Donald Trump Placed His Perceived Political Interests Over Stopping a Pandemic
By Mitchell Zimmerman
As we
mourn 500,000 Americans who have died of Covid-19, we should remember that their
deaths were not the inevitable results of a pandemic, not unavoidable acts of
God. Most of the dead would likely be alive today – most of the suffering America
has endured could have been avoided – but for Donald Trump.
In our year
of the plague, Trump went from neglect and incompetence to sabotaging the national
response, causing massive death.
A cynical
and self-absorbed man, Trump saw a lethal contagion only an opportunity for
political gain. He calculated that his prospects for reelection would be
advanced if he generated political warfare over the difficult steps public
health authorities knew were needed. So he called coronavirus a “hoax,”
mobilized his credulous base to go to war against public health officials, and
systematically undermined efforts to confront the challenge.
Trump
understood coronavirus was no hoax. “This is deadly stuff,” he told journalist
Bob Woodward in interviews early on. “It’s also more deadly than even your
strenuous flus.”
But
Trump opposed actions “disruptive” of life as usual because he saw a rising
stock market as key to reelection and feared that recognizing the crisis would
“spook the market.” So he laid his political bets on opposing serious efforts
to contain coronavirus and mobilized Republicans to resist precautions.
Trump’s
resistance derailed efforts at the outset to limit the exponential spread of
the disease. Epidemiology researchers from Columbia University concluded in May
2020:
“If the
country had begun locking down cities and limiting social contact on March 1,
two weeks earlier than most people started staying home, the vast majority of
the nation’s deaths – about 83 percent – would have been avoided.”
In a
mere two-and-a-half weeks, from March 18 to the beginning of April, identified
Covid-19 cases would leap from 8,500 to 240,000 and deaths from 145 to over
7,000. Tragically, this was only the beginning. Once the disease had spread so widely,
reining it in became exponentially more difficult.
Slowing Covid-19’s
spread was hindered by longstanding weaknesses in our health care system and our
threadbare social safety net.
The number
of people without health
insurance grew in the Trump years, particularly among people of
color and vulnerable groups. And with no national requirements for sick leave –
seven in 10 of the lowest paid workers have zero paid sick leave
– millions who contracted Covid-19 were reluctant to quarantine and slow to
seek medical care they couldn’t afford and risk their jobs.
Trump’s
attacks on documented immigrants, threatening their status if they used public
services, also made many reluctant to resort to
medical resources specifically intended to safeguard health. The crowded housing where the less-well-off
reside, with health-impairing conditions
such as pests, mold, chronic dampness, lead exposure and inadequate heating, also
exacerbated health risks. And people of color and the poor suffer
disproportionately from asthma and other respiratory conditions that make them
sitting ducks for Covid-19.
All of these
preexisting social and health conditions made tens of millions more vulnerable
to coronavirus and accelerated its spread.
Against this
backdrop, Donald Trump turned to sabotage. He campaigned against social
distancing, mask use and closures. He convinced Republicans they were defending
“liberty” when they behaved in a manner likely to spread infections, threatened
public health officers, and defied public health requirements.
Inevitably, thwarting the recommendations of doctors, scientists
and public health leaders led to a massive loss of life. No other country on Earth has had
as many coronavirus cases or deaths as the U.S. Germany’s Covid-19 death rate is
about half of ours.
Canada, one third.
Combatting
a pandemic requires that the people of a country accept the need for sacrifice,
that they act together and that they have the support of their government to endure
the death of loved ones, serious illness, loss of income, school closures, and limitations
on contact with friends, family and colleagues. It also requires government to
recognize that the pandemic cannot be stopped unless the authorities remedy the
vulnerability of those most afflicted.
When
instead a president mobilizes as many as quarter or a third of the population to
rebel against the discipline needed to contain the pandemic, it becomes nearly
impossible to control the outbreak.
President
Biden is providing a reality-based, science-respecting and honest response to
the pandemic. But to be effective, Democrats’ coronavirus plan must also
confront the “underlying conditions” that have facilitated mass illness and
death.
Coronavirus
may not be the last epidemic to strike the world and America. We must attack
the roots as well as the symptoms when contagion strikes.
Mitchell Zimmerman is an attorney, longtime social activist, and author of the anti-racism thriller Mississippi Reckoning.
