Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

SouthernCal_Dem

(852 posts)
Fri Apr 10, 2020, 01:25 PM Apr 2020

Covid-19 is killing off the myth that we are the greatest country on earth.

The Ideas That Won’t Survive the Coronavirus
Covid-19 is killing off the myth that we are the greatest country on earth.

By Viet Thanh Nguyen

<...>

If anything good emerges out of this period, it might be an awakening to the pre-existing conditions of our body politic. We were not as healthy as we thought we were. The biological virus afflicting individuals is also a social virus. Its symptoms — inequality, callousness, selfishness and a profit motive that undervalues human life and overvalues commodities — were for too long masked by the hearty good cheer of American exceptionalism, the ruddiness of someone a few steps away from a heart attack.

Even if America as we know it survives the coronavirus, it can hardly emerge unscathed. If the illusion of invincibility is shredded for any patient who survives a near-fatal experience, then what might die after Covid-19 is the myth that we are the best country on earth, a belief common even among the poor, the marginal, the precariat, who must believe in their own Americanness if in nothing else.

Perhaps the sensation of imprisonment during quarantine might make us imagine what real imprisonment feels like. There are, of course, actual prisons where we have warehoused human beings who have no relief from the threat of the coronavirus. There are refugee camps and detention centers that are de facto prisons. There is the economic imprisonment of poverty and precariousness, where a missing paycheck can mean homelessness, where illness without health insurance can mean death.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/opinion/coronavirus-america.html

4 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Covid-19 is killing off the myth that we are the greatest country on earth. (Original Post) SouthernCal_Dem Apr 2020 OP
Well, Trump being elevated to the White House did that already. Aristus Apr 2020 #1
That myth died decades ago. SamKnause Apr 2020 #2
Well ... not really FiveGoodMen Apr 2020 #3
Myths are impervious to reality. n/t Harker Apr 2020 #4

Aristus

(66,327 posts)
1. Well, Trump being elevated to the White House did that already.
Fri Apr 10, 2020, 01:31 PM
Apr 2020

But hey; since we've killed the myth, let's burn it and bury the ashes while we're at it...

FiveGoodMen

(20,018 posts)
3. Well ... not really
Fri Apr 10, 2020, 03:02 PM
Apr 2020

WE can see it.

But the idiots that started all this trouble will not see it.

They will believe any excuse from Fox and Trump.

So, no, the myth won't die.

Latest Discussions»Issue Forums»Editorials & Other Articles»Covid-19 is killing off t...