US paying price for White House’s crusade to demonstrate its worth
Although his stated intention was to marshal support for Joe Biden in the upcoming presidential election, former US president Barack Obama’s harsh criticism of the current administration’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic hit the nail on the head.
In a conference call with former members of his administration, the content of which was first revealed by Yahoo News on Saturday, he said the US response had been “an absolute chaotic disaster”.
“It would have been bad even with the best of governments,” he said, but it had been made worse by the current administration’s operationalized mindset of “what’s in it for me, and to heck with everybody else”.
Although the administration brags about what a great job it is doing in responding to the pandemic, its initial approach of don’t panic Wall Street and its subsequent bullying of states to ease their restrictions in order to pick up the economy does beg the conclusion that it is putting its own political interests and the economic interests of its business tycoon bankrollers before the lives and livelihoods of others.
Which has resulted in more than 1.3 million people in the US being infected with the novel coronavirus as of Saturday, of whom over 78,000 had died, along with an unemployment rate of 14.7 percent in April, the highest since the Great Depression in the 1930s, according to the US Department of Labor.
Ignoring the personal sufferings and vicissitudes that lie behind these stark figures that chart the tragedy that is unfolding in the US, the government is trying to encourage more “warriors” to return to work in order to save the economy.
The administration’s attitude embraces the impulse to be selfish, tribal, divided and to see others as an enemy, which Obama said had become stronger in American life.
It is an impulse that as well as being responsible for the situation at home is also obstructing the international solidarity that is essential to defeat the pandemic.
It is because of this impulse that the World Health Organization, the main coordinator of global pandemic control efforts, is being relentlessly intimidated by the US administration. And it is because of this impulse that China is constantly being badmouthed by the administration, despite it being the largest material supporter of the US.
The US has obtained nearly 700 million masks and thousands of ventilators, along with other essential medical supplies and life necessities, from China.
It should not take more lives to prompt the US administration to fulfill its duties at home and abroad. Few are born to be a warrior in this fight, but many in the US are in danger of being viewed as disposable martyrs in the administration’s campaign to defeat all it perceives to be enemies.