May 28, 2020
The 73rd Year
Day 70
The Covid-19 virus is simple, plebeian, utilitarian and incremental.
It is not profound. It is not discretionary or selective. It does not just infect and kill Democrats or Republicans. It is not on the red team or the blue team. It is not progressive or liberal or conservative or libertarian.
It does not just target capitalists or socialists or fascists or communists. It does not infect only Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Confucians, Zoroastrians or even atheists!
It is not a Chinese disease or an American disease or a Brazilian disease.
The Covid-19 virus is not political.
At all!
The virus has a simple mission; it wants to infect everyone and kill as many people across the globe as it can. It will eventually get us all if we allow it.
It is doing a good job so far. It has infected about 5.8 million people worldwide and killed more than 358,000, according to this morning’s worldometer tally. More than 100,000 Americans have lost their lives to the virus.
The Covid-19 virus goes where we allow it to go. We can control, manage and eventually defeat it without sacrificing millions of lives in the process.
We cannot defeat the virus efficiently and effectively with politics. We can only win with good science, better health care, vigilant medical detective work and a personal commitment to be safe.
Why then has the disease itself become a political football?
Suddenly liberals wear masks, conservatives do not. Wimps wear masks, real men do not. The president himself has declared that wearing a mask is a political statement. Some even say that they have a constitutional right not to wear a mask.
Why has federal funding for Covid-19 testing, stimulus money for the states and some more financial help for the American worker generated a huge political tug-of-war in Congress?
Why are we suddenly all epidemiologists, bickering about whether masks work or whether someone really died from Covid-19 as opposed to an underlying heart, respiratory disease or cancer?
The CDC says masks help but they do not absolutely protect you. Ok, what’s the big deal? Some protection is good, kinda like a condom.
It seems to me that if someone with the coronavirus and cancer died before the tumor could kill them they should be labelled a Covid-19 death. If it must be reduced to numbers, I prefer to think about whether a precaution can add days to someone’s life not just that they were going to die anyway. But not everyone agrees.
Ok, let’s say then the disease only killed 50,000 Americans. Does that make anyone feel better?
It should not. Covid-19 is a serial killer. No one should feel good about that.
It is time to think about the coronavirus as two problems: one medical and one economic. Politics has no place in the medical discussion. The political rancor must be toned down if our economic problems are to be resolved.
The doctors, scientists and researchers can and will manage and ultimately defeat the virus. This is an assumption I am willing to make. To imagine it can not at least be managed is to give up on life itself. I am not willing to do that.
The politicians need to put ideology aside and work together to solve our growing economic woes: record unemployment, failing businesses, overburdened social programs and the rapid destabilization of the middle class.
The political battle so far has been all about money. We will spend trillions of dollars before the disease is controlled. Money is not the issue, leadership is. We need a great leader and do not have one.
Who out there has the stature to lead us out of this mess? Where is Franklin Delano Roosevelt when we need him? Is there anyone out there at all; a real leader who can unite a supremely divided country?
It is not Donald Trump. And I do not think it is Joe Biden either. Or Bernie! Trump is well Trump who cares only about Trump and will do only what is best for Trump.
Biden has the empathy that Trump lacks but his ideas, as revealed during the brutal primary campaign, are old and tired.
Bernie did not amass enough votes to win the party nomination. If he cannot win the party he can not win the nation.
Some see Andrew Cuomo as the nation’s white knight. He has many of the qualifications FDR brought to the presidency. He comes from a family with a political pedigree, has worked in and with Washington, connects well with the people, has a legal background and, like FDR, has been elected governor of New York.
I don’t see it. America is not ready to let a New York liberal lead us.
Who then? Maybe the Kiwis will lend us Jacinda Ardern. She is the 39-year-old New Zealand prime minister who has won acclaim worldwide for her leadership in managing the Covid-19 virus. Her message has resonated across that nation and partisanship has taken a back seat as the country moves to reopen its economy.
Surely someone like that exists here. Surely there is a great unifier out there. I do not know who it is but there is something we can do.
America needs to make a bold move. It does not have to be radical. But it must be bold. Our presidential selection process is so stodgy and entrenched that Trump and Biden will be our only choices in November. The conventional wisdom says third party candidates can not prevail and I agree with it. So that is not an option.
What then?
Both parties should consider bold choices for vice president. And they should pledge during the campaign that they will put the vice president in charge of the federal response to the crisis. The vice president should have real power over this one issue; the president should be supportive and run the rest of the government.
This means Trump must dump Mike Pence for a running mate with ideas not just ideology and Biden, who is committed to choosing a woman, must find one that can work both sides of the political aisle.
This could work. For all of us.
Be safe.
The 73rd Year
Day 70
The Covid-19 virus is simple, plebeian, utilitarian and incremental.
It is not profound. It is not discretionary or selective. It does not just infect and kill Democrats or Republicans. It is not on the red team or the blue team. It is not progressive or liberal or conservative or libertarian.
It does not just target capitalists or socialists or fascists or communists. It does not infect only Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Confucians, Zoroastrians or even atheists!
It is not a Chinese disease or an American disease or a Brazilian disease.
The Covid-19 virus is not political.
At all!
The virus has a simple mission; it wants to infect everyone and kill as many people across the globe as it can. It will eventually get us all if we allow it.
It is doing a good job so far. It has infected about 5.8 million people worldwide and killed more than 358,000, according to this morning’s worldometer tally. More than 100,000 Americans have lost their lives to the virus.
The Covid-19 virus goes where we allow it to go. We can control, manage and eventually defeat it without sacrificing millions of lives in the process.
We cannot defeat the virus efficiently and effectively with politics. We can only win with good science, better health care, vigilant medical detective work and a personal commitment to be safe.
Why then has the disease itself become a political football?
Suddenly liberals wear masks, conservatives do not. Wimps wear masks, real men do not. The president himself has declared that wearing a mask is a political statement. Some even say that they have a constitutional right not to wear a mask.
Why has federal funding for Covid-19 testing, stimulus money for the states and some more financial help for the American worker generated a huge political tug-of-war in Congress?
Why are we suddenly all epidemiologists, bickering about whether masks work or whether someone really died from Covid-19 as opposed to an underlying heart, respiratory disease or cancer?
The CDC says masks help but they do not absolutely protect you. Ok, what’s the big deal? Some protection is good, kinda like a condom.
It seems to me that if someone with the coronavirus and cancer died before the tumor could kill them they should be labelled a Covid-19 death. If it must be reduced to numbers, I prefer to think about whether a precaution can add days to someone’s life not just that they were going to die anyway. But not everyone agrees.
Ok, let’s say then the disease only killed 50,000 Americans. Does that make anyone feel better?
It should not. Covid-19 is a serial killer. No one should feel good about that.
It is time to think about the coronavirus as two problems: one medical and one economic. Politics has no place in the medical discussion. The political rancor must be toned down if our economic problems are to be resolved.
The doctors, scientists and researchers can and will manage and ultimately defeat the virus. This is an assumption I am willing to make. To imagine it can not at least be managed is to give up on life itself. I am not willing to do that.
The politicians need to put ideology aside and work together to solve our growing economic woes: record unemployment, failing businesses, overburdened social programs and the rapid destabilization of the middle class.
The political battle so far has been all about money. We will spend trillions of dollars before the disease is controlled. Money is not the issue, leadership is. We need a great leader and do not have one.
Who out there has the stature to lead us out of this mess? Where is Franklin Delano Roosevelt when we need him? Is there anyone out there at all; a real leader who can unite a supremely divided country?
It is not Donald Trump. And I do not think it is Joe Biden either. Or Bernie! Trump is well Trump who cares only about Trump and will do only what is best for Trump.
Biden has the empathy that Trump lacks but his ideas, as revealed during the brutal primary campaign, are old and tired.
Bernie did not amass enough votes to win the party nomination. If he cannot win the party he can not win the nation.
Some see Andrew Cuomo as the nation’s white knight. He has many of the qualifications FDR brought to the presidency. He comes from a family with a political pedigree, has worked in and with Washington, connects well with the people, has a legal background and, like FDR, has been elected governor of New York.
I don’t see it. America is not ready to let a New York liberal lead us.
Who then? Maybe the Kiwis will lend us Jacinda Ardern. She is the 39-year-old New Zealand prime minister who has won acclaim worldwide for her leadership in managing the Covid-19 virus. Her message has resonated across that nation and partisanship has taken a back seat as the country moves to reopen its economy.
Surely someone like that exists here. Surely there is a great unifier out there. I do not know who it is but there is something we can do.
America needs to make a bold move. It does not have to be radical. But it must be bold. Our presidential selection process is so stodgy and entrenched that Trump and Biden will be our only choices in November. The conventional wisdom says third party candidates can not prevail and I agree with it. So that is not an option.
What then?
Both parties should consider bold choices for vice president. And they should pledge during the campaign that they will put the vice president in charge of the federal response to the crisis. The vice president should have real power over this one issue; the president should be supportive and run the rest of the government.
This means Trump must dump Mike Pence for a running mate with ideas not just ideology and Biden, who is committed to choosing a woman, must find one that can work both sides of the political aisle.
This could work. For all of us.
Be safe.
Comments
Post a Comment