April 22, 2020
Seemingly not content with the wave of deaths directly attributable to his malignant incompetence, Trump has spent the last several days looking for novel ways to increase human suffering. Yesterday, his administration announced that undocumented students would be ineligible for emergency assistance for food, shelter and childcare, (Source: DeVos bars undocumented students from emergency aid,” by Michael Stratford, Politico.com, 4/21/20). This comes on the heels of his announcement of a 60 day ban on immigration, although just how refusing to issue or renew green cards will help combat the virus is anyone’s guess.
These “policy” moves come after Trump spent the weekend tweeting “Liberate” Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia, encouraging insurrection against democratically elected governors for following federal government guidelines aimed at combating the disease. His exhortations were in support of Astroturfed protests by a ragtag assembly of armed, knuckle dragging racists who want Black and Latinx folks to risk death so that they can go to Applebee’s (h/t Patton Oswalt).
Meanwhile, Trump is slow-walking the thing that would actually enable the economy to open up, ramping up testing capacity, (Source: “Governors call Trump’s bluff on testing capacity: ‘The President Is Simply Lying,’” by Igor Derysh, Salon.com, 4/20/20). None of this is surprising. Trump has always been a one trick pony who defaults to whipping up hatred whenever the focus threatens to shift to the consequences of his abject unfitness for office. What is alarming is the number of white voters who still support him, despite evidence that his inaction is directly responsible for the deaths of significantly more Americans, (Source: “The Huge Cost of Waiting to Contain the Pandemic,” by Britta L. Newell and Nicholas P. Jewell, The New York Times, 4/14/20). The number of American dead now exceeds the number killed in The Korean War, yet the imbecile governors of Florida and Georgia are opening beaches and bowling alleys.
We have to face the repugnant truth that fully 43% of Americans believe that their comfort and convenience are more important than the lives of frontline healthcare workers, the Black and Latinx people disproportionately represented in essential jobs and the elderly people trapped in long term care facilities. All of this is evidence, as George Packer eloquently detailed, that the United States of America is a failed state, (Source: “We Are Living In A Failed State,” by George Packer, The Atlantic, 6/2020).
Of course, many of us have suspected this for some time, but were too complacent, comfortable or afraid to actually do anything about it. After all, if we were doing well, pushing for big structural changes seemed like an indictment of our own success. Where has that left us? With a planet irreparably damaged by climate change and a country beset by shocking levels of inequality, ruled by a tiny cabal of hideous old white men with no other desire than to amass personal wealth and subjugate the masses.
When this is over and we emerge, timidly and tentatively, from our homes, we will face a choice. We can spend our time rebuilding our 401ks and renovating our homes to “maximize” our children’s inheritance. Or we can spend every waking moment dismantling the structures that immiserate so many and rebuilding this country into a society fit for our children to live in. What will be your legacy?