It’s easy to feel like we lost this entire year but that’s not exactly true.
We aren’t merely a victim of this insidious virus, either.
That perspective makes the collective tragedy we have experienced inevitable, but it was not.
It was in fact, largely preventable.
Much of the world long ago turned the corner on this virus and currently have something resembling normalcy (certainly nothing nearing the per capita grieving and national paralysis we are still in the throes of).
We didn’t lose this year as much as it was stolen from us; taken by force and with malice and forethought by the people entrusted with stewarding us through this very kind of consequential moment. Our greatest wounds have been homegrown and human-made.
The reports are now confirming what we suspected since February of this year: the Trump Administration lied to us about everything: the severity of the virus, its means of transmission, its pervasive spread, the potential for loss of life, the possibility of catastrophic illness.
In their ignorance, hubris, self-preservation, and disregard for human life, they looked at us every single day and simply lied. They denied the dangers, demonized doctors, mocked precautions, stoked tribalism, and peddled conspiracy—and they violently took a year from all of us.
Twelve months of hugs.
Twelve months surprise birthday parties.
Twelve months of family trips we saved years for.
Twelve months of graduations and first grandchild births and best friend’s weddings.
Twelve months of memorable experiences that we simply could not be present for.
Twelve months of time with people we love that we will never get back, some whose faces we will never get to see again.
They stole the opportunity from us to sit with our terrified siblings during chemotherapy treatments, the ability to embrace our parents as they suffered for months alone, the ability to cradle our children during emergency room visits, the chance to see our niece’s piano recital that she’d been working on for a year, the opportunity to hold our favorite aunt’s uncle’s hand as he left this world surrounded only by strangers in hazmat suits under fluorescent lights. They stole our high school senior years and our business startups and our retirement plans.
And more than all of these milestone experiences and sacred ordinary moments—Republican leaders stole people from us: hundreds of thousands of original, treasured, unprecedented human beings who literally ceased to be as a direct result of their refusal to just tell us the truth and admit their failures.
These were not strategical miscalculations or political maneuvers gone wrong: this was premeditated murder, it was genocide—it was and is a persistent crime against humanity perpetrated by the very people who should and could have defended us.
When all this is over, this sociopathic former president, his sycophantic Congressional cheerleaders, and joyfully complicit media members need to all be held accountable for the greatest loss of Americans in our lifetime; eclipsing natural disaster and military conflict and terrorist attack.
Donald Trump, Mike Pence, Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz, Kellyanne Conway, Jim Jordan, Lindsey Graham, Sean Hannity, Marsha Blackburn, Kelly Marco Rubio, Kayleigh McEnany, Ronna McDaniel, and every willing Republican surrogate is culpable for the unfathomable loss of these days. They need to be held legally responsible for murdering Americans and there is simply no other way to describe this.
When a new year comes and humane leaders arrive and a vaccine is distributed and we finally begin to move into something resembling a normal existence, we’re going to need to make sure the real story doesn’t get lost in our euphoria to live again. We need to make certain that we do not allow them to rewrite history or reinvent themselves or gaslight us into forgetting what we know right now.
Hundreds of thousands of Americans are gone forever, and a generation of us who survive their departure will be left to carry the collective financial burden and emotional loss created by a few people whose absolute lack of morality constitutes a crime against humanity.
This President and his Republican accomplices have stolen a year, decimated our nation, and yes, they have murdered Americans.
May we honor them well by remembering this and voting and working and speaking on their behalf.
