“There’s no need to speak the truth – just put a stop to your opinions…” Monk, unknown.

Amidst all the fear and confusion, there was something nice about the first days of the Coronavirus. We all seemed to come together and face the same challenge; we all seemed to be in the same boat. Even our enthusiastically divisive President was making nice for a few days, we needed to help each other, not shout.

It was perhaps naive to believe that would last.

The vast corporate machinery of media and politics and geography and money  – the stupefying and paralytic dominance of a “left” and a “right” governing all thought and policy – all made it inevitable that we would split off again.

We have, it just took a few weeks. It feels to me that division and argument are our natural place now, we only veer away from grievance briefly.

The angry and aggrieved have found a new way to rally against the educated elites, and blame them for destroying their world. Where I live, this familiar and comfortable ground. And I am an outsider, looking in, which seems to be the story of my life.

Once again, the “left” and” right” are veering in opposite directions,  abandoning their brief fling with taking care of people, and once again, rural America and urban America seem to be living on separate planets.

One half of the country now thinks this crisis is an overblown elitist conspiracy and should end, and the other is on the edge of Armageddon, trembling in place and wondering who or what to believe.

One half of the America – the urban half – is exploding with sick people, the other half – the rural half doesn’t yet quite understand what the danger is.

And if you live in the country, this harsh view makes some sense. In some cities, this virus is a  Tsunami, dismantling people’s lives. Up here, it’s like watching a volcano erupt a thousand miles away. Maybe that will change.

I am not bounded by a “left” or “right,” and I am an urban child loving the country, and that sometimes frees me to think for myself, even though I am no great thinker. I need to please no one but myself.

And nobody is asking me what I think. They assume they know.

This one is a corker.

It is clear to me by now that neither the “left” or the “right” has any great interest in coming together to do anything except to bring their system back online. They pretend to be helping people in dire need, but everybody on both sides know who is about to get screwed Again.

I hate to sound so cynical. But it doesn’t feel wrong to me to write this. That is heresy.

They have to follow the script, there is no thinking for themselves.

I am always a refugee, wherever I am, and perhaps that explains my attachment to them.

I pity anyone struggling to figure out who to listen to or believe, as the ideologues and fanatics stand up and crawl out of their bunkers.

I looked forward to hearing from Dr. Anthony Fauci; I trusted him to be both knowledgeable and direct.  Being too honest for politicians, he is being pushed aside, right before our very eyes. And going along with it.

I pictured him going out in a burst of glory, but that will not happen. I will miss him.

Dr. Fauci has fallen from favor.  He corrected the President too many times, and didn’t praise him for the brilliant job he is doing like everyone else does.

Dr. Grandpa is being muzzled. He may or may not know it, but he is going away.

The White Rabbit, in his commentary, says nothing has changed.

But something has changed.

Lately, I’ve been struck favorably by my Governor, Andrew Cuomo, who seems sincere, honest, and empathetic. Nobody seems to be pulling his strings; he seems to have found his time and his moment.

The division between science and ideology has never been more evident, as a powerful and tempting new movement is emerging to lift this Draconian state of emergency and get on with America’s real business – business.

This approach is telling me everything I want to hear: this isn’t that serious, older adults die all the time, wrecking the economy would be far worse than losing thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of lives to the Coronavirus.

I’ve never trusted or listened to people who tell me what I want to hear. I prefer to listen to people who want to tell me the truth, even if I don’t like hearing it.

Living where I live, and seeing first-hand the toll this disease and the response is taking on working people, I am torn. Perhaps the scientists and the politicians have gone too far; perhaps they are doing more damage than our system can bear; maybe we can get back to our lives (not me, I’m not going to be allowed out of the house for some time).

Perhaps things can return to “normal?” I do know better. I’ve covered lots of crises.

It is never that easy, and this crisis tells me that there is already no “normal” any longer, we will have to re-define it over time. The virus took our normal away and trashed it.

It isn’t that the world is going to end. It’s more than it’s going to change. And change big.

Maybe the scientists were right, and maybe they were wrong. We’ll soon know, not that this will make any difference to ideologues weaned on grievance and dogma. But it will make a difference to me.

When I lived in the  urban world, I never really knew any working-class people, except to pay them for tending to my house and cards. Up here, I knew them well and saw them all the time. I see the devastating toll the new global economics has taken on their towns and loves and families.

Here it goes once more: these lockdowns and shelter-in-place commands are taking down them and their families, and pretty much the same people are doing it – city people. I know it isn’t the same, but it sure feels like the same.

Hardly any of the angry and healthy people are sick, they have no real connection to New York City, and they want to get their lives back.  They’ve done nothing wrong? Who wouldn’t be angry?

So once again, during this new and unprecedented crisis, I am not sure how to feel or what to believe. I don’t have a leader, no horse in that race.

As a  sort of Libertarian (leave me alone) middle-of-the-roader who doesn’t trust the President on scientific life-and-death matters, I liked what Governor Cuomo said today: we don’t have to sacrifice one group or another.

Let’s protect the most vulnerable from this virus, and started getting everybody else back to work if they have already had the disease or can function at little risk, or aren’t likely to die from it.

That’s almost everybody.

For 98 percent of the people, Cuomo said, the virus is not dangerous. For older people with other problems, it is lethal. So ease up on the 98 percent and take excellent care of the other two.

And I in delusion, or is this just plain common sense? If the scientists are wrong, then this is wrong.

I like it, but I may be biased. Cuomo said he would never abandon the elderly to their fate; they are precious. They can be protected and cared for.

Just because they are old, they don’t need to be discarded or left on their own to die a hard death. I don’t care to be abandoned, not just yet.

Cuomo does not seem to be coming from a place of greed, or an obsession with the stock market,  he, like the President,  is not running for re-election this year. And what more dangerous person could there be in a crisis then a politician running for re-election in nine months?

But I guess there is no single guru who can tell me what to think and how to feel. I suppose that’s my job.

I am in a fuzzy place. I am no scientist and no politician.

Thinking for myself in a Pandemic seems over my head somehow, I want to be told what to believe.

At the same time, I see the opportunity and appeal of thinking, doing some homework, talking to some smart people, and doing my thinking.

Am I good enough?

I don’t know. I am sure stubborn enough to try.