As Trump politicizes virus, where, I ask, is the outrage?

It never ceases to amaze me how more people aren’t outraged, shocked and disgusted by Donald Trump’s cruelty and malfeasance.

Nearly 140,000 Americans are dead because of the COVID-19 pandemic and more than 3 million have contracted the disease. Cases are surging and the number of dead continues to climb.

This is still the first wave; a second could be catastrophic.

And yet, Trump’s cronies are attacking Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, demanding schools reopen even as the virus rages, and continuing to lie that the reason we have more cases is because of more tests.

Trump has so politicized the pandemic that people now routinely refuse to wear masks in public places, insisting that being compelled to wear them is an infringement on their rights.

Republican lawmakers offer only the mildest contradictions to Trump’s deadly leadership, if any.

Young people are now gathering at bars and parties, exhausted by isolation, and no doubt having absorbed some of the myth that they are invincible and the pandemic will be fleeting.

But instead of demonstrating leadership and doing the simplest and most effective things he could do — insisting on a nationwide mask order as well as ramping up testing and contact tracing — Trump appears to be doing the opposite.

As The Washington

Post reported earlier this month:

“Trump in recent weeks has been committing less of his time and energy to managing the pandemic, according to advisers. One of these advisers said the president is ‘not really working this anymore. He doesn’t want to be distracted by it.’”

Trump is simply attempting to wish the virus away, or lie it away, or let it take its victims until there are no more to be had. And he doesn’t seem to want to know the true impact of the virus, nor does he want the public to know.

As The New York Times reported recently, Senate Republicans had crafted a proposal for yet another round of pandemic aid, this one including billions for more testing and contact tracing, as well as money for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes for Public Health, but the White House balked at these funding measures.

This obstruction will lead to more Americans dying.

Not to mention that the White House proposal for the new bill includes

“eliminating a proposed $2 billion allocated to the Indian Health Service, which is responsible for providing medical care to more than half of the nation’s tribal citizens and Alaska Natives, who have been devastated by the pandemic,” according to The Times.

Add to that the fact that the Trump administration submitted a brief last month asking the Supreme Court to overturn the Affordable Care Act in the middle of this pandemic, which would eliminate coverage for as many as 23 million vulnerable Americans.

And recently, the Trump administration told states to stop sending their coronavirus data directly to the CDC and to send it instead to the Department of Health and Human Services. As CNBC reported last week, “Previously public data has already disappeared from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website.”

So, where is your outrage? How is this allowed? Americans dying while Trump plays a political game. How long can this continue?

Charles M. Blow is a columnist for The New York Times.

FROM THE LEFT

Paul Krugman Mary Sanchez Clarence Page Frank Bruni E. J. Dionne Jr. Gail Collins Leonard Pitts