The old, evil idea of humans as units of production
When people’s value is reduced to their economic contributions, they are dehumanized.
My grandmother is 92 and lives in a memory care facility that is, thankfully, closed to outside visitors as a result of COVID-19. She is feisty, resilient, frail, and occasionally as grumpy as the rest of us. She has to have her coffee every morning (and afternoon, if she had her way). Her name is Jackie. She used to call me chickadee, and I miss that.
She’s part of the population in our country that is most vulnerable to COVID-19. This is the population Dan Patrick sees as a small, necessary sacrifice to the economic stability that the lieutenant governor of Texas, where I live, calls “The American Dream.” Speaking to Tucker Carlson in March, Patrick fervently preached:
No one reached out to me and said, as a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren? And if that's the exchange, I'm all in… The legacy of our country is at risk… Those of us who are 70-plus, we’ll take care of ourselves—but don’t sacrifice the country. Don’t do that. Don’t ruin this great American dream.
