Fell asleep to the news of the President’s staff member testing positive for COVID-19.
Woke up to news that the President had tweeted he and FLOTUS have tested positive for COVID-19.
Scrolled through varied social media responses colored (as usual) by the personal and political views of the people in my circle and the news that I follow:
- ‘Thoughts and prayers’
- ‘He’s trying to avoid the next debate’
- ‘How can they be sick from something that is a Dem-hoax?’
- ‘Biden gave it to him’
- ‘Karma’
- ‘Just a smokescreen so we don’t talk about Melania dropping f-bombs about Christians and kids in cages on that taped conversation with her once-Be Best friend.’
- ‘The poor man does so much- all the stress has weakened him.’
- ‘How many people did he infect this week?’
- ‘I hope everyone on the plane with him the other night gets it, too.’
- ‘I saw the sweating during the debate- it reminded me of Nixon. Must have been because he was sick.’
- ‘Maybe he should have been wearing a mask more often.’
- ‘He doesn’t really have it- he’s just pretending so he can say he recovered and it’s nothing to be concerned about.’
- ‘He’s pretending to have it so he can pretend to be cured. Then he will push the cure that comes from a company one of his friends/sons/investors/Russia owns.’
Reading through the comments, memes, and reports something kept nagging at me: ‘Where have I seen this before? Why does it seem so familiar?’
Dallas.
This is just like something we would have seen on the Dallas TV show from the late 70’s to early 90’s
For those of you unfamiliar with it: here’s the description from IMDb:
“Dallas” is the saga of the Ewing family and its massive oil empire.
Patriarch Jock has three sons.
The eldest is J.R., the relentless CEO of Ewing Oil.
Less obviously malicious are Bobby and Gary.
Over a decade-plus of backstabbing, inbreeding, lust and greed, dozens of characters enter and exit the “Dallas” universe.
Not a one-for-one match, certainly, but the last several years crashed together for me this morning.
You see- when you watched Dallas you never really knew who was telling the truth.
For sure most of the time JR was lying.
(Like Madonna as Nikki Finn was told in ‘Who’s That Girl’ : ‘You’re lying……. because your lips are moving.’)
They knew it.
He knew they knew it.
We knew it.
But sometimes he told the truth (shocker!) likely to keep them off-kilter.
People tuned in each week just to see what would be said or done that would leave the viewer aghast!
Spoiler alert!
One whole SEASON was revealed to have been a dream!
Who would be swindled?
What deal would be broken?
What lies would be told?
What was the latest outrage?
It was a sure-fire way to draw in viewers for a TV show.
It is NO WAY to run a country.
I thought about what it means that there is a portion of the population that isn’t sure that the President is sick when he says he is.
What it means that they don’t believe him but may wish it is true.
What it means that they think he may deserve to be sick if it is true.
What it means that they think it may be a smokescreen to cover something else.
What it means that they think he is trying to peddle a cure and make money from it.
What it means that SOME people think it’s a hoax and they admire the man for it.
This isn’t a television show.
This isn’t a season that will turn out to be a dream.
We won’t wake up and things will be back to normal- whatever that is.
I’ve tried pointing my clicker out the window and changing the channel
– it doesn’t work.
We deserve to trust our leaders, our government, our President.
VOTE.
Pocket Change 