Sigh

 Recently I checked in with the Trumpite side of my family; after radio silence from 2016-2020, I call a particular relative on the far side once or twice a quarter. We usually pose one political question to each other (from our last conversation--which upcoming month do I think Harris will take over the presidency from a doddering Biden vs. do you actually think Trump won?) and do minimal sparring during the 20 minutes of conversation.

This relative has exactly the same educational background as me, graduating from an east coast prep boarding school and a liberal arts college, with subsequent very heavy exposure to the field of law. Yet somehow it's yin and yang, with the two touching but never overlaping anywhere apparently.

Among other chatter, we agreed to disagree about the Texas state legislative body--I learned that the irresponsible Texas state dems were taking a taxpayer paid two-week vacation elsewhere instead of doing their jobs, and my relative learned that the state repubs were busy enacting voter surpression laws and overthrowing popular will (democracy) instead of, for instance, addressing the dangerous state of their power grid which killed hundreds of Texans last winter.

I told my relative that I heard on MSNBC that 99% of the 6,000 COVID deaths in June were of unvaccinated people and I was imparting this news because I cared about my relative. My relative told me that 4,000 of those deaths were due to other causes and were labeled as COVID deaths because hospitals and doctors get paid extra for so labeling them.

I learned that this relative had already had COVID and was therefore immune for life whereas my relative learned that antibodies to COVID reinfection fade after a few months and getting vaccinated is the best way to avoid a possibly lethal or debilitating (long haul) reinfection.

After learning from my relative that the administration is trying to get everybody vaccinated for "unknown reasons" with unknown effects upon their bodies, we agreed to talk next month. Two Americas.