Coronavirus: The Political Crisis Behind the Public Health Crisis

Donald Trump is a wartime President. And he has declared war on the American people.

Trump, his Administration, and the Senate Republicans want to do us harm. They enjoy it. It serves them. They want to dissolve our government, destroy our economy, and divide our society. They want to see our people in pain and impoverished. They want to capitalize on our weakest moments in order to do us greater harm.

That’s what enemies do.

The Trump Administration and his Senate Republicans will use the Coronavirus to drive this nation into the ground — if we don’t stop them. Just as we need to get in front of the public health crisis in order to stop the spread of the pandemic, we need to get in front of the political crisis that threatens to destroy what’s left of this nation for those of us that survive.

Here are a few places to start:

1. Confederates Exploit State Level Politics.

Trump said, “Robert E. Lee was a great general.” His party still proudly flies the Confederate flag. They pretend to hate federal authority, support states’ rights and revel in local control.

Trump’s complete unwillingness to help states get the testing, ventilators, personal protective equipment, and basic supplies to the people that need them is, in many ways, a fulfillment of the Confederate contract. And Trump’s base is likely to understand his actions through that lens.

And while fracturing the nation into 50 dysfunctional pieces that struggle to work in coordination might sound attractive to a neo-Confederate, it should terrify anyone concerned with the national security of the nation. In terms of our national security, the dissolution of federal authority leaves us completely vulnerable and unable to effectively coordinate against an enemy attack.

A Party led, media backed, corporate-inclusive, people centered network of organizations with clear leadership needs to be established. Immediately. This network can function as wartime leadership through this crisis.

2. Trump Will Use the Coronavirus as an Excuse to Consolidate Federal Power.

Confederates like to pretend they are all for states rights and limited government- except when it comes to fucking over people they hate. Want a federal ban on Muslims? Cool. Want federal authority for a racist border wall? Awesome. Want the Department of Justice to attack your neighbors? Now you’re talking.

Trump will continue to pretend that federal intervention isn’t appropriate — until it is. And then he will start claiming authority and domain in a number of ways that have nothing to do with public health and everything to do with authoritarianism. A pre-emptive defensive strategy needs to be launched to counter these attempts. They need to be launched at the state and local level and coordinated by the networked leadership structure discussed above.

3. Trump is a White Nationalist. White Nationalists Love Eugenics.

White nationalism is inseparable from eugenics. And we have a Party of eugenicists at the head of the federal government during a global pandemic. Or as they like to call it, the “China virus.”

Fanfuckingtastic.

And who does this virus hit hardest? The elderly. The sick. The disabled. The vulnerable. The exact people that they have been wanting to wipe off the face of the planet, but rarely have an opportunity to do so. The Coronavirus is a white nationalists’ dream. They will not only try to stop it, they will usher it in.

We must mobilize immediately and aggressively to protect the most vulnerable ourselves.

We need to avoid the trap of trying to pick and choose who is worthy of the resources to survive, and we need to ensure every person in this country has what they need to fight off both the virus and the Republican Party that is helping it spread.

Beyond the medical supply and health insurance infrastructure that needs to be put in place, we need to be honest about what it takes to survive in this nation. And we need to ensure every American has cost free access to the things you need to live and survive.

For example, everyone needs shelter. Not just people with mortgages. The vacant housing stock needs to be opened up to house the homeless and inadequately housed. A complete halt on rent and evictions also needs to be put in place. All utilities including electricity, water, gas and sewage needs to be free. Added to the list of utilities and removed from the category of luxury must be internet service, cable, and cell phone access. Computers, tv’s, and phones need to be in every household, as well. Free transportation services are necessary, and household essentials like food, water, toilet paper, diapers, and cleaning supplies needs to be rationed for every American. Cost free.

To get this done, though, everyone needs to put aside their desire to prevent any group from receiving these basic things for any reason. That instinct you have to say, “Wait, that person doesn’t deserve to have…” Kill it. It is a threat to national security. And it is the filthy residue that lives in your skin as a result of living in a white supremacist driven nation. Kill. It.

4. The Coronavirus Will Be Politicized and Weaponized.

Days of action were lost because Trump was allowed to sell the Coronavirus as a Democratic “hoax.” More are being lost because of the media’s reaction to his attacks on the “fake news” and its “nasty” reporters.

In response, this nation has been acting aghast and baffled since 2016. And it needs to stop.

The media and the Democratic Party need to take charge of the narrative and start directing and coordinating action as if they were the last remaining leaders in the nation. Because they are. They need to act like the Republican Party and the Trump Administration are enemy forces that don’t deserve the loss of time and life that misplaced benefits of the doubt will produce. Because they aren’t.

Instead of allowing the media and the Democratic party to fall victim to this played out tactic, both the media and the Democrats need to assume their postures as “wartime” entities. They need to approach Trump and the GOP as foreign invaders to the body politic. They, and we, need to treat them as a virus.

4. The Republicans Will Try To Destroy the Census.

The Trump Administration has been launching attacks on the US Census since the beginning. Reducing the number of people that participate in the Census — especially reducing the number of participants of color or the number of participants in Blue states — helps starve the communities they hate and allows them to consolidate power. Census activities have already been ground to a halt, and there is no reason to believe that the Trump Administration will attempt to fully restore Census activities — if they choose to at all.

The Democrats need to formulate and operationalize a strategy for how to conduct the Census count during and\or post pandemic. State by state if need be.

5. The GOP will Try to Cancel the 2020 Election

Universal absentee voting is the obvious solution to the problems that reside at the intersection of polling places and social distancing. The problem for Republicans, is, though, that universal absentee ballots would also end many of the voter suppression tactics that they rely on to win elections.

And so instead of instituting robust systems of absentee ballots for voters in the Democratic primaries to participate, a Republican run state like Ohio, for example, can choose to void the election altogether. There is no reason to believe that Donald Trump and the Republican Party wouldn’t do the same thing in November.

And if the Republican Party tries to stop the election because of the Corona Virus — who would stop them?

The Democrats and every last American that wants to survive this needs to answer that question.

And so we don’t have time to be abashed and baffled. We don’t have time to wait for the President to act Presidential. We barely have time to mobilize ourselves against this “wartime President” that has declared war on his own people. We barely have time to restore the minimal capacity to defend ourselves form our enemies, both national and transnational, that are currently inside the White House.

We need to move now to address the impending political crisis just as we need to mobilize to confront the public health crisis we face . Before it’s too late. If it’s not already.