skews13
Diamond Member
- Mar 18, 2017
- 9,267
- 11,537
- 2,265
As of Friday, the CDC COVID Data Tracker lists over 550,000 U.S. deaths from COVID-19. Researchers have made it clear that the vast majority of those people should still be alive, were it not for poor decisions made during the pandemic—specifically the lack of federal system of testing and a federal mask mandate. Those two things alone could have cut the the number of deaths by more than 50%.
What makes this worse is that these were decisions not made out of ignorance. The United States wasn’t in the position of medieval plague doctors, waving posies in the face of the black death. The efficacy of masks was clear many times over even as Donald Trump repeatedly scoffed at their use and encouraged armed protesters to insist on “freedom!” from mask mandates. Even worse, Trump was absolutely aware of the benefits of a national testing system. He deliberately halted his planned roll out of such a system specifically because he thought doing so would generate disproportionate deaths in states in blue states.
Trump’s inaction was deliberate inaction. And because he has, almost inexplicably, become the model for all things Republicans, that inaction was mimicked at every level of state and local government from governors who refused to issue measures to protect their citizens, down to sheriffs who openly stated they would not enforce the laws. The deaths that resulted from these actions weren’t tragic accidents, they were, at a minimum, negligent homicide, and they should be treated as such.
But there’s another class of action taken during the pandemic that demands even more attention, those that deliberately prevented anyone else from working to address the problem. That applies to governors like Doug Ducey in Arizona and Greg Abbott in Texas who didn’t just refuse to pass statewide mask mandates, but used their power to override mandates passed by counties or cities. And it’s true of something that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is doing right now, by reaching into the business of private companies to tell them they can’t protect their customers.
And there is no statute of limitations on any kind of homicide. Just sayin
What makes this worse is that these were decisions not made out of ignorance. The United States wasn’t in the position of medieval plague doctors, waving posies in the face of the black death. The efficacy of masks was clear many times over even as Donald Trump repeatedly scoffed at their use and encouraged armed protesters to insist on “freedom!” from mask mandates. Even worse, Trump was absolutely aware of the benefits of a national testing system. He deliberately halted his planned roll out of such a system specifically because he thought doing so would generate disproportionate deaths in states in blue states.
Trump’s inaction was deliberate inaction. And because he has, almost inexplicably, become the model for all things Republicans, that inaction was mimicked at every level of state and local government from governors who refused to issue measures to protect their citizens, down to sheriffs who openly stated they would not enforce the laws. The deaths that resulted from these actions weren’t tragic accidents, they were, at a minimum, negligent homicide, and they should be treated as such.
But there’s another class of action taken during the pandemic that demands even more attention, those that deliberately prevented anyone else from working to address the problem. That applies to governors like Doug Ducey in Arizona and Greg Abbott in Texas who didn’t just refuse to pass statewide mask mandates, but used their power to override mandates passed by counties or cities. And it’s true of something that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is doing right now, by reaching into the business of private companies to tell them they can’t protect their customers.
Gov. Ron DeSantis is taking action to make sure no one escapes from Republican mistakes
As of Friday, the CDC COVID-19 Data Tracker lists over 550,000 U.S. deaths from the coronavirus. Researchers have made it clear that the vast majority of those people should still be alive, were it not for poor decisions made during the...
www.dailykos.com
And there is no statute of limitations on any kind of homicide. Just sayin