By Steven Jonas
As is very well-known,
we as a nation are now standing at a cross-roads in our history, caused of
course by the COVID-19 epidemic. If
certain estimates of its eventual scope come true (and to be sure, these
estimates are at the far right-hand end of the Bell Curve for the count), we
are standing on the precipice of as many as 60,000,000 cases. (Sounds like a lot in raw numbers, and it is,
but that number is less than 20% of the U.S. population.) This, if the
projected death rate is correct, would produce 600,000
deaths. As is widely agreed to (outside of the
Trumpublican© inner sanctum --- see Fox"News" --- of course) the major cause of
this horrible potentiality in this country has the been the dreadfully slow
response of the Trump Administration to the threat, which has been known since
China first announced the outbreak and its then-extent at the end of last year.
This response, or
non-response, has a variety of causes. Not necessarily in the order of importance, they include:
* Trump's
determination to get rid of any governmental element that had Obama's name on
it. So the White House office for
dealing with potential global pandemics, formulated after the Ebola-virus
outbreak of 2014 (which, as it happened, was contained, with no cases being
found in the United States) was closed down.
* Following
Trump-principal-policy-adviser-in-the-early-days Steve Bannon's dictum to achieve the
"Deconstruction of the administrative state" as one of the top priorities of
the Trump Administration, significant chunks of the elements of the
Centers for Disease Control were eliminated.
* Trump's
response to the early news of the developing epidemic in China was the imposition
of a travel ban of certain persons
coming from China. Now we all know how much Trump loves travel
bans, but this one seems to have had little impact on the spread of the disease
in the United States (even though he and Hannity, et al continually boast about
it). For if it were so successful, how
come the number of domestic cases is rising rapidly, travel ban(s) or no? (Of course, Trump has just announced his
Europe travel ban --- for Europeans, not U.S.--- except for the UK [and didn't
bother to pre-inform the U.S.'s European allies]). Apparently, he is ignorant of the Eurostar
train and the cross-channel ferries, and also that Ireland, an island, is part
of the EU, not the UK, but that is another matter.)
* Trump's focus on the
chances for his re-election chances and his wish that
the impending epidemic would just go away or preferably never get to the
U.S., apparently was a major reason why there was no early emphasis on
the development
of test kits and why the U.S. refused the offer of them from the World
Health
Organization. Apparently Trump, at least
at a gut-level, knew how much negative impact the possible high numbers
and their many ramifications could
have on his re-election chances. And so,
came: blaming everything on Obama; the whole "hoax" thing; and how the
Democrats of the "fake news" media were using it, and blowing it up,
just to
get at it him. (Trump's life-long central essence of
victim-hood
plays into this big-time.)
* But
then, and it is very important to note this, joining this witches brew of failing
to deal directly and correctly with the impending disaster of a major epidemic
is the long-time, well established Republican (and note here that I am using
the word "Republican," not "Trumpublican©") opposition to anything that smacks
of "big government," that is government that can make life better in one way or
another for the vast majority of U.S. It goes back to the time of Reagan. For Reagan famously said in 1981, after he was elected President: "Government is not the solution to our problem, government IS the problem."
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Source: OpEdNews
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