The pandemic Trump cannot ignore
By
Opinion writer
June 21, 2020 at 9:05 a.m. CDT
As coronavirus cases surge in the U.S. South and West, health
experts in countries with falling case numbers are watching with a growing
sense of alarm and disbelief, with many wondering why virus-stricken U.S.
states continue to reopen and why the advice of scientists is often ignored.
“It really does feel like
the U.S. has given up,” said Siouxsie Wiles, an infectious-diseases specialist
at the University of Auckland in New Zealand — a country that has confirmed
only three new cases over the past three weeks and where citizens have now
largely returned to their pre-coronavirus routines.
It is
not so much that Americans have given up. Rather, it is that their president
has made coronavirus-spreading conduct a test of political loyalty.
President
Trump gleefully assembled in Tulsa thousands of his followers (albeit far fewer
than he hoped). They were apparently too deluded to know they were putting
their lives and the lives of their loved ones at risk by cramming into an
enclosed arena without masks, just so Trump could bask in the glory of a
red-state crowd. (The Post reported, “Oklahoma reported 331 new coronavirus infections
Saturday afternoon.
The new
cases put the state’s rolling average at 281, setting the average high record
for the eighth day in a row. Tulsa County reported 136 new cases — another high
for both single-day and average cases, which now stand at 98, up from an
average of 51 new cases a day one week ago.” It evidently is of no concern to
Trump.) The rally was not even in a state that he might lose in the fall; it is
simply a conduit to undiluted MAGA fever, which may actually turn out to be
quite deadly.
When
word comes out that six campaign staff have tested positive, Trump is irate —
because word leaked out. The New York Times reported, “Mr. Trump, made aware of
the sick campaign aides before departing for the rally, was incensed the news
was made public, according to two people familiar with his reaction.” If Trump
does not care enough about the lives of thousands of rally-goers (or the tens
of thousands they may infect) to defer a rally, or about the attendees of the
Republican convention now planned for Jacksonville, Fla., to require masks or
shift to a virtual mode, or about the senior citizens of Florida who may become
infected when his RNC circus comes to their state, he surely is not going to
care about the health of six campaign workers.
The
Republican Party, in its blind devotion to a man of such inhuman indifference
to life (so much for the pro-life party), has succeeded in creating a culture
war over unarguably effective health precautions. Protect yourself and your
community or venerate Trump. Republicans choose the latter. A sea of white,
unmasked faces showed up to flaunt their disdain for science and for human
life. We already know the consequences of such conduct. (Trump weirdly boasted
he had ordered testing to slow down, presumably to have fewer recorded cases.
His team later claimed he was “kidding,” his all-purpose excuse when he says
dumb things.)
In a
slew of red states that reopened prematurely, where mask-rejecting Republicans
remain intent on risking infection, incidents of coronavirus are soaring. “The
United States reported more than 30,000 new infections on Friday, its highest
total since May 1, with cases rising in 19 states across the South, West and
Midwest,” the New York Times reported. “Florida reported 4,049 new cases on
Saturday, breaking Friday’s record (3,822) and Thursday’s record (3,207). The
state now has had 93,797 cases and 3,144 deaths. South Carolina also broke its
record for the third day in a row, with 1,155 new cases.”
This is
not the conduct of a rational, normal leader, nor of a responsible party.
Republicans are not only willing to commit political suicide in following Trump
over the cliff in November; they also seem copacetic with the illness and death
that their Trump idolatry spreads.
Whether
Trump’s Tulsa rally leads to more sickness and death (as did Wisconsin’s refusal to delay primary and local
voting in April) is unknown. What is certain is that revering Trump requires
extreme recklessness, if not contempt for the well-being of fellow Americans.
For Trump, no lives matter other than his own.