Compassion, where art thou?

I grew up believing Black lives matter, that elderly lives matter, and sick lives matter, gay lives matter, Buddhist lives matter, Disabled lives matter, atheist lives matter, foreign lives matter, young lives matter — you get the picture.

What happened to that in our country? I thought I was in a majority with those sentiments until the past year when a large portion of the country has gotten behind a President whose inaction has led to the death of a hundred thousand lives due to a pandemic, which could have been avoided. His actions (in holding rallies) has led directly to an estimated 700 deaths from that virus.

The President claimed that we can live with COVID-19 because in “most populations [it’s] far less lethal”. He excuses these deaths as just those of the old or sick or people of color (I’m presuming on that last one, but it fits the facts). And that’s apparently sufficient enough for millions of people out there to see past his ineffective leadership. I’m sad to be in an America where the lack of empathy of the President has been normalized to a large portion of my country.

Where do we go from here? How do we get out of this? I don’t know. Vote the man out, for starters. But what about his followers that have thrown common decency out the window? Who have not only forgotten compassion, but who often mock it? How do we restore their humanity?

And, asking for a friend, do Canadians still care for their fellow human beings? Maybe they can adopt America’s once-motto: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.”