The Hunger Games

March 28, 2020

     Earlier this week, Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves issued an executive order which closed all but “essential businesses,” but defined them so broadly that most businesses, including department stores, factories and offices, were deemed “‘essential’ and thus exempt from social distancing requirements,” (Source:  “Governor Orders Limited Gatherings, Declares Most Business ‘Essential,’ Supersedes Local Safety Efforts,” by Nick Judin, Jackson Free Press, 3/24/20).  Despite Reeves’ protestations that he was not a “dictator” after being savaged on The Rachel Maddow Show, his order explicitly prohibited localities from imposing more stringent restrictions on businesses in order to protect public safety, (Source:  ibid).  

    Similarly, Alabama’s Governor, Kay Ivey, ordered “non-essential” businesses to close, but declined to issue a statewide “shelter in place” order. Ivey explicitly voiced her concern that “government can choke businesses” and stated that Alabama was “not Louisiana…not New York State…not California,” as if the Coronavirus checks partisan i.d. at the state borders, (Source:  “Coronavirus: Governor Ivey orders temporary closings of businesses in Alabama. Read the order,” by Brian Lyman, Montgomery Advertiser, 3/27/20).

      These edicts fly in the face of science, privileging a robust economy over public health. They fail to calculate the cost of lost lives and an overburdened healthcare system on that economy.  After all, dead people don’t buy things and can’t come to work. These head-scratching decisions are merely the Republican philosophy made manifest— that profits are more important than people.

      Trump began last week lamenting the “cost” of prolonged social distancing, tweeting that “the cure can’t be worse than the problem itself.”  Rather than thinking about the toll a prolonged shutdown would have on low and middle income workers, Trump made clear that his primary concern was the impact of the shutdown on the stock market.  The theme was quickly picked up and repeated as a Republican talking point.  Texas Lt. Governor, Dan Patrick opined that grandparents would willingly risk death in order to salvage the economy for their grandchildren!  Soon, a chorus of pundits on Fox News were regurgitating the morbid idea that it was noble to die for the Dow, (Source:  “Right Wing Media is All Aboard Trump’s Coronavirus Death Train,” by Caleb Ecarma, VanityFair.com, 3/25/20).

      By week’s end, the depth of Trump’s depravity was made shockingly evident.  After doubting the veracity of New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo’s impassioned plea for 30,000 ventilators, Trump stated that disbursement of critical medical aid was conditioned on governors treating him well. On Friday, Trump upped the ante, savaging Washington Governor Jay Inslee and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, saying that if he were VP Mike Pence, he wouldn’t return their calls, (Source:  “Trump just raged at Michigan’s governor.  Here’s what is really behind it,” by Greg Sargent, The Washington Post, 3/27/20).

      We should all be long past the point where we are shocked by Trump’s cruelty and vindictiveness, but we should sear this moment in our consciousness and never forget that Trump was willing to let the people of New York, Michigan, and Washington die unless their governors paid him sufficient tribute.

      From the moment Trump was elected we could have seen this coming.  Those of us who mourned in November 2016 knew just what kind of calamitously unfit reprobate 63 million of our fellow Americans had thrust upon us.  We sifted through endless streams of claptrap about “economic anxiety,” but we knew the truth was that Trump’s election was a reaction to the existential crisis precipitated by the election of President Obama. Obama’s intelligence, integrity and urbanity was a constant rebuke to the sniveling mediocrity of many people that exposed the lie of white supremacy.  As revenge they elected his polar opposite- a vain, overstuffed gasbag with the vocabulary of a 5th grader and the impulse control of a toddler. Their message, trumpeted loud and clear, was that the worst white man was better than the best and brightest Black man, and now we are all paying the price. I will never forgive them for that and I will never forget.  You shouldn’t either.

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