joe’s bank account: $zero. Look at his normal weekly budget. He’s paralyzed. No $1200 from the government (even if it came in, SO WHAT?!? That’s a derisory insulting shitty sum of money for the problems he faces). The big banks aren’t funding Joe’s PPP loan because they’re putting all their allocated funds into multimillion dollar loans for much bigger companies. He’s in deep shit. Nobody’s helping him. Nobody cares. And the suburban big co employees who still get a paycheck are scorning him, calling him a trumper and a moron. Not fair.
Joe, before you get your AR-15 and go to your McConnell funded #reopen protest, calling all these people snowflakes because they oppose your plan to get back to work, put yourself in Joanne’s shoes. Research shows this disease will kill a few million people before it abases with herd immunity. Even young and healthy people can die. If it’s possible to stay home another few weeks, until testing and antibodies and partial reopening has more or less come together as a coherent, risk-managed plan, we should stay home. It’s not Joanne’s fault that you’ve been cut off from your livelihood.
A small number of powerful people do actually want us divided. Let’s not give them that. Let’s hang together and press government and banks to get off their asses and fund small businesses. Let’s press for a smarter plan to gradually reopen and to keep vulnerable citizens protected while small business owners and their employees can get back to work.
