Life in the Time of Coronavirus: Texas' GOP Lt. Governor Says 'Getting Business Back Up Again Worth Sacrificing Our Grandparents!'

So now we've come to this.

As President Donald Trump questions the wisdom of putting into place medically-necessary measures to protect Americans from the world-wide coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic because they're "doing more harm than good" to the economy, his Republican acolytes are clamoring for an end to quarantines, closures of businesses, and a return to normal activities.

It's no secret that the GOP has long had a reputation for being the party of Big Business. The alliance between the Republican Party and what we now call the "One Percenters" began sometime after Reconstruction and was solidified by the time of the 1912 Presidential election, the race that split the party's pro-business wing (led by incumbent William Howard Taft) and its more progressive one (led by ex-President Theodore Roosevelt). In that intramural battle royale, TR and his adherents ended up forming a third party (the Bull Moose Party); as a result, a weakened Taft lost to Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson, and the GOP closed ranks around the moneyed elite, a marriage of convenience that continues 108 years later.

Obviously, in a situation when most Americans are being told to stay home and avoid, as much as possible, engaging in activities that might expose them and their families to COVID-19, quite a few businesses are feeling the pain. Movie theaters and other entertainment venues where large numbers of people sit in a packed enclosed space are closed. You can still get food from many restaurants, but it has to be either "take-out" or delivered. Sports events are closed until further notice. Concerts? Forget it, although I've seen at least one overly optimistic Miami promoter advertise a large musical event that's scheduled for late June. (Apparently, the goofball is hoping that the pandemic will be dealt with by then. Me? I think not.)

So, yes, I understand the reality that the economy is taking a huge hit. I also understand that lots of people are unhappy about not being able to go about their business as they did before.

The reality, though, is that human lives should come before profits, and although many of us seem to grasp that, President Trump is being pressured by his wealthy friends to roll back some of the measures now in place to reduce the spread of COVID-19 among the general population.

A particularly cold and idiotic suggestion was put forward by Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick (R) on Monday night on Fox News' Tucker Carlson: open businesses soon, even if elderly Americans have to die.

This is what Patrick had to say on the topic of social distancing:

“No one reached out to me and said, as a senior citizen, ‘Are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren?’ And if that’s the exchange, I’m all in … I just think there’s lots of grandparents out there in this country like me — I have six grandchildren — that what we all care about and what we love more than anything are those children. I want to live smart and see through this. But I don’t want the whole country to be sacrificed and that’s what I see.”  

Yep. This public official who is one heartbeat away from being the governor of the largest state in the Lower 48 (Alaska is the largest state in the Union, but it's separated from the rest of the Union by Canada) suggests ending social distancing during a pandemic even if many of our fellow citizens have to die.

What a horrible tradeoff.

Of course, if the President of the United States wasn't so itchy-fingered about ending social distancing, I doubt this yahoo would even say something like this in a public forum. But because Trump considers the pre-COVID-19 economy to be his signature "achievement" as President, he is restive about doing what the medical community believes is paramount in order to deal with the pandemic and has said a few times already that he wants to get everything up and running again.

And...here we are, with Republicans having a cow because the COVID-19 pandemic is messing with their wealthy donors' bottom line.

Just remember, Dear Reader, Dan Patrick and his ilk were the same idiots who tried to scare people into rejecting the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) by saying that there would be "death panels" that would literally kill off many seniors to ration healthcare.