Donald Trump’s response to the pandemic cost lives Crime against humanity?
Donald Trump’s failure to protect the American people from the coronavirus is a crime against humanity. I don’t mean that figuratively, but within the very definition of the law.
We have proof, through taped conversations with journalist Bob Woodward, that Trump was, in January
2020, well informed as to the extremely high contagion factor of the potentially fatal COVID-19. Yet Trump placed his perceived re-election prospects above the lives and health of we the people.
Yes. Fearing that accurate information about the virus would plunge the stock market, Trump chose his own political prospects over the lives of over a quarter-million and the health of more than 10 million, both still counting.
Indeed, for these eight long months while Trump downplayed the severity of this pernicious virus, he went on to vilify governors and other mask-promoting/social-distancing officials, while he declined to develop a national strategy to include:
full implementation of the Defense Production Act to require companies to manufacture ventilators and personal protective equipment in adequate numbers to save lives;
negotiation with companies on behalf of the 50 states to secure PPE and other needed equipment;
a program to encourage masks and social distancing to decrease virus spread;
securing valid testing materials and contact-tracing techniques,
providing needed life-saving medicines and devices.
No. Instead Trump did exactly the opposite of all the above. Indeed he encouraged people to not wear masks and ordered governors to “liberate” their states by allowing businesses to reopen before it was safe. He denounced and threatened to defund school districts that failed to open, resulting in teachers’ illness and death, along with virus spread among students and other school personnel.
This is not the only way in which
Trump exacerbated the virus spread nationwide. When the virus was initially more pronounced in blue states like New York, and hitting communities of color in urban areas particularly hard, Trump declined to provide assistance, with the White House saying states were on their own. How could this not have led to speculation that the administration was deliberately disadvantaging communities of color whose likely Democratic votes would be diminished by the virus?
Against this backdrop, Trump encouraged an unconstitutional militia presence in the streets, both to protest pandemic restrictions and to counter demonstrations over racial injustice.
Thousands attended Superspreader Donald’s rallies, maskless and jammed together. Studies such as one out of Stanford University have documented a pattern of increased COVID-19 cases and deaths through Trump rally attendance. The virus is also surging in red states.
It’s noteworthy, too, that the “Spreader-in-chief” advised during a coronavirus task force news conference that people should drink bleach, a wellknown poison. He promoted unproven cures and treatments. He closed the pandemic office in use during the Obama administration. He removed U.S. medical health monitors from China, who could have alerted the U.S. government to the virus prevalence in November 2019.
These failures of Trump to safeguard the security and lives of the people of the United States is a Crime Against Humanity in accordance with the
Rome Statute as established by the International Criminal Court in 1998. Such a crime involves acts committed as part of a widespread attack against a civilian population, “with knowledge of the attack.” The Rome Statute states that a crime against humanity can be committed in “furtherance of an organizational policy.” The policy need not be explicitly defined; it can “be inferred from the totality of the circumstances.” In the present situation, the organizational policy is the Trump re-election campaign’s prioritization of protecting Wall Street market success and his own re-election.
Through incompetence, arrogance, recklessness and intent to hide and downplay the severity of the pandemic, Trump has risked all our lives. His actions and inactions have caused the deaths of more than a quarter million people. Trump’s inaction and intent to not fight the virus spread is a Crime Against Humanity.
Prosecuting him, though, would be another matter. Under Trump, the U.S. government does not cooperate with the International Criminal Court. Trump has even threatened to take retaliatory actions against the ICC if they investigate US citizens.
It is unfortunate that legislation proposed in 2009 by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-ill., making crimes against humanity a violation of U.S. law did not pass. Perhaps a future Congress will reintroduce this measure with fine-tuned language to address the horrific situation America now finds itself in. There should be consequences for the felonious intentional inactions and actions of a madman who has helped cause the death of more than a quarter million people and sickened more than 10 million, and counting.
Through incompetence, arrogance, recklessness and intent to hide and downplay the severity of the pandemic, Trump has risked all our lives. His actions and inactions have caused the deaths of more than a quarter million people. Trump’s inaction and intent to not fight the virus spread is a Crime Against Humanity.