Prairie State Wire

Dear Governor J.B. Pritzker:

The fact that a citizen of Illinois would ever find himself in such circumstances as to warrant a letter of this nature is both disturbing and deeply depressing. Over the past several weeks, I have watched you, Mayor Lightfoot, and countless others across the country drive both the state of Illinois and the United States as a whole into the ground, in so many ways. I am infuriated by the way that this COVID-19 pandemic – and yes, I concede that it is a pandemic – has been handled for a number of reasons. As a citizen of this country and a resident of our fine state, I am disgusted by the manner in which you and other civic “leaders” have trampled on the rights of Americans and Illinoisans. As a health care worker, I am disgusted by the way in which you have mismanaged tax dollars and other resources and utterly failed to protect our most vulnerable neighbors and my colleagues. Finally, as a human being, I am disgusted with how you so frivolously dismiss the very real struggles felt by so many of my friends, neighbors, and family members and supply your constituents with little more than vacuous platitudes and empty reassurances during these extraordinarily stressful times.  

First and foremost, it is difficult for me to identify which of the following is the most disturbing: the extent to which you have abused your power and stripped people of their liberties, or the frivolity and flippancy with which you have done so. “Just a little longer,” you incessantly preach, as every week you add new restrictions and regulations to the residents of Illinois as they attempt to go about their daily lives. Children have been removed from schools, their parents removed from their workplaces, and their friends and neighbors restricted from gathering. Parks and other public lands have been shuttered to prevent “unnecessary congregations,” and rather than reevaluate and consider relenting, you press onward. It is not up to the American people to decide whether or not they will resume their livelihoods – no, it is squarely in the hands of you and other “experts,” who justify an indefinite suspension of life as we know it so that you all might preserve your reputations and legacies. It is pathetic and shameful to watch you and your ilk tell everyone else what “must be done” as your family jettisons off to their Florida estate for some rest and relaxation. Your hypocrisy is rampant, but sadly unsurprising.

In mid-April, I answered a call from my boss at an assisted-living facility. She was panicked because an employee had tested positive for COVID-19 and members of our staff were dropping like flies out of fear for their loved ones, so I agreed to return to work. In fact, I have been living in a spare room there since April 14th to avoid going home and exposing my immunocompromised mother. Unfortunately, and predictably, the virus quickly spread like wildfire through our facility, and has since killed ten of our beloved residents. Six more are teetering on the verge of recovery, and the only one who has officially “beaten the disease” is in the hospital without his ability to walk. This disease is no joke, and yet I feel that two things must be said regarding its spread and lethality. First, if it were a particularly bad strain of the flu going around, the same members of our community would be sick and dying – there is empirical evidence that this is not a significantly more dangerous pathogen. I do not say this to diminish the death and loss that I have seen firsthand – it is horrendous – but it is important to recognize that the vast majority of media reports are grossly exaggerated. Second, from the moment I arrived with my overnight bag in hand, my facility has struggled enormously to get the appropriate PPE to protect its workers and residents from COVID-19. This was rather confusing to me at first, as I constantly heard news reports praising the private sector for rapidly churning out boxes of masks and gloves. It all came together, however, when I turned on the television to see and hear your self-adulatory remarks about the fantastic new field hospitals being erected all over the state in anticipation of “the many cases to come.”

Yes, let’s fast-forward to today, when the multimillion-dollar McCormick Place center is being deconstructed after hosting a measly six (6) COVID-19 patients, and my coworkers and I are STILL waiting on a new shipment of gowns and masks. Instead of immediately and prudently diverting resources to where they were most needed – i.e. where there were actual, documented cases of COVID-19 – you chose to grandstand and put on a show for an audience largely blind to the harsh reality. While you and Lightfoot received your applause and compliments, my nurses and I held the hands of the sick and dying, choking back tears in week-old tattered gowns stained with food and fluids. I know that you and your fellows are aware of the crisis, because there is constant press chastising the rapid spread of the virus in nursing homes and endless criticism hurled by the likes of you, Gretchen Whitmer, and Andrew Cuomo at facilities like mine. And yet, at the end of the day, you have vastly mismanaged our resources, and even with all of your brilliant social distancing impositions and your appreciative words towards those on the “front lines,” so many health care workers remain sick, vastly underpaid, and on the verge of strike, and the corpse count among the vulnerable continues to rise. Your empty praises fall on ears too busy tending to the ill and dying to lend them any attention, and offer no consolation to myself, my fellow employees, or the countless grieving families. Even more insulting is the fact that due to your ridiculous restrictions on funeral services, we cannot even grieve properly. I challenge you to hold a dying man’s hand as he draws his final breath, fighting the white-hot wave that threatens to overcome your field of vision, only to have a pompous politician wag his finger at you and tell you that, as the 11th person to show up to the funeral home, you must mourn him over Zoom. You are utterly and unbelievably out of touch with reality, and it is readily apparent in your conduct and “leadership.”

In line with your disregard for our freedoms and your failure to properly allocate resources and provide support in this crisis where it is so desperately needed, it has been maddening to see the ease with which you have dismissed the struggles of my fellow citizens and how little you have done to remedy them. There are certain sensible measures that we can and should adopt – for example, contact tracing and mass testing are noble and efficient aims that should be given high priority if we are to overcome this disease. I am even of the mind that a brief period of social distancing was in order at the outset of the pandemic, so that our leaders could get their bearings and forge on. What I am not in favor of, however, is widespread economic hardship perpetuated by a man with a net worth of more than $3 billion USD. You cannot possibly comprehend how frustrating it is to hear you so condescendingly instruct the common man on how he should conduct himself, as you sit on your throne in your ivory tower, safely nestled in the wealth built up over generations of participation in the Chicago political machine. You have no idea the suffering that you have imposed upon people, the hardships you have created with your blanket bans on business and draconian policies. If you continue on this trajectory, including your “brilliant” five-step plan that you outlined earlier this week, there will be no grand recovery for Illinois. There will simply be millions out of work, innumerable small businesses destroyed forever, unemployment lines that stretch along the shores of Lake Michigan, and the fragmented remains of a once-strong state that continues to hemorrhage its residents. With leadership like yours, Illinois will be unrecognizable in a matter of years, a broken shell of its former self. Will you be satisfied with your handling of this crisis if, when the dust settles, no one wishes to establish homes and families here? Will you be satisfied when the great city of Chicago becomes the new Detroit, driven into abject poverty and despair by the latest in a series of failed leaders? Of course, I don’t expect you to consider these questions honestly, nor do I expect you to change course. That would be far too damaging to your cherished self-image, and it would vindicate those who have dared contradict you.

Lest I come off as too harsh in my critiques, I do not pretend to have all the answers regarding this frustrating pandemic. Nor is the blame squarely in your hands – you are hardly the only tyrant masquerading as a devoted governor these days, and the federal government, including President Trump, has made its fair share of blunders and, more recently, utterly failed to take a stand against power-mad politicians like you. However, I do offer some common-sense policy prescriptions that I have absorbed and developed further from my month “on the front lines,” as you say. First and foremost, get your “experts” on the same page and publicize the encouraging findings alongside the innumerable reports of death and devastation. There are constantly articles and stories being published about encouraging drug therapies, possible vaccine avenues, and novel discoveries regarding the novel coronavirus – and yet, these are drowned in seas of Trump criticisms, politicized articles surrounding D.C. power struggles, and barrages of obituaries and statements of dismay. Instead of this ceaseless negativity, let us attempt to recognize the rays of light that permeate the darkness.

Second, let the people practice common sense and reopen our state’s economy. There is strong evidence to suggest that this virus, while a nasty thing to come down with, is a very small threat to the majority of the population. There are scary stories of young adults and children dropping dead – and any loss of human life is a profound loss indeed – but if someone is a vulnerable individual or is afraid of the virus, let them decide for themselves whether or not they will stay home. For example, I am young, healthy, and hardly afraid of this disease, and I have been directly exposed for a number of weeks due to my line of work. As my mother suffers from an immunoglobin A (IgA) deficiency and is considered a member of a vulnerable population, I have only been back to my residence for distanced meals and brief visits with my family. I refuse to subject her carelessly to this affliction, and I have made personal sacrifices so that she can remain safe and healthy. I haven’t seen my friends in over a month, and it hurts, but I am duty-bound to self-isolate. Let those in similar situations do the same and let everyone else return to work so that they can provide for their families and save their own lives and livelihoods. This is the fair and right thing to do, and there is no shortage of evidence that suggests so.

Finally, instead of offering empty words and pointless platitudes, provide legitimate support to those who need it. Instead of taking more than $200 USD out of my bi-weekly paycheck to line your pockets, perhaps consider a freeze in taxation for those who are most directly combatting this virus. That – and not your mindless babbling on the television – would truly honor those working in the health care industry and the other service professions, those who have (despite your best efforts) kept us afloat thus far. Perhaps instead of wasting millions of dollars on useless “model-based” tents and field hospitals that will scarcely see a single COVID-19 patient, you could further bolster small businesses and struggling families with meaningful subsidies that get them back on their feet. Instead of allowing the unemployment application system to remain derelict for weeks upon weeks, you could at least provide an accessible avenue for those whom you have forced out of work to receive something with which to support their ailing, hungry families. These seem like the good and reasonable things to do, but perhaps I am too simple to understand the machinations of the great J.B. Pritzker and other leaders like him. After all, it is only my tax dollars and those of my fellow citizens that keep our bloated government afloat in the first place, and it is only our votes that put our leaders in office so that they might represent our interests faithfully. What, indeed, do any of us know?

In conclusion, sir, I would like to offer what is so scarcely found in our society these days – hope. As the media salivates over the continued extension of stay-at-home orders and relishes the prospect of our prolonged suffering and the economic and personal devastation of the pandemic as tools with which they can bring down Trump come November, I hope that you will right the ship. I hope that you and other leaders will quickly develop the wisdom with which you might become true civic leaders. I hope that you will cooperate and play well with others to quickly fix both state and nation. I hope that you and your family will retain your good health and cheer. I hope that this all happens soon. Despite all that has befallen us – all the death, suffering, and anguish I have seen with my own two eyes – I am confident in the ability of our country to rebound. Whether you will stand with or against the common good remains to be seen. For your sake and the sake of your fellow man, I pray you’ll make the right decision.

Sincerely,

John Adams

John Adams is the pseudonym of a college-age Certified Nursing Assistant who lives and works in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. His facility and town have been affected particularly severely by the policies imposed by the Pritzker administration, and he hopes that his submission can inspire true change going forward. He is using an alias to protect his employment and prospects for medical school, as well as to shield his family and friends from any potential blowback inspired by his publication.