Death and the Presidential Debate
Claudewell S. Thomas, MD, MPH, DLFAPA, is an established psychiatrist who is currently retired ,, He received his medical degree in 1956 at SUNY Downstate College of Medicine and specializes in social psychiatry, public health psychiatry, and forensic psychiatry. Dr. Thomas was board certified by the American Board of Psychiatry... more
Hopkins reports that 42 states (territories and Washington DC included) are experiencing a dramatic rise in Covid-19 infections and, most alarmingly, an increase in the accompanying death rate no longer confined to the elderly and the occupants of nursing homes but now in those between fifteen and thirty. Psychological distress in the familiar forms of depression and anxiety with the increased use of drugs and alcohol is accompanied by a jingoistic assertion of invulnerability and eroticized dominance in college fraternities, sororities, and some sports; particularly those that supply large revenue for their schools.
It is at the high school level and at the neighborhood level, particularly, where working remotely is not an option and where overcrowding, marginal waste disposal, drinking water access, rodent, and insect infestation, are more familiar and understood. The assertion of invulnerability by MOM aka POTUS and his cynical restoking of white supremacy, law, and order brutality denial of Covid lethality, and denigration of science not only adds to the deadly brew but ignites it increasingly less selectively. Masks and social distancing have been politicized, lockdowns are equated with slavery. Across the world, more and more countries are closing down mandatorily after choosing to defy the virus in favor of their economies.
MOM and the virus will result in a challenge to the electoral process and to the balloting process. Terms like communism, socialism, and fascism are being tossed around as the heat of the explosive mix that we as a nation have become intensifies. As the impatient demand release of a nonexistent laptop created by Giuliani and denied credibility even by FOX and the POST and the equally impatient demand Medicare for everyone and a Green New World, the Punch and Judy show (now with silencing) resumes on Thursday night. However, kidnapping plots, assassination attempts, gun sales, civil unrest, police brutality, the rise of the militias and increasing evidence of foreign interference into not only the election but the very fabric of our nation because of our debtor status and our debtor chief executive.
