Some may consider what I’m writing about today as controversial, but frankly, I don’t care at this point. If you don’t see this as a real possibility, you’re not looking very hard. The Trump administration and its allies in the GOP-led states are pursuing a very cavalier policy regarding COVID-19 and their plans to reboot the economy. They have minimized the impact of the current crisis, essentially hiding the ball on fundamental questions of who has been infected, who has been exposed, and even who has died as a result of this awful virus. They have openly denigrated the idea of expansive testing, Trump first among those calling testing “overrated” and complaining that more testing means more cases. They have characterized the risks of ending the shutdown as risks worth taking, and have encouraged Americans to think of themselves as “warriors” worthy of sacrifice.
Now, we know that Trump wants things to magically return to normal so that he can have a better shot at re-election. But why would any president seeking a second term advocate policies that would result in tens if not hundreds of thousands of dead Americans? I think a fairly convincing answer lies in the demographics of those most severely affected by this virus. According to current research (see this APM report), the COVID-19 death rate among Black Americans is almost 2-1/2 times that of White Americans. Nationwide, Blacks make up 22.7% of COVID deaths, significantly over-representing their numbers; they make up a much larger percentage of losses in states like Georgia, Mississippi, Michigan, South Carolina, etc. It’s no secret, either, that this disease hits people harder when they have fewer resources, less access to quality health care, more exposure to conditions associated with poverty, and so on.
In other words, this disease hits hardest those people who tend not to vote for Donald Trump in particular and Republicans in general. When Trump and GOP governors push for workers to go back to the mill, the restaurant, the fields, etc., they know that those people are not their core supporters. If they drop dead, it’s no skin off of Trump’s nose – in fact, it may in some small way contribute to his victory. A cynical suggestion? Not at all. Trump bends every effort towards giving himself an advantage in the November general election. He has railed against vote-by-mail, particularly in states like Michigan, whose leaders he has threatened with federal funding cuts – this in the odd belief that vote-by-mail favors Democrats. (Based on his own comments, he certainly thinks that more people voting is bad news for Republicans.) He is a self-dealing bullshit artist, and not a particularly convincing one, either. How he garnered as many votes as he did in 2016 I’ll never know. (PT Barnum had a theory about that.)
Dark people, poor people, undocumented laborers … they’re all expendable, worthy of sacrifice for the sake of decent economic numbers going into the Fall. How long are we going to stand for this crap?
luv u,
jp
It’s vintage American political theater, kind of like the ubiquitous flag pin. (Pin on, hero! Pin off, traitor!) We are so obsessed with symbolism that we invariably miss the fundamentals. Reverend Barber was talking about this over the last few days, countering a lot of the happy talk about everyone coming together and pulling down that offending flag. Seriously, when I watched Nikki Haley making her dramatic announcement, all I could think of was the thousands of working families in South Carolina – many of whom are African-Americans – who could benefit from Medicaid expansion under the ACA, if only she and her party would allow it. Sure – symbols mean something to those who have suffered under them. That’s reason enough to pull the stars and bars down. But let’s not stop there.