As a Georgian, I am scared to death that the Governor's irresponsible actions will kill us all

Brian Kemp: as dumb as he looks!

When I moved from my longtime family home of Chicago, where I thought I would live for the rest of my life before things took a turn, to Atlanta back in 2015 my father would passive-aggressively express his displeasure with my choice to move south of the Mason-Dixon line by asking me if I constantly encountered racism, bigotry and ignorance in my day to day rambles. 

I would try to assure my father that I lived in Atlanta, a cosmopolitan, international city with thriving film, television, music and media industries and a huge, vibrant black middle and upper class, and not a small town in Alabama where Klan rallies and cross burnings were weekly occurrences, 

I lived in the South, to be sure, but it was most assuredly not the hillbilly backwater of my inveterately Midwest father’s imagination. Truth be told, I took to living in the South after thirty nine years in the Midwest far easier and more naturally than I possibly could have imagined. 

I love the food. I love the weather. I love the people, for the most part, and I love raising my two boys in a place where it’s not miserable nine months out of the year. True, Georgia is more Conservative politically than Chicago but up until last week that did not appear to be a matter of literal life and death importance. 

That changed when Brian Kemp, the Republican chucklehead who stole the governorship from Stacey Abrams decided to go against the advice of sensible people who know what the fuck they’re doing and saying and re-open parts of Georgia. 

The Coronavirus should not be a partisan issue. Republican or Democrat, Left or Right, our overwhelming concern right now should be surviving this plague with as few deaths as possible. But that’s not how it has played out. 

Trump has been playing a dangerous double game. Even a lunatic as reckless, selfish and insane as Trump has to acknowledge the gravity and seriousness of the situation, and the need to take strong measures to prevent this from turning into an extinction-level event. 

Yet he’s also rage-tweeting about the need to “Liberate” Minnesota, Virginia and Michigan, praising gun-toting extremists and anti-quarantine “protestors” who put their desire to once again eat at Applebee’s over the public good and insisting, “States are safely coming back. Our Country is starting to OPEN FOR BUSINESS again. Special care is, and always will be, given to our beloved seniors (except me!). Their lives will be better than ever...WE LOVE YOU ALL!”

I have yet to see an iota of proof that there’s anything remotely “safe” or essential about states opening for business and an overwhelming amount of evidence that doing so is disastrous and deadly on a massive scale. Also, we historically have treated senior citizens who are not billionaires or famous deplorably, to the point where, if Trump were at all honest he would put “beloved” in ironic air quotes. Seniors will be the first to die because of Coronavirus but that’s okay with Trump because we as a society do not value them in the first place. 

The idea that the lives of our seniors will be “better than ever” after a pandemic that disproportionately affects the old is beyond delusional: it’s insane. 

Yesterday I read an article in the Washington Post by Dana Millbrook with the simultaneously ominous and glib headline “Georgia leads the race to become America’s No. 1 Death Destination.” 

As a lifelong depressive prone to anxiety and apocalyptic thinking, the article scared the holy living shit out of me. 

I’m scared for myself but I am even more terrified for my family. It’s not just my job but my sacred duty to stay positive and upbeat, to silence the bleakly pessimistic voices inside my head screaming that this thing will never be over or that we won’t survive this plague, and articles like that make that job a whole lot harder.

We’re all suddenly in a goddamn horror movie. As in a horror movie, the crucial thing is to GET OUT ALIVE by being cautious and careful and avoiding doing the things that will get us killed. 

That suddenly became a whole lot harder for me and my family and every other Georgian because Kemp, in his myopia, greed and slavish devotion to Trump, took bold action that will ensure that more, rather than fewer, people will die because of the pandemic.

Every horror movies need a villain. This one has a doozy in Trump, Kemp and other sadists who prioritize a robust economy and the financial interests of billionaires above human lives. Thankfully we also have everyday heroes who do their part to keep deaths at a minimum by ignoring the dangerous dictates of leaders and treating staying inside and listening to Dr. Fauci as a matter of life and death significance because those are EXACTLY the stakes that we’re dealing with. 

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