Pandemonium

[Definition: wild and noisy disorder or confusion; uproar. Example of use: It is obvious that pandemonium would exist at most uncontrolled airports if every pilot did not conscientiously follow the traffic pattern.]

The United States leads the world in coronavirus cases and deaths. More than 130,000 Americans have died and the number climbs everyday with no end in sight.

The disaster that has befallen the United States was largely avoidable. One study estimated that between 70 and 90 percent of U.S. Covid-19 deaths could have been avoided. The United States could have learned from the examples of South Korea, Italy, and Spain. It chose not to. Texas and Florida had plenty of time to learn from New York and New Jersey. They chose not to.

Countries like Italy and Spain that, after experiencing very rough turbulence early on established and enforced new traffic patterns, have by now made bumpy but relatively safe landings. The Trump administration deliberately decided not to institute or enforce any standard traffic pattern. Every pilot is on his or her own. We are still flying blind and crashing constantly, now here, now there.

Cases have surged in 40 out of 50 states long after the curve of cases has bent downward and virtually hit bottom in Europe and the U.S. northeast. The U.S. reaction to the pandemic has been pandemonium on steroids. Many people are not following the new rules, but the worse problem is that there is no agreed-upon rule book, no common traffic pattern. Miami-Dade County and Broward County blend together, but if you cross the invisible border the rules are different. The differences are much bigger when you cross state and regional boundaries. Texas and Florida are the antithesis of New York.

Havoc; confusion; chaos. There are no rules so pandemonium rules. This is disorder by design. The incompetence of this administration and Donald Trump’s ignorance is only a part of it. The Republican-Trump ideology is the main culprit. Laissez-faire, or free market capitalism effectively means let business do what it will—pollute, cheat consumers, crush unions—and let the rest of us pay the cost in disease, inequality, deaths of despair.

The big ass in the White House and the small ones in the state houses didn’t just let the economy reopen of its own accord. The President pushed the governors and they pushed the mayors toward the maws of the monster. Now it has a grip on us and won’t easily let go.

Pandemonium is an almost perfect image of the United States in the time of the coronavirus. Having enabled the virus, having provoked pandemonium, the message that is emerging from the Trump administration is that the disease is almost harmless and anyway we are just going to have to live with it. Translation from Trump-speak? We are going to learn to die from it. Be ready to sacrifice your life on the altar of the economy and for the sake of Trump’s reelection

The scale of the dying will be remembered as the worst national tragedy of the first quarter of the twenty-first century dwarfing 9-11. Yet, in his two Fourth of July speeches, President Donald Trump made only a few remarks about the pandemic, and those were dismissive or delusional. The President’s message was that it is all much ado about very little; only a few of infected people get really sick; we have made great progress.

For the president the pandemic is not human catastrophe, just a political pain. Time to move on to trashing Black Lives Matter and other protesters exercising their First Amendment rights. Time to scare white people by invoking the pseudo-threat of a leftist revolution that would destroy the heritage of the American Revolution and the legacy of the Founding Fathers.

None of that is true, or fair or accurate. But Trump’s presidency has been a total a failure and all he has left now is lies, hate and fear. There is no leftist revolutionary plot. Black Lives Matter is a movement for justice, not hate. Andrew Jackson was not a great president nor a Founding Father; he was a vicious Indian killer and slaveowner. Nobody is trying to end the American experiment. We are trying to bridge the chasm between the American ideal and the American real.

What is true, and Trump forgot to mention in his speeches, is this:

By the time the 4^th of July weekend was over and the pandemic had been in the United States for six months, more than 131,000 Americans had died from Covid-19. No big deal? Airline crashes, which are always a big deal to the victim’s loved ones and the media, killed a total of 201 people in 2019 in the whole world. I will not bore you with the math, but this gives you a sense of the stark difference between one disaster and a catastrophe of historical dimensions.

Although Covid-19 deaths are currently declining, in 40 out of 50 states Covid-19 cases are rising. Three-hundred thousand new cases were recorded in June alone. That means that, down the road, deaths are bound to increase significantly.

Trump promised to end American carnage and instead has been the bearer of it, stoking violent right-wing fanatics, cheering on brutal actions by the police, inflicting physical and psychological damage upon children and families on the border. And that’s the short list.

It is fitting that letting a scourge loose on the nation, enabling a hecatomb if not a holocaust, should be the crowning act of this unspeakable presidency.