<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">There is an angle on this that I have wondered about.<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">In a sort of short-term sense, it would have been very gratifying for SARS-CoV-2 to have killed trump. You know that tired trope:</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">God is dead</div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>— Nietzche</div><div class="">Nietzsche is dead</div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>— God</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Same idea.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">But as I think of it, I think that would have been one more chance to get out of dealing with what a real problem is. Like if Hillary had been elected in 2016. In many ways she would have managed the country productively and functionally. In many other ways, she would have done the go-along-to-get-along that the main line of politicians always do, and Clintons in particular do assiduously. Meanwhile, everything we are doing to accelerate into the cliff would have kept building further. When COVID came around, Hilary would have tried to manage closer to Trudeau or some other decent head of state, but she would still have had Americans to deal with, and lots of republican governors and legislatures, so the outcome would likely have continued to be one of the worse ones in the world, though maybe just on par with the EU countries that didn’t do a great job, instead of the spectacular outlier that it was under trump. But for that, all hell would have broken loose, and what happened actually in 2016 would have happened just that much more vengefully in 2020.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I have wondered whether trump in the presidency was like an adjuvant in a vaccine. Just having the antigen leaves room for highly variable responses, because if you don’t manage the inflammatory response that initiates the immune response, you have only a weak control system. Trump was so awful in so many dimensions that he triggers inflammation in those who would have remained asleep under Clinton. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Will there be an immune response? I don’t know. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Either way, nothing is going to happen to Abbott’s gold-plated ass, and wasn’t going to anyway, with or without mAbs, because he is vaccinated. Moreover, Texas governors come and go, and the state’s policies have been remarkably steady through those transitions. From Anne Richards to Rick Perry?<br class=""><div><br class=""></div><div>This is why Marvel comics created Batman. Wish fulfillment for those who feel that the abusers are infinitely out of reach.</div><div><br class=""></div><div>Eric </div><div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Aug 20, 2021, at 3:57 AM, Gary Schiltz <<a href="mailto:gary@naturesvisualarts.com" class="">gary@naturesvisualarts.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div dir="auto" class="">Is it right? Is it right that I can eat steak and some can’t afford enough rice and beans? The world is grossly unfair I’m sure I’m not the only one who struggles with the unfairness of the world. The question is what to do about it. How much social disruption would occur from a governor dying in office? Or a president? </div><div class=""><br class=""><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Thu, Aug 19, 2021 at 11:32 AM Jochen Fromm <<a href="mailto:jofr@cas-group.net" class="">jofr@cas-group.net</a>> wrote:<br class=""></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204)"><div dir="auto" class=""><div dir="auto" class="">The governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, has tested positive for the virus, although he is fully vaccinated. He has no symptoms but receives the same $100,000 Regeneron treatment as Donald Trump, maybe because he sits in a wheelchair and belongs to a risk group. Is it right that famous politicians are getting the most expensive treatments while ordinary people have to worry if they can pay a treatment at all, for instance because they have lost their health insurance? </div><div dir="auto" class=""><a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/08/17/1028574761/texas-governor-greg-abbott-tests-positive-covid-19-coronavirus" target="_blank" class="">https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/08/17/1028574761/texas-governor-greg-abbott-tests-positive-covid-19-coronavirus</a></div><div dir="auto" class=""><br class=""></div><div dir="auto" class="">-J.</div><div dir="auto" class=""><br class=""></div></div>- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .<br class="">
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