Lasting effects of the pandemic

There is considerable worry about the pandemic, the federal and local deficits, COVID payouts, municipal support, hospital support, evictions, mortgage payments, and on and on… all the way down the list of needed assistance to the most basic of necessities for the American population: Food.

Yes, we’re in a mess. We have no idea who has got the virus, we have no way to trace those in contact, we have become a selfish community refusing to protect others even by wearing a teeny-tiny mask. Don’t wear a mask? It’s a statement of not caring about your fellow woman or man in case you have the virus.

Yes, part of the mishandling of this pandemic response can be fairly laid at the feet of the administration, which denied early signs and examples by other countries of what to do and what not to do. Yes, the administration reacted too late, still reacts too little and has no plan to follow — for the government or individuals — leaving it all up to the states to remedy, poorly.

Yes, families are being torn apart by the illness, deaths of loved ones and, never least, wanting to find someone, somewhere to blame and someone, anywhere, to fix the problems that are still so very evident.

At the end of the day, we each have to find a way forward for our families. How to educate our kids, how to help support ourselves and our neighbors (sometimes emotionally, sometimes financially). We have learned that there is no one in this current administration we can rely on, no one we can trust who has our personal — importantly: personal — interests at heart.

So? First, we have to reassess who we are individually within our nation. We need to move away from choosing and blindly trusting sides, looking for a simple solution to a small issue, and instead look for individuals we can entrust to remedy the governmental oversight that our democracy was established to put into effect. We fought a revolution to throw off the dictated plan of a potentate, choosing instead to self-govern. It is time to return to that principle of self-governance. And that self-governance begins at home.

We need to examine our families’ needs and direction and then ask a simple question: “Who do I trust, in this next election, will be as honest, as moral, as careful and as supportive of our family as we are?” If there is no candidate who you can be sure — deadly sure — meets those criteria, do not vote for her or him. Start at the most local level. Throw out any municipal candidate who fails your own family’s values and test. If he or she lies all the time, vote no. If he or she has no morals, vote no. If she or he does not value facts and science over make-believe, vote no. If he or she is in any way racist or makes disparaging remarks about immigrants, look back into your own past, take a DNA test and become enlightened that you, too, have dozens of different racial ancestors… tell that candidate to become educated. Find candidates who uphold the American ideal of fairness, opportunity for all, a welcome mat on every doorstep. Surely these are your family’s ideals.

Above all, do not compromise, do not assume a candidate will, mostly, be OK. Is OK a standard you apply to your own family members? A candidate who promises one thing you value but fails other criteria is a bad candidate. Do not vote for her or him.

Remember, America was not built on “OK” as a standard. We were built on being open, warm and the best. Find that inner voice of “best” in your family and apply it going forward. Only then can we get past the storm we’re in and the lasting effects of this pandemic.

Writer Peter Riva, a former resident of Amenia Union, now resides in New Mexico.