This is the second in a three-part series on the coronavirus. In our first post, we assessed the coronavirus as a public health problem. Here we assess the virus as a domestic political dispute.
Is the federal government doing enough to stop the coronavirus? Is Trump handling the problem well? What about Congress? Have they appropriated enough money to combat this latest public health menace?
These are all fair questions, of course. In a representative democracy, we should vigorously debate important matters of public health and public policy.
What confuses and distorts that debate, though, is political opportunism, especially in an election year, when politicians try to exploit the crisis for rank political gain.
Unfortunately, we’ve seen such opportunism from Democratic politicians and their media allies.
Partisan Attacks. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, for instance, lambasted President Trump for what he called “a premature travel ban to and from China.” The travel ban, Schumer tweeted Feb. 5, 2020, is part of Trump’s “ongoing war against immigrants.”
Trump signed an executive order Jan. 31, 2020, that banned all foreign nationals who had been in China from entering the United States. This was a reasonable preventative measure given that the coronavirus originated in China; and that more than 91 percent of the reported cases thus far are in mainland China.
Indeed, Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told MSBC’s Chris Matthews (Friday, Feb. 28, 2020) that the Chinese travel ban “was a very good idea” because it helped to stop the spread of the virus.
Schumer himself seems to have come around to this understandings because, notes Dinesh D’Souza, he has since deleted his tweet.
Still, Schumer’s eagerness to use the coronavirus as a political cudgel with which to beat Trump and the GOP is emblematic of how political considerations are confusing and distorting the public dialogue and debate. As we observed here at ResCon1:
Much of the alarmist commentary that we’re hearing about the coronavirus… is attributable to politicians trying to win votes and media outlets trying to draw in readers and viewers.
That many journalists and media outlets are politically partisan and unabashedly anti-Trump further compounds this problem.
Political Distortion. For example, a reporter at yesterday’s White House press briefing asked Trump if he regretted using the word “hoax” when discussing the coronavirus at a political rally in North Charleston, South Carolina.
“Somebody [in the United States] is now dead from this [virus]. Do you regret using that kind of talk” the reporter solemnly intoned.
Trump explained that he obviously was not using the word hoax to refer to the coronavirus. Instead, he was describing Democratic attacks on him and his administration as a “hoax.”
Democrats have charged Trump with not doing enough to stop the spread of the virus, and Trump said that this is their new “hoax.”
What Trump meant was apparent to anyone who listened to Trump’s remarks. Yet, some journalists, such as CNBC’s Thomas Franck, parroted the Democrats’ charge and reported that Trump was suggesting that the coronavirus itself is a “hoax.”
Democratic presidential candidates, likewise, have charged Trump with “defunding” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Michael Bloomberg) and “wiping out” its budget and the budget of the National Institutes of Health (Joe Biden).
But as the Lauran Neergaard and Calvin Woodward point out in the Associated Press (AP), it’s “wrong to say [that these] agencies have seen their money cut.” It is true that “CDC grant program for state and local public health emergency preparedness” have been cut.
However, they note, that funding decline was “set in motion by a congressional budget measure that predates Trump.”
President Trump. In truth, the president appears to be doing a good job handling the coronavirus. He’s requested additional funding from Congress to address the problem, and has said that if Congress wants to provide more money, he’ll take it.
Moreover, with top public health officials in tow, he held two press conferences in three days last week to inform the American people about what, specifically, he and his administration are doing to stop the spread of the virus.
The travel restrictions to and from China have been the most consequential and decisive actions that Trump has taken thus far.
He’s also had American returning from high-risk areas overseas quarantined and monitored by public health officials; declared a public health emergency; and established a White House Coronavirus Task Force now headed by Vice President Mike Pence.
All in all, not bad. What is bad is the shameless and counterproductive politicizing of a problem that should be a nonpartisan or bipartisan concern: public health and the safety and well-being of the American people.
In a democracy, disagreement and debate are perfectly fine. But that disagreement and debate should be factually based and made in good faith. Unfortunately, that too often has not been the case with respect to the coronavirus.
We can and must do better.
Feature photo credit: CNN.