Little sense of shared grief as virus deaths near 100,000

[Demovictory9]

For months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the nation ached together in televised memorials, joining in a collective catharsis of uniformed salutes, bagpiped dirges and President George W. Bush declaring a national day of mourning and remembrance.

The space shuttle Challenger explosion in 1986 turned classrooms into grieving sessions, with President Reagan directly addressing the national wounds. The Japanese attack on Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor in 1941 was a day that President Franklin D. Roosevelt said would live in “infamy,” uniting the mainland to enter a world war.

Yet as the nation nears 100,000 deaths from COVID-19 — far more than all those tragic events combined or the entire Vietnam War — there is little sense this Memorial Day weekend that Americans are grieving together or uniting in a sense of purpose.

While Americans have shared undeniable hardships since March — including more than 38 million people forced to file for unemployment, and tens of millions more forced to hunker down at home to avoid the contagion — the carnage is hitting them unevenly.

President Trump, loath to dwell on those dismal figures, is both stoking the polarized response and counting on a fragmented experience to distract the nation from the almost incomprehensible death toll — nearly triple that of any other country — which could tar his presidency and jeopardize his chance for reelection in November.


“I don’t think we’re taking this in,” said David Kessler, an author of six books on grief.

“It’s easy to digest a statistic. It is not easy to digest 12 plane crashes a day,” Kessler said. “Especially when there are no visuals. We aren’t seeing 90,000 caskets. That kind of stuff would shock us. Maybe this is too big for us to comprehend.”

https://progressivepartyusa.com/progressive-news/little-sense-of-shared-grief-as-virus-deaths-near-100000/

[tblue37]

1. "One death is a tragedy, a million deaths a statistic" nt. (Stalin)

[NRaleighLiberal]

2. we're not getting the "if it bleeds, it leads" voyeur crowd

it is disgusting how these thousands of lives loat are being ignored because it isn't planes flying into buildings

Sorry, I know that's crass, but I am in a 3.5 year fume at trump and repubs...and I don't care for where are general culture is in the country

[wcast]

3. I had a colleague tell me the large majority of deaths were from nursing homes.

Must be the new right wing talking point.

[42bambi]

4. Trump is hoping that we become more and more desensitized. nt

[FirstLight]

5. It's more than just an invisible "enemy"

It's invisible everywhere, unless you are literally in healthcare or the morgue...

Unfortunate that people aren't falling over on the street dead, even then most would probably just step over them and keep on walking

[Beartracks]

7. It's not invisible. I see his stupid face every time I launch my browser. n/t

[FirstLight]

8. ya, I feel that too but Im tunning out the tangerine menace.... n/t

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

9. It's also because the deaths are happening one by one,

in different places around the country.

Offhand, I don't believe I know a single person who has died of this, although I know several who have been sick from it. So for a lot of people it's just not that close.

And for those who have lost a loved one, it's still a highly personal loss.

Also, we hare not, for the most part, having mass funerals. Burials are taking place, for the most part, but again, one at a time in different cemeteries. These days more than half of Americans choose cremation, and although the ashes can certainly be buried in a cemetery, a lot of people choose to scatter the ashes somewhere.