BTRTN: Our Surfside Condo Democracy
Born To Run The Numbers sees a frightening metaphor for our democracy in the Surfside Condo collapse: it is what happens after years of neglect and failure to address obvious signs of erosion and structural weakness. Here is the BTRTN month in review for June:
http://www.borntorunthenumbers.com/2021/07/btrtn-our-surfside-condo-democracy.html
Excerpts: "If you squint hard enough, peering at Washington and the world through semi-focused slits, here at the end of June, 2021, you might think things were back to normal. COVID-19 has shown strong signs of fading in the US, most of Europe and even India; milestones were met, masks disappeared and renowned venues reopened...
"Wrong. That veneer of normalcy is mighty thin, and the gaping cracks that run through it are hard to miss. They are as glaring as the ones on those doomed pillars that failed to hold up the Champlain Towers South condo in Surfside, Florida, which finally collapsed upon itself after years of inaction. We too are witnesses to the obvious signs of a badly damaged democracy. But for all the cluck-clucking of dismay, time passes, our democracy continues to erode and we wait, seemingly helplessly, for disaster to arrive. What happened in Florida is a pretty heavy metaphor for the state of our democracy, but one we ignore at our obvious peril...
"The issue, in a nutshell, is the massive threat to the integrity of our electoral process. The stench of the Trump Administration and most importantly, its post-November election aftermath has overwhelmed the sweet smell of a functioning democracy."