Note: I dedicate this post to all those who have lost loved ones to Covid 19. To the rest of you, I say remember them when you hear people talk about “hoaxes” and that they’re willing to “take those odds,” because in taking them, they’re not only endangering themselves, they’re endangering all of us.
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I’m my fathers son. In so many ways. He had a habit — one I share (or inherited) of indulging in a kind of “conjectural time travel.” For instance, he’d bite into a particularly good cut of meat or seafood and say, “Can you imagine the first person who dropped this creature into a fire, and then took that first taste of cooked food?” It was like he was trying to resurrect that mythical cave person just long enough to experience the pure rapture they must have felt in their moment of discovery.
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| The author’s father, Hanno Fuchs in Tokyo, circa 1951 |
While I’ve certainly caught myself doing the exact same thing, I also have a tenddency toward projecting my present reality into the future as I try to imagine what the as-yet-unborn chroniclers of our time will say about it. I can recall, for example, getting into a heated debate with a local supporter of the good ole second amendment, and his God-given right to “bear arms.”
“How will the historians judge us when they look back at the sheer number of our compatriots we allowed to die due to our inability to control the firearms industry?”
(He didn’t care much for this line of argument.)
I bring up this habit of mine, because I find myself very aware that we are currently living through a moment historians will write about, and deem “significant.” For one thing, the “twenty-teens” will be remembered for bringing us, arguably, I suppose one has to say, the most inept president in our country’s history. Also, this “novel” virus has torn our economy to pieces, and, most importantly, we’ve hit a tipping point as far as human rights abuses are concerned — more specifically how the dominant (read white, straight, male) culture discriminates against black Americans and women. People have stood up, and continue to stand up, for what is right. In courtrooms, and in the streets.
I wonder if Trump’s ineptitude may ultimately prove to be what we “thank for” this sea-change of rebellion we’re experiencing. Unlike his predecessors, he has no filter between thought and speech. Previous presidents were better at saying the pretty things we need to hear that allow us to accept the status quo (aka “American Way”). Although previous American presidents certainly may have believed that sometimes you just have to “grab [women] by the pussy” or that “there are good people on both sides,” they’ve rarely said it aloud. On Twitter or elsewhere. This one can’t stop, which may be helping to keep the revolution going.
While I’m sympathetic to those whose livelihoods, whose years of hard work have been affected or obliterated by the pandemic, I’m troubled by what I’m seeing right now. After re-opening some states, including Texas where I live, we are, sure enough, seeing a spike in both Covid cases and deaths. The president has one of his rallies coming up next week and has boasted about receiving 200,000 requests for tickets. Those fervent members of his so-called “base” have been told they’ll need to sign an agreement of indemnity, releasing the president and his government of any liability should they come down with Covid, which is, after all, a liberal hoax.
This is the crucial moment the historians will look back on, when, in the midst of a global pandemic, protestors took to the streets anyway. When our answer to “il Duce” gathered the faithful by the thousands. We don’t know the consequences yet. But we will.
There was something very pure about my father’s liberalism — maybe because he escaped the Nazis at age 12, before he could be added to the thousands of males from his town in Germany who were systematically exterminated. I’m just glad he was spared seeing this man in power, and what he’s doing to the democracy my father cared so much about, and fought so hard to preserve. That said, I do believe that, like me, he would be extremely encouraged by the young leaders who have taken to the street to speak out against injustice, and to fight for a better country and a better world for all.
DAN FUCHS 