Sorry for the delay I was temporarily gobsmacked by the realization that you guys are still suffering under the Ford dynasty.

You're absolutely right - in much of the world, provincial and municipal governments aren't at war with their federal governments. The debt has been undertaken to provide a much more equal cushion against hardship than it has in the United States. Aid has not been aligned with ideology in most other places. It's been appalling to see how quickly the United States can emulate a banana republic.

I used to think that liberals valued empathy while conservatives valued fairness. I've come around to the notion that liberals have empathy while conservatives lack it. Jon Ronson reported in The Psychopath Test that something like ten percent of humans are clinical sociopaths; you could tell me they're all Republican politicians and I'd totally believe you.

This could have been SO EASY. "So Dr. Fauci - I'm told we're facing a gigantic pandemic, whatever that means, and that the principle demographic likely to be affected is my own voters. Tell me what I need to do to save their skin, my skin, and kick a bunch of work back to my donors in the spirit of war profiteering." Mutherfucker would be rich AF, beloved by all and sailing into his fourth term. "Vote Don Jr - his dad only let 80,000 people die of the China Virus."

I see that Florida is still tied between Biden and Trump and I sincerely yearn to see it swallowed by the Atlantic.