treated mentally unwell individuals in the 1980's, and then too, those afflicted with AIDS in the early days. This country has decided society has a certain "look" and "behavior" and any step outside the bounds of those constraints needs to be put down hard. We're just now getting to the crux of the Baby Boomers all turning elderly and being hit by chronic diseases, in addition to various forms of dementia. We're not ready to cope with this because it's "against our religion" to deal with it. The GOP model is to either shove these people so far into a hole so as to forget they exist, or kill them outright through lack of appropriate medical care. Far from being the shining beacon on the hill, this country is hard... in the way a person addicted to drugs and violence all his life is hard... There is no mercy, no compassion, no caring. In fact, those very words are violence to the maga and gop. It won't stop until we come up with a replacement for laissez faire capitalism, because at it's root it's the issue with every problem we have in the United States. People exist to be exploited. If they can't be exploited, they're "useless eaters" and need to be put down. We can't have decent healthcare because the insurance companies and their shareholders have control of it all for fun and profit... for themselves. Women can't have a decent career without worrying about childcare, or the male idiot down the hall taking credit for all her ideas.
The entire country... and government... has to be completely reimagined and reworked. We have a chance to get it right, but it'll be so hard to accomplish that taking the easy way on some things will be the default mode, I'm afraid. If we do that, we can guarantee we'll be here again in 20-30 years. We HAVE to do the hard work. I'm almost 70, have voted in every election and voted as a Democrat in each of those elections. But I have to wonder, does the democratic party have the stamina to start AND finish the hard work that's ahead of us?
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