Rudy Giuliani and George Floyd can't breathe

      "If one man dies of hunger, that's a tragedy. If millions die, that's a statistic."

        Attributed to Joseph Stalin

Stalin probably didn't say it, but we get the point.

If a man dies of suffocation, and the video cameras aren't there to watch it, does it really shock us?

Click: local Jackson County COVID statistics

Almost as many Americans died from COVID yesterday as died on 911. I cite that statistic because TV news casts cite it. They are trying to remind people of how Americans felt in the moment and aftermath of the 911 attacks. It shocked us. The horror. They are trying to turn COVID statistics into a tragedy. 

It doesn't work the same way.

We saw 911 on TV. We saw people jump from 100-floor buildings, saw them in the air. We could imagine their last moments, being burned from behind, facing the open air, jumping into certain, ugly death. We saw people choking on dust and smoke, staggering on the sidewalks, the lucky ones. We learned about villains, who they were and how they plotted. The 911 events got our attention: Surprise, horror, real people and faces, victims, and villains.

For most of us, our experience with COVID is statistical. Day-to-day what we experience are efforts to avoid getting and spreading it. COVID patients are out of sight;  HIPPA, masks, and isolation sees to that. Many of the victims were already segregated and warehoused in facilities for seniors. Seniors have experience with this reality: we become invisible.

The dying-of-COVID part mostly happens to people we don't know, reported without a name, by age and notice that he or she had co-morbidities--the relevant statistics. Their obituaries will talk about their lives, careers, and loving families, but the notice of COVID death will tell the important thing, how close we were to dying anyway.

The most famous person to die of COVID, Herman Cain, was photographed two weeks before he died maskless at the Trump rally in Tulsa. In life, he was a frequent pro-Trump commenter on Fox News. The establishment media did not dare openly say I-told-you-so, or directly blame Trump. A single death is a tragedy, after all, and Cain complicated things. He was Black, and Black people mostly play for the  Democratic team. In fact, he played for the other team, Trump's team, so the job of mourning and self-reflection was the rightful task of Republicans, Trump, and Fox. They didn't do it. He became invisible. He was an embarrassment. He contradicted the Trump/Fox narrative.  

Cain never got his due.

George Floyd did. Upon his slow public death, Floyd became a Democratic symbol of Black suffering under unjust policing by careless, maybe overtly racist, bad White cops. We saw him struggle. "I can't breathe" were his last words. His death seemed personal and deeply wrong to many Americans. It moved opinion on policing, until the story changed from George-Floyd-the-victim to George-Floyd-the-criminal. Then the story got lost amid protests that disintegrated into arson and looting, and then the main story became liberal tolerance of Black and Antifa lawlessness and White anarchists destroying statues. Democrats lost control of the story. 

Rudy Giuliani is "Trump's man." Democrats disagreed with him and loved mocking him. Just look at Rudy Giuliani, over the hill and now pathetic. He made arguments that got shot down by Republican judges. He spoke at the Four Seasons Total Landscaping screw up. His witness seemed drunk. He sweated and looked unwell. His hair dye dripped. He farted. Loser!

 

It was a fair fight. Giuliani called Democrats disgusting Communists out to destroy democracy by stealing the election. Democrats called him pathetic, a crook, and out to destroy democracy by circumventing the election.

Republicans should care passionately about Giuliani. He is their gladiator. He is their hero, saying fearlessly what many Republicans want to hear, that Trump is a great president and Democrats are crooks.

It is possible that he will become the Republican version of George Floyd, a powerful symbol. Giuliani is in the hospital with COVID. Right now the story is "he's doing fine." That is on-message for Trump and Republicans: Don't over-react to COVID; you will get well. But COVID statistics embed a frightening message for 76-years-old White people. About 4% of them who get the disease die from it, and a much higher percentage if one is among those sick enough to be hospitalized. 

Giuliani will be a symbol of courage--going maskless around the White House and at hearings, fighting for Trump. That is baked in. What we don't know is whether he will also become a symbol of COVID recklessness, and the consequence of underestimating the disease. That would be off-brand for Trump, but this story cannot be easily managed any more than the George Floyd story could be managed. Giuliani dying would be a story with a life of its own, and Democrats would attempt to hijack it the way that Republicans hijacked the George Floyd story.

If Giuliani can't breathe, we may see some sign of it. Giuliani on a ventilator could become a symbol of COVID suffering and death, and a cautionary tale reminding Trump-supporting COVID-minimizers that Americans need to be a lot more careful. He might become a symbol of Trump failure, that he could not even protect his own, and that everything Trump touches, dies.