Vox:
The coronavirus has yet to hit Russia hard. But when it does, as many experts soon expect, it could prove a huge challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin during a fragile time for his rule.
Putin markets himself as Russia’s hero, the only man who can restore the former Soviet Union’s greatness and bring stability to his country. Anything that messes with that image, whether it’s large-scale protests, a prominent opposition leader, or questions about his leadership, ruins the myth he and his allies have cultivated for decades.
A significant Covid-19 outbreak in Russia, and particularly in the densely populated capital of Moscow, would be devastating to the dictator. If tens of thousands get sick and die, it would puncture the narrative armor Putin has around himself. That high death toll is distinctly possible, as medical resources outside Russia’s major cities are scarce and the country’s older population is at high risk.
Big time Daddy States like Russia spend a lot of time and energy pretending invincibility, and a pandemic is just the thing to poke some big holes in that pretense - holes that can't be glossed over so easily.
So, like I said, I'm not a silver linings kinda guy (cuz why can't we get to the good shit without having to be kicked in the face first? Fuck that), but there're one or two decent things that could come about as we muddle thru this nightmare.
The political demise of certain wannabe autocrats is a delicious prospect, but I think the root of the kind of overthrow of this increasingly authoritarian plutocratic trend is, as always, starting to grow from the "bottom".
What happens when millions of people stop buying what they don't need?
Here's one look - there's been a change in air quality this year:
Here's another: my daughter works at a grocery here in town and the corporate folks decided that a little "Staff Retention" might be in order, so each full-timer got a $300 bonus and a $2-an-hour raise.
The meme is that we're finding out that the grunts in the trenches are the essential ones, while the noble job creators are accomplishing practically nothing with their magical bootstraps.
So, we'll have to wait and see what happens down the road, of course, but for now, there's a lesson or two being illustrated for us in real time.
And the big lesson: This is, effectively, what a general strike looks like. And I promise you, it scares the fuck out of a power structure that depends on us not noticing that a few very privileged assholes are collecting rent from us while they do almost none of the work.
We love to tell ourselves "We work for what we get! This is America, dammit!"
Gotta wonder if this is when it finally starts to sink in and we force the changes we need, or if the plutocrats will be able to go back to the well one more time and convince us to go on pretending with them.
