This seems to be one big case of “are you fucking kidding me?”
The mayor of Cumming, Ga., initially issued a social-distancing order and had plans to swear in some 150 new police officers to help enforce the order in the small town in a state where they have over 5,000 confirmed cases.
But some residents complained that the idea of being forced to stay in the house and distancing themselves from people, while being held to that order by police officers, made them feel like they were living in a police state, Newsweek reports.
Well, guess what Cumming-fucking-Georgia, we are all living in a goddamn police state because we’re fighting against an enemy so big and mean that the biggest meanest person I know, President Donald Trump, has been forced to take this thing seriously. But oh no, not the residents of Cummings; they quickly pulled an “AppleCare lady” on the mayor by complaining, and guess what? The mayor, the one tasked with keeping his constituents safe, posted a full message to Facebook apologizing for being mean by asking them to make America safe again.
“Effective immediately I have rescinded the social distancing order that took effect on the morning of April 1, 2020,” Mayor Troy Brumbalow wrote in a statement posted to Facebook.
“While the intent of the order was to protect the public from the spread of COVID-19, it is obvious that a large portion of our public doesn’t want government mandating the recommendations of public health officials,” the statement adds.
The crazy part of all of this is...all of it. It’s not like Brumbalow issued a crazy ask; he asked, like most officials across the country, for social distancing and “prohibited any business, establishment, corporation, nonprofit or organization from having more than 10 people in a single location. The order also suspended all in-dining service at food service establishments in the Cumming city limits,” Newsweek reports.
The mayor continued: “A huge sticking point in the order was the appointment of special policemen to help enforce the order. Under the city charter, the mayor can appoint special policemen during times of emergency. I said in our press release that I would swear in up to 150 policemen,” Brumbalow wrote in his post. “I was looking at a worst-case scenario caused by the pandemic as our police department has 18 officers. I can see that I didn’t communicate our thoughts and intentions clearly enough. People reacted strongly on social media thinking we were becoming a police state. That was never the intent.”
He also apologized for trying to keep his people safe and claimed: “While I think the intent of our order was for the health of the citizens, the delivery was bad,” his statement added.
No, the fuck it wasn’t. Sometimes as an elected official, you have to make tough choices. That’s your job and if the people don’t like it, guess what? Too bad. America needs this right now because the one thing that’s been proven to slow this thing down is not doing all the normal shit we’re used to doing. But oh no, not in Cummings, Ga., because they are special and as such, they can do whatever they want and the mayor’s OK with that because he doesn’t want to hurt their feelings.
Meanwhile, here is where we are as a nation, according to Newsweek:
According to a tracker provided by Johns Hopkins University, there are over 190,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. and at least 4,127 deaths. In Georgia, there are over 4,100 confirmed cases and at least 125 deaths. As of April 1, the Georgia Department of Public Health reports over 4,600 confirmed cases and 139 deaths.
But tell me more about how the city of Cumming doesn’t have to follow the rules because they’re special. The mayor or Cumming should’ve used the response I’ve used to explain to white people why they can’t say the n-word. In fact, it’s an ancient African proverb passed down from mothers whose children want to know why they can’t play outside: “Because I fucking said so!”