Retrospective and
Commentary
So here we are,
many of us inoculated, some refusing to accept vaccination. The reasoning of
those who refuse the vaccine is so far beyond me that I can’t speculate beyond
the obvious political division on the subject spawned and exacerbated by the
former president. It strikes me as tragic and incredibly disappointing that the
cult of Trump, which has spawned such insane buffoons as Marjorie Taylor Green,
Josh Hawley and others, continues to influence Americans who cannot comprehend
or accept the truth. That truth is simply that being vaccinated is by far the
most sane and reasonable precaution one can take in this era of the plague.
Make no
mistake, the mindset among the vast majority of these folks (non vaxxers) is
the product of 11 months of calculated misinformation piggybacked on four years
of divisive political doctrine aimed at dividing the nation based on race,
xenophobia and general disparagement by certain media of anything less than Far
Right conservative. Tragically, this was
amplified by the opinions of talking heads who know nothing and are happy to
share.
What follows is
a brief timeline of this epic failure of leadership:
·
“We have it totally under control. It’s one
person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be
just fine.” Trump, interview CNBC, 1/22/20
·
“We pretty much shut it down coming in from
China.” — Trump, interview with Sean Hannity, when asked how concerned he was
about the coronavirus, 2/2/20
·
“Now the Democrats are politicizing the
coronavirus. … One of my people came up to me and said, ‘Mr. President, they
tried to beat you in Russia, Russia, Russia.’ That didn’t work out too well.
conversation. They tried anything, they tried it over and over. … And this is
their new hoax.” — Trump, campaign rally Charleston, S.C. 2/28/20
·
“This was unexpected. … And it hit the world.
And we’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it. And it will go away.
Just stay calm. It will go away.” — Trump, to reporters at the U.S. Capitol, 3/10/20
(28 deaths) (the above was in addition to the
complaints by Mitch McConnel, also false, that “this was unexpected” since the
Obama staffers had run a pandemic scenario with 60 page playbook for the
incoming Trump administration, one of whom was McConnell’s wife, incoming
Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao)
·
“Nobody
would ever believe a thing like that’s possible. Nobody could have ever seen
something like this coming, but now we know, and we know it can happen and
happen again.” Trump at a task force
briefing, claiming falsely that “No one saw a pandemic like the coronavirus
coming.” 3/25/20 1,352 deaths to date (see
parenthetical comments above)
Here’s as good
a place as any to assess the huge lie being told here by Trump: Speaking in
Bethesda Md on December 2, 2014, President Barack Obama said: “There may and
likely will come a time in which we have both an airborne disease that is
deadly, and in order for us to deal with that effectively we have to put in
place an infrastructure, not just here at home but globally, that allows us to
see it quickly, isolate it quickly, respond to it quickly, so that if and when
a new strain of flu like the Spanish flu crops up five years from now or a
decade from now, we’ve made the investment and we’re further along to be able
to catch it.”
Nearly a month
earlier, on November 5, 2014, the Obama administration had asked lawmakers for
$6.18 billion in emergency funds to enhance the government’s ability to respond
to an outbreak of Ebola, which was an urgent situation at the time. The proposed
legislation included $4.64 billion for immediate response and $1.54 billion as
a contingency fund to ensure that there are resources available to meet the
evolving nature of the epidemic. Predictably, facing a McConnell led
ultra-conservative Congress with little appetite for big spending measures, this
forward-looking proposal was pretty much dead on arrival.
Obama’s push
for a national framework with installations and personnel ready to swoop in and
confront/curtail an outbreak like the coronavirus met predictably fierce
resistance, and funding for pandemics was forced to stay at the levels approved
in 2010 through the end of Obama’s final term in office. Then: “We inherited a
broken system,” Trump said in one his often repeated snide /derogatory
references to the Obama administration, “But they also gave us empty cupboards.
The cupboard was bare. You’ve heard the expression, ‘the cupboard was bare.’ So,
we took over a stockpile with a cupboard that was bare,” Trump said this on
April 6, 2020, less than a month after proudly announcing that: “We’re
prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it.” What he omitted, was that the
“stockpile” would have benefited from $321 million more in Obama's term than it
ended up getting, because Republicans in Congress stuffed the legislation.
·
“It’s going to be, really, a voluntary thing.
You can do it. You don’t have to do it. I’m choosing not to do it,
but some people may want to do it, and that’s OK. It may be good. Probably
will. They’re making a recommendation. It’s only a recommendation.”
— Trump, in a task force briefing where he announced the face mask
recommendation, 4/3/20, 9,316 deaths to date. (by minimizing the efficacy of
masks and personally refusing to wear one, this may have been the most
criminally negligent action he had taken thus far)
·
"It looks like the coronavirus is being
weaponized as yet another element to bring down Donald Trump," Rush
Limbaugh said on his radio show. "Now, I want to tell you the truth about
the coronavirus … I’m dead right on this. The coronavirus is the common cold,
folks." 2/24/20 (the only truth here (now) are the words “I’m dead”)
·
HANNITY, March 9: "This scaring the living
hell out of people -- I see it, again, as like, let's bludgeon Trump with this
new hoax."
·
HANNITY, March 18: "By the way, this
program has always taken the coronavirus seriously. We've never called
the virus a hoax. (see above!)
So, where are
we today? (5/19/2021) US cases: 32.9 million, deaths: 587,000 (more than the
population of Wyoming). Did it have to be this bad? Almost assuredly not, but
the continued barrages of falsehoods and minimizations of the true dangers from
public figures from Evangelical pastors to Fox News talking heads to the POTUS
helped make it so.
Today
as we see new cases in the US steadily decreasing as our vaccination rate increases,
the Covid pandemic continues wreaking havoc in such places as India where the
medical establishment is simply overwhelmed.
Here
in the states, we now are being treated to Republicans nattering that some
folks are loathe to return to their former jobs, even though hiring efforts are
being made. What’s to blame? If you ask a Far Rightist, it’s “that damned
Socialism.”
Yep,
they’re blaming the stimulus checks (but, apparently mostly those after the
Trump disbursements) for giving those temporarily out if work a chance to
reflect on where they are and where they’d like to be. Some of those who were
working “no healthcare or benefits” jobs aren’t rushing back to those
jobs.
Some
have had the uh-oh moment of no healthcare coverage during a plague. Others
have realized how much costly childcare spending so they could work a minimum
wage job was further impoverishing them. Whatever the reason, the support
(rightly) provided by Congress, however unwilling, in the form of stimulus
payments, plus appropriate extension of unemployment benefits, has enabled many
to step back, take a breath and evaluate the future of their working lives.
Understand: the percentage of our fellow
citizens who simply don’t want work hasn’t changed, and we will always have
what in the Elizabethan age was called “the undeserving poor.” How we deal with
them is and has been a continuing social issue, but for those sidelined
involuntarily by Covid, judging them harshly for not eagerly flocking back to
entry level jobs and seeking the possibility of a better life is …well, it’s so
Republican, isn’t it?
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