Has the government fulfilled its duty during this pandemic?

Fundamentally, I believe that the role of government is to take care of the people.

Conservatives only seem to agree with this to the extent of "defending" the people with the largest military might on the planet, and punishing criminals and presumptive criminals as severely as possible.

But the lives of people outside of the United States matter as much as our own, and the guard dog of law enforcement has turned on its masters, so these two aims no longer fall under the umbrella of "taking care of the people" if indeed they ever did.

If the government has the ability to help the people during a catastrophe like a pandemic but refuses to do so, or agrees to do so only on the condition that we place ourselves in further unnecessary danger, that is unconscionable and what we have is an autocratic, authoritarian regime.

How many more people have to die for everyone to figure this out? Will it take the mass deaths of America's children? Would Trump supporters acknowledge it even then?

If I were interested in depriving America of its liberties, I'd draft a populist narrative that involved real Americans vs some imagined elite, and cast every news story as a divisive us vs them battle for the soul of the country. I'd find minority groups to dehumanize and scapegoat because they're born on the wrong side of the border. I'd advocate for increasing executive power to get rid of various type of internal enemies. I would undermine the rule of law by attacking the independence of courts, driving non-loyalists from civil service positions, and stack the justice department with cronies. Then I would sit back and watch the rabid followers of my populist message work themselves into a frenzy my getting upset about masks.

People who talk about freedom would forget about children in concentration camps because of where they were born. People who talk about freedom would forget about mass incarceration. People who talk about freedom would forget about all the big things. Because they are pissed off about having to wear a piece of fabric on their face.

Getting upset at masks because "muh freedom" while opposing criminal justice reform, humane immigration reform and freedom of trade would be ironic and to some degree hilarious, if it weren't so damn sad.