American Resurrection.

In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulcher.

And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it.

His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow:

And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men.

And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goes before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you. ~Matthew 28:1-7

Reopen the country, they say. Everybody go back to work! they keep saying.
Let all the old people die of disease, they say.
COVID-19 is just a hoax to bring down Trump, they say.
Open up all the churches on Easter! they say.
Grandma should die to save the economy, they say.

You know, I'm fairly sure by the end of the week, various and assorted right-wingers will be calling the virus some kind of Illuminati plot to bring down Trump, destroy America and install some kind of one-world government. How that might work with, say, China and Taiwan, India and Pakistan, Israel and...well, all its neighbors, North and South Korea, or ya know, just a good old thorny mostly-white-Christian problem like Northern Ireland, nobody has ever actually bothered to get to the bottom of. There's usually some kind of vague hand-waving talk about somebody basically waving a magic wand and there magically being some kind of false peace.

Oh, wait, who in the ever-living FUCK am I kidding?! I know people, people I have the misfortune of having once been extremely close to, that are there already. I mean, are you fucking kidding me with this stupid bullshit?

Ya know, speaking as a former member of the End Times Prophecy Movement myself, I really don't want to say anything to legitimize any of that garbage, but based on what I've seen over the last couple weeks if there is such a thing as the AntiChrist, that person is probably a Republican.

Do you want to know what makes me say that? Really? Do you know what I haven't heard, not a word of it, from Republicans in the last few weeks?

Have we once heard, from any Republican who is in power or any current Trump Supporter, one single word about caring about other people, following the Ten Commandments, having faith in something greater than ourselves, loving thy neighbor, and treating even those we might consider to be enemies with decency...ya know, even the kind of thing that was standard for damn neat every public appearance by officials of the Bush administration for months after 9/11...and in broader popular culture the effect persisted for several years...though there was a backlash against it that was largely hidden if you didn't frequent Christian and conservative forums on the internet.

Nope. Now it's all me, me me, divide, divide, divide, money, money, money, and oh by the way who can we kill?

This is the inboxes full of venom that I got throughout the aughts, for standing up for facts and humanity, moderation and reality from both Christian and conservative points of view...busting through the wall like some kind of giant green toxic waste Kool-Aid Man at long last for all the world to see.

Except it's not even "He who shall not work shall not eat" it's "He who shall work, let him die of disease and kill half his family in so doing, because my stock dividends."

I'm pleasantly surprised to see most people recoiling in horror, but there's more...

How is any of that Christian?

20 years ago, if you would have told me that there'd come a day when Nancy Pelosi was the one quoting the Pope while the Republican was the one snidely trying to quote stock market numbers I'd have laughed at you. Having been a conservative throughout the entire 1990's I'd have assumed it would be the other way around.

Now, is it just me, or are Conservatives devolving into weird robotic behaviors, religious fuckery and outright Trump worship since this virus hit?

It's like I said awhile back, these people would rather live through the horror of a nuclear war than face change. But now, the change is coming anyway, and the source of it is not something they can fight with anything they understand. The same thing that always worked before will not, religion isn't making it go away, and the more they worship their incompetent Leader, the more he is exposed as incompetent. It's like the missiles have hit their targets, but the bombers got airborne first, just in time for the crews to see a big flash and hear the pop and sizzle of the radio as the electromagnetic pulses hit and their command and control facilities were shortly thereafter turned into radioactive dust. Now, they've got nothing to go on but pre-generated orders that make no sense given the situation, and no updates are coming from the Looking Glass aircraft, because that's off the air too. Basically, they're facing a crisis they don't understand, without leadership because the President has cracked and thinks he's Wild Bill Hickok. So...they're going with what they know...which, painfully, isn't much of anything.

They're trying to ratfuck and smear the Democrats, but somehow forgetting how to string words together properly and running out of ideas, or there's a fault in the programming. They can't make science go away, but decades of Creationism and woo woo bullshit is making them think they can.

Some of them want to be religious, and hope that God will get them out of this mess, but they forgot that religion itself had requirements. They forgot the 'Relationship with God' part and only wanted the trappings to get Man's approval for their shitty beliefs...and now they're calling, and God's not answering the phone anymore, because He wasn't stupid and realized it was never about Him, only what they could get.

So, they're trying to turn to the President "Save us, Mr. Trump!" But all too late they're finding out that they got sold a bill of goods as much as the rest of us, and Grover Norquist's conceit that they didn't need a leader, just somebody to sign this stuff, has (as anybody who knew anything about it could tell you) was never actually going to pan out. It turns out in a crisis when hard calls need to be made and people have to have the guts to step up and take the consequences, an auto-pen with an ego isn't actually going to work out.

The actual problem, is that they won't just kill themselves with their incompetence and selfishness. The way this works, they're going to kill a hell of a lot of other people too.

It seems like it would be really damn easy to care about other people enough to stay the fuck home. These fucking people would rather live through The Walking Dead, or do almost anything, than have to care about other people. Somehow, in today's modern world, Going Galt isn't really a thing...and in any case it's turning out far more like the undersea slaughter house of Rapture from the first Bioshock game than anything else...only instead of being on the bottom of the ocean it's right here at home.

Somehow, it's not that hard to imagine walking down the stairs by the fish market, creepily listening to some Republican singing "Jesus Loves Me This I Know..." while he cuts somebody up.

I guess it just seems to me like it would be easier to just give a shit about people, or the truth, or....I don't know, something besides money. Like maybe your own life? Seriously, again, this is a virus. It doesn't care about you.

Seriously, if these people were talking this way on the street instead of in a political setting or on TV, all any of them would have to do is add "...in accordance with my manifesto" and they'd be getting put into straitjackets by the cops and taken to the nearest mental hospital for a psychological evaluation. For fuck's sake, you wouldn't let people who talk blithely about letting your parents or grandparents die watch your kids, or your pets.

Why the fuck do you want to let them run our government?! These fucking people would take Easter Sunday, which is supposed to be about the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and turn it into a day that's all about Donald Trump...even as it turns into a new Day Of The Dead by the time the sun begins to set.

All in the hope not of some spiritual resurrection or regeneration of the soul...but because they hope to resurrect the stock market.

I'm sorry, but if you support that shit, FUCK. YOU. I ain't dying for no damn stock market.

It really is that simple.

If we want a better country we have to be better citizens.

This? This ain't it.