We owe President Donald Trump; an apology- sort of. On
October 1, 2017 Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch spoke for many of us
sentient Americans when he wrote
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In the days before (Hurricane) Maria's landfall on Sept. 20,
the anxiety was palpable — not just from the storm but over the question of
whether Trump would marshal the massive response the hurricane would require,
when the island's residents are primarily black and brown, and when they can't
cast a single ballot in the 2020 election. It didn't seem possible, but the
White House response — both logistically and morally — to the growing
humanitarian crisis in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands has been even
worse than many of us dared to imagine. And it's been fueled by something else that
America saw coming from miles and miles away, from that day in June 2015 when
the short-fingered vulgarian descended an escalator in Trump Tower to announce
his divisive candidacy — and that is the racism of Donald Trump.
The attack on science, reason, and the American people continues as
President Donald Trump said Tuesday he wants to have the
country getting back to business by the Easter holiday, April 12, even as the
coronavirus pandemic continues to worsen.
“I would love to have the country opened up and raring to go
by Easter,” Trump said during a Fox News interview.
Public health experts and local and state leaders have
cautioned against easing restrictions too early, saying it could put an
enormous strain on hospitals and lead to even more deaths and economic damage.
But Trump said Tuesday that he believed the human toll would be greater should
Americans continue to stay at home.
"This cure is worse than the problem," Trump said,
adding that "in my opinion, more people are going to die if we allow this
to continue."
That of course is absurd, as he is well aware.
In a tweet on Tuesday in which he pushed back on GOP
suggestions that the death of a few elderly people is an acceptable price to
pay for economic rejuvenation, New York governor Cuomo charged "no one
should be talking about social darwinism for the sake of the stock
market." At his briefing a little earlier, he asked "What is this, some modern Darwinian theory of natural
selection? “If you can’t keep up, then you just fall be the
wayside of life?
Yes. And it's refreshing that at least one politician has picked up on this. President Trump clearly knows
that it isn't only "black and brown" people who have died or, if his
hopes are fulfilled, will die.
We don't owe Trump an actual apology, for the ethnic
animus is still there, lurking. But neither racism nor ethnic prejudice
generally fully accounts for the President's approach to the coronavirus. The deceased will be people, white and minority, whom he believes are unworthy and expendable. There are many things Donald Trump doesn't understand, but social Darwinism is not among them.
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