Survival
There are incidents big and small that cause major changes to society. The status quo changes. Business as usual changes.
Remember back in the 80s when a few people were poisoned by someone tampering with pill bottles? Packaging changes were mandated. Industry complained about the increased expense it would cause. Now sealed packaging is routine and incredible increases in costs did not materialize.
Then smoking in public places was banned. In spite of dire predictions about losing our constitutional rights the United States of America and our Republic survived that as well.
AIDs
In the aftermath of the AIDs epidemic that stayed with us until today there were fundamental changes in society.
In the beginning before people knew how the virus was transmitted there was hesitation to even touch someone with AIDs.
Some of the changes are obvious to this very day. Health care providers started doing things differently. Blood was handled differently including what it was tested for. This took place after people got AIDs from transfusions. Dental procedures changed as well. People realized that transmission of disease could take place in the dental office through having too much contact. Sexual habits were changed for lots of people.
9/11
Another obvious example. What happened on 9/11/2001 also caused fundamental changes in our society. The aerospace industry changed and flying changed forever with new security measures. New security measures went in place all over the country and not just at airports. Our way of life changed fundamentally. Jobs were lost. New jobs were gained. Wars were started with repercussions that continue until today.
The 2020 Trump Pandemic.
We should really be calling this the Trump Pandemic and virus because of his complete and utter failure in dealing with it at any level. Even what he claims he did he didn’t do, like banning travel from China and Europe. 40,000 citizens returned from China alone. More of the Trump virus was probably coming in from Europe than China.
We’re closing in on 200,000 deaths and could hit 300,000 by the end of October unless we get a few breaks that have absolutely nothing to do with Trump or Pence, for that matter.
The thrust for getting the country back open is to save the economy, NOT people. If Republicans and the President wanted to take care of people they would have put the people first.
But they didn’t. Instead they decided to starve the people out. They are starving people to get them back to serving the interests of Trump and The Republican Party.
Gone baby gone.
Biden can campaign on fixing this if he wants to but there ain’t no getting back to the way things were. PERIOD.
The way things were is gone, gone, gone, gone, baby, gone. There is no returning to the status quo. There isn’t enough left for the status quo.
The big brains, and I don’t mean Trump or his quack doctors and scientists, are going to have to come up with some new economic models. As much debt as the world let alone the United States has piled up cannot be fixed by status quo economics.
No idea.
The amount of damage that has been done has not yet been recognized or recognized as to what it means.
Society has been fundamentally changed yet leaders are trying to return to what was--and what was isn’t there anymore.
We don’t even have a new normal yet.