Items

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  2020-10-05

  The New York Times-- As Trump Seeks to Project Strength, Doctors Disclose Alarming Episodes

  This article is important because it shows that the president during the COVID-19 pandemic was not smart and didn’t take it seriously.
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  2020-10-02

  HERMIT HERALD VOL 1 ISSUE 67

  President & CV
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  2020-09-06

  Les Néo-Brunswickois votent tôt en raison de la pandémie de COVID-19.

  Cet article montre comment les élections sont affectées dans le monde. This article shows how elections are being affected throughout the world. Curator's Note: The translation of the title is "New Brunswickers vote early due to COVID-19 pandemic." The translation of the screenshot is "New Brunswick: Early voting unusually popular"
• 2020-08-15

  Campaigning in The Time of COVID - Nick Cook, Suffolk University

  (note: nothing written here represents the views of the candidates or parties represented here - this is solely the personal memoir of one Nick Cook) Volunteering for a political campaign even during the best of times is a weird experience. Your day to day mission is to knock on the doors of—or call on—complete strangers (or at best someone you have a vague memory of seeing at a rally some time ago) and ask them if they can take a moment out of their complicated and hectic lives to hear from the gospel of whichever chosen candidate you're preaching, in the hope that, in about a week or two they'll still remember enough of your spiel to fill in that person's bubble. The coronavirus has not made that any easier. I do feel, however, that it has created a weird sense of camaraderie in those of us who are still trying to push the gears of democracy in this plague year, or whatever name you media types have christened it. I personally am not the type of person who supports campaigns that can afford to have their faces splashed across TV screens and names plastered on billboards. Doorknocking and trying to love thy neighbor is—to me—still the best way to do the business of democracy. I entered politics because I wanted to have some sense of control of my life and community. To make the lives of the people around me just a little easier and a little less anxiety free. So that maybe one day no kid is going to have to come home to an empty refrigerator and no one will ever have to experience the pain of living paycheck by paycheck again. Seeing that lightbulb on people's faces when I talk to them about a candidate or that little smile on their face as I wave goodbye and thank them for their time is why I do this. It's knowing that maybe I made a little change for the day. So coronavirus taking that away from me was hard. I'd like to say that my doubts about campaigning digitally were actually wrong and one day I had a really fulfilling phone call with a voter where we both connected with each other in these lonely times or I had an incredibly amazing Zoom session that changed everything. But I didn't. It's just been a very taxing time that I'm pushing through because I can't stand sitting alone at the house with my thoughts anymore. In the week or so leading up to the election, I got the chance to do at least a little in-person campaigning. Waving and holding signs on street corners, putting literature in doorways, that kind of thing. As well as the chance to stand socially-distanced outside of polling places on primary election day. The people I met on the campaign trail here were just as tired and ready for things to change as I was. One State House candidate compared this campaign season to running for office in a cave and that about summed it up for me. Seeing Tanya Vyhovsky, a social worker and therapist, win her primary election to represent my neighboring town of Essex was also the first real-time I felt joy. Someone who comes from that background and experience and isn't just another lawyer or landlord and has a truly transformative vision for society winning is always great to see. Similarly my home state of Vermont also likely elected Taylor Small, our first transgender lawmaker, and someone who shares that vision. Seeing these victories and meeting everyone who pushed for them along the way has renewed me with a new sense of life in the political realm. Campaigning in the age of COVID has also begun to truly impart on me the lesson that democracy doesn't just come from the ballot box but needs to be expanded into our workplaces, community gatherings, and social lives. However, this is a story for another time. (Join your local union and mutual aid society!)
• 
  2020-08-11

  Election Infection and #SavetheChildren

  This screenshot shows two signs that purportedly hang in an unknown brick-and-mortar establishment that read "Face Masks are BANNED from this Studio. If you are sick please do not enter. #SavetheChidren [sic]" and "The Real Pandemic is Pedophillia [sic]. We do not believe in the Election Infection #SaveTheChidren [sic]" The signs suggest that the Covid-19 pandemic is a political stunt meant to rig the 2020 Presidential Election and, instead, shift the narrative to the problem of pedophilia and child sex trafficking. Though President Trump is not mentioned, observers might get the impression that this establishment, if it indeed exists, supports him for several reasons. Most importantly, there is the suggestion that a global pandemic is nothing more than a choreographed conspiracy to ensure Donald Trump loses the 2020 Election. But the hashtag #savethechildren (misspelled in the signs) has been used to shift the narrative away from the Covid-19 pandemic and toward another problem the country faces, human trafficking. The dismantling of human trafficking networks has been one of Trump's less controversial achievements, one that many believe has been ignored by the news media. It is unclear if these signs exist of if they have been altered for dissemination on social media. Many Facebook and Twitter users have shared the image.
• 
  May 6, 2020

  Plague Journal, Day 54: Jumping down a right-wing rabbit hole

  I'm keeping a Covid-19 journal. In the latest entry, as the bodies pile up I explore a Trumpian disinformation rabbit hole involving a Wuhan lab, a New York-based research group, and an NIH grant. Also, a potential job goes up in smoke.
• 
  2020-06-03

  A Question of Trauma

  This is a screenshot of the headlines on Vox News from June 3, 2020. Of the seven articles shown here, three are about healthcare (with two specific to COVID), three are about police brutality (including one about police using tear gas on protesters), and the lead story is speculation on whether or not Trump will leave office if he loses this upcoming election. Seeing a screenshot of what the daily news looked like throughout this pandemic is important for future historians because the experience of scrolling through the headlines and worrying simultaneously about a raging global pandemic, an emboldened police state, and a descent into authoritarianism helps explain why many people are describing the last few months as "traumatic." A mention of trauma warrants a careful reflection of the question "Traumatic for whom?" The centrality of white supremacy-- the disproportionate rate of COVID infections and deaths among Black and Indigenous People of Color; the disproportionate impact of police violence on Black, Indigenous, and Latinx communities; and the weaponization of whiteness that allowed Trump's election in the first place-- has left many to comment on the ways in which this current moment is uniquely traumatic for People of Color and especially Black and Indigenous people. While communities of color have been condemning state violence for generations, some scholars have speculated on the uniqueness of this moment, arguing that a combination of disillusionment--as people watched the government fail to provide even the most basic protections against the virus-- and increased virtual presence-- as social media was flooded with videos of police brutalizing both citizens and protesters-- have forced white Americans to confront the extensive and devastating impacts of systemic racism in new ways. Although many white people have decried police violence and themselves donated or marched in the past few weeks, shortcomings regarding allyship have been well documented, and it's difficult to say whether or not white Americans' newfound commitments to anti-racism will be part of a better post-coronavirus World or disappointingly just another short-lived pandemic trend. As a white scholar who is not an expert on questions of race or Critical Race Theory, my description of these events is almost certainly clumsy and incomplete. While my perspective is both limited and flawed, it seems as though the extent and depth of the trauma of this moment-- to individuals, to communities, and to our nation-- is still very much unfolding.
• 
  2020-06-06

  Iowa Attempts to Limit Election Official’s Power During Pandemic

  Following Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate’s decision to send absentee ballot requests to every registered voter ahead of the June 2nd primary, Senate Republicans passed a bill to limit the Secretary’s power and prohibit the same action from occurring again. Pate’s decision was made in an effort to allow all Iowans the change to vote without increasing the risk of spreading COVID-19 at the polls. With many rural counties reducing in-person polling places to just one per county, absentee voting was the only choice for many rural Iowans. The decision by Pate resulted in a record voter turnout for the state.
• 2020-05-19

  Reid’s reflection on the pandemic 19 May 2020

• 
  2020-04-16

  Frustration with the Wisconsin Spring Election

  An editorial in the Crawford County Independent and Kickapoo Scout expresses frustration with the decision to hold an in person election in Wisconsin on April 7th. Many of the poll workers at voting sites were older and at risk if infected.
• 
  2020-05-15

  Student Paper on Federalism and Coronavirus

  A student's paper discussing the federal government's response to COVID-19.
• 
  2020-05-15

  A current trend of epidemics/pandemics

  This picture is food for thought, and for a while was pretty popular as it circulated around the internet. This meme is misleading as it implies that outbreaks are "planted" and do not occur naturally. These kind of posts drive more ideas into the brains of civilians that conspire against the government. The meme itself has incorrect information of the years that the outbreaks have been reported, such as SARS being first reported in 2003 and swine flu pandemic was reported in spring 2009. Posts like these are trending on all different social media platforms that are misleading people with wrong information, making them have more hatred for the government. It is interesting to see how much people want to blame the government for outbreaks and create patterns in order to place blame on other human beings, not taking into consideration the biological factors that of the viruses themselves. #CSUS #HIST15H *Submitted text in "Creator": unknown, taken from twitter and a secondary source. taken from a blog written by Bethania Palma on March 3, 2020
• 
  2020-04-07

  Voter Suppression in Wisconsin During Covid

  The image depicts a women with an I voted sticker on her medical mask, this is in response to Wisconsin not delaying their primary during the pandemic, forcing people to basically do everything the health experts encourage against. They had too wait in long lines, near people, in public spaces; this is basically a new form of voter supression.
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  2020-04-01

  Tribal Election Process Changes Due to Declaration of Emergency

  Tribal elections held by mail ballot only. “This resolution affects only the current election as it is a temporary emergency amendment.” #IndigenousStories
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  2020-04-23

  "The Hermit Herald" vol. 1 Issue 20

  update CV status; debate- Open/close; Grennel, no intel. If allies Don’t stop gay bashing; Perseverance Doesn’t pay off- Samsung.