The president taught me something this week. I was not surprised when I heard that his campaign speech at Mount Rushmore was a dark and divisive presentation. I was very surprised, and a bit supercilious, when I heard that his rath came down on “far left” fascists. I said to myself, “Is he so dumb and uninformed about history that he doesn’t know that fascists are far right extremists like the Nazis or the Aryean Nations!” I even began to think about a neat title for a post, I would call it “The president’s “left right agnosia.”  I know a little bit about difficulty determining right from left. Long ago a neurologist at the Brigham noted the difficulty that I had keeping things straight in a neurological exam. He was showing off, but he said, “Lindsey you are a left hander with left-right agnosia.” I was put in my place, but I did have the presence of mind to ask how he knew that I was left handed. He pointed to my tie, and said that he could tell my handedness by the way I had tied my tie and the direction of the stripes. He pointed out that the stripes on the ties of my colleagues all went the other way. The other residents were all right handed.  

 

I was intimidated, but I knew that there was some truth in the neurologist’s observation about my difficulties with left and right. My football coach in college had made the same observation. In football, plays are called to the left or the right. At times I would go the wrong way. This led to some embarrassing moments. I can remember the coach yelling, “Lindsey, I don’t get it! You’re Phi Beta Kappa and don’t know your right from your left!” I learned to look at my wrist as we lined up for a play. I have a scar on my left wrist. Observing my scar was a little work around for my directional disability.  

 

Well, the joke was on me. I did have the presence of mind realize that the president stayed on script and his speech was probably written by Stephen Miller and associates and they probably do know some history. I decided that before I exposed my own ignorance I should Google “left wing fascism.” It exists. The description on Wikipedia is instructive: 

 

Left-wing fascism and left fascism are sociological and philosophical terms used to categorize tendencies in left-wing politics otherwise commonly attributed to the ideology of fascism. Fascism has historically been considered a far-right ideology.  In general, fascism distinguishes itself for its intolerance of political opponents, suppression of freedom of speech, and lack of respect for the democratic principles of a majority vote as well as exclusion or isolation of other democratic parties and the use of violence.

The term was formulated as a position by sociologists Jürgen Habermas and Irving Louis Horowitz. Another early use of the term is by Victor Klemperer, when describing the close similarities between the National Socialist regime and the German Democratic Republic.

 

The  president’s speech was chilling. The Guardian described his speech complete with his words that described to his adoring base his feelings about the protests following the death of George Floyd: 

 

“This attack on our liberty, our magnificent liberty, must be stopped, and it will be stopped very quickly.”

He added darkly: “In our schools, our newsrooms, even our corporate boardrooms, there is a new far-left fascism that demands absolute allegiance. If you do not speak its language, perform its rituals, recite its mantras and follow its commandments, then you will be censored, banished, blacklisted, persecuted and punished.”

 

My assumption is that he is referring to those who hold a combination of progressive ideas, and who advocate for an assortment of changes that run the gamut from removing monuments to individuals who through our 21 century perspective were oppressive or racist to addressing the cataclysmic potential of global warming, and the de facto servitude of many created by the growing inequity. Count me among the number that he despises.  We abhor the output of a poorly managed capitalist economy that consistently denies necessary services like housing, eduction, and medical access to significant numbers of its “essential workers.” We advocate for equality and a form of managed capitalism that speaks to the goal of elevating the opportunity for every citizen while it guarantees better health as a universal entitlement. Calling people who have my orientation left wing fascists is no more productive than calling people like David Brooks a fascist because he holds the view that conservatism can be a compassionate force that move us toward a better society. 

 

 We had no problem when an angry crowd took down the statue of Saddam Hussein. I also doubt that anyone would want to see a statue of Joseph Stalin on the town green. The Natzi symbol is offensive to most of us, and it is easy to understand why the battle flag of the Confederacy is of historical interest to some, but could also be offensive to many Black people since it has been used as a prominent instrument of fear by the domestic terror organizations like the Klu Klux Klan. He avoids the reality that for many Black Americans there has been a transfer of the fear that they once had of organizations like the Klan to their local police department that differentially harasses and kills people of color. Recognizing the need for the reform of public institutions and monuments should be considered a “centrist” idea in a society that values all of its citizens. 

 

The New York Times report of the Mount Rushmore event, and the follow up presidential self congratulatory rally in Washington the next day says volumes in its rather long title, “At Mt. Rushmore and the White House, Trump Updates ‘American Carnage’ Message for 2020: His ominous remarks were a reflection of his political standing: trailing in the polls, lacking a booming economy or a positive message to campaign on, and leaning on culture wars to buoy his loyalists.” The article was written by Annie Karni and Maggie Haberman and covered both of the president’s fourth of July speeches. They write:

 

President Trump used the spotlight of the Fourth of July weekend to sow division during a national crisis, denying his failings in containing the worsening coronavirus pandemic while delivering a harsh diatribe against what he branded the “new far-left fascism.”

In a speech at the White House on Saturday evening and an address in front of Mount Rushmore on Friday night, Mr. Trump promoted a version of the “American carnage” vision for the country that he laid out during his inaugural address — updated to include an ominous depiction of the recent protests over racial justice.

In doing so, he signaled even more clearly that he would exploit race and cultural flash points to stoke fear among his base of white supporters in an effort to win re-election. 

 

I guess that pretty much covers it. Although the observation in both The Guardian article and The New York Times article that needs a little more attention was how dismissive the president was of the recent crescendo of COVID-19 cases across the country. As a demonstration of his total lack of interest in addressing the threat to our health and our economy from the COVID-19 pandemic, he spoke of it as if it were a problem that he had already solved.  Ironically, the rates of infection in the area of Mount Rushmore had doubled in the previous month. The New York Times report was even more specific about the president’s disinformation about the coronavirus:

 

Speaking to an audience that included front-line workers like doctors and nurses fighting the coronavirus, Mr. Trump boasted about his administration’s response, even as more than 129,000 Americans have died and cases are surging in parts of the country whose reopening he had cheered on.

Local officials had urged the White House to cancel the celebration, citing public health concerns, and few on the White House South Lawn were wearing masks, a safety precaution Mr. Trump and senior members of his administration have consistently played down.

 

There is much that our president does not know, and he easily disregards the defects in his fund of knowledge, but what he does know is how to effectively shift blame or deny reality in a way that endears him to those who share his biases or have fears that his words can excite. He began his presidency with an inauguration speech that promised an end to “American carnage.” What we have after three and a half years of his leadership is “American wreckage” that may take decades to repair. It is almost as if the first three years were preparation for the ultimate crescendo of the human and economic carnage inflicted by the pandemic. It took real policy enactment to undermine the nation’s ability to respond to a pandemic that others had been predicting for years and for which some defensive preparation was in development. It took direct action to call for and sign a tax bill that transferred even more wealth to corporations while the regulatory infrastructure of the government was being dismantled department by department. It took focused animus to use the regulatory powers of HHS to undermine the ACA and thwart the movement toward universal access to care and the financing that covered lives can offer to the healthcare infrastructure. It took dogged determination to trash almost every effort that had been previously established through treaties and trade agreements to assure America’s position of international leadership. Under his leadership we have returned to a concerted effort to wreck the environment for short term profits. 

 

What is a reality that is hard to admit is that despite all the damage this president has done to the majority of Americans of this and future generations, until the pandemic hit there was a real possibility that he might be re elected. Even as we have passed 3 million infections and 130,000 deaths and the rise in both numbers seems to continue out of control, there is still some possibility that once again he might win an election through a combination of the distortions of the electoral college, ramped up efforts at voter suppression, and the continued interference of foreign powers who see value for themselves in his continuing efforts to undermine progress toward a more equitable America that would be truly great and a greater counterpoint to their various forms of authoritarian control.

 

Going back to February the president has tried to label the COVID-19 pandemic as a Democratic hoax. He has done it again and again in his recent campaign events. The Hill described the Phoenix rally less than two weeks ago in an article by Morgan Chalfant entitled “Trump rallies in Phoenix, claims Democrats trying keep country ‘shut down’”

 

President Trump on Tuesday rallied a crowd of largely maskless student supporters in Phoenix, claiming Democrats were trying to keep the country “shut down” during the coronavirus pandemic in order to hurt the economy before the election.

“They are trying to do their best to keep the country shut down and closed because they’d love those numbers not to be good,” Trump told the crowd after insisting the U.S. would see good economic growth during the third quarter, before the 2020 election. “There’s not a lot they can do about it.”

Trump referenced the coronavirus throughout his remarks, repeatedly calling it “the plague” and at one point claiming it was “going away.” Trump also twice referred to the virus as the “kung flu,” a term that was widely condemned as racist when he used it at a campaign rally in Tulsa, Okla., over the weekend. The term prompted cheers from the crowd Tuesday.

“We are going to be stronger than ever before, and it’s going to be soon,” Trump said of the coronavirus, touting his “swift and early action” to ban travel from China at the beginning of February in order to prevent the spread of the disease.

 

There is great truth in his analysis that the pandemic is undermining his reelection possibilities. His statement that Democrats want the pandemic to continue is slanderous. The reality is that what he wants and what Democrats want has little to do with what will happen. He has not learned that pandemics don’t care about red or blue states, don’t recognize borders, and do not care about the economy. Viruses just replicate and jump from one individual to another as the opportunity is presented by fools who will not wear a mask, don’t practice social distancing, and do not avoid bars and crowded indoor political rallies. Democrats don’t need the pandemic to continue to make the case that he needs to leave office. He makes that case for himself by his continuing lack of care for anything other than the attention at any cost to which he is pathetically addicted. The virus has finished his “undressing,” but it could have been his ticket to reelection if he had taken the opportunity, or had possessed the insight, to recognize that the pandemic presented a moment when he could really lead the country and the world in a time of global distress. 

 

It seems that with each passing day the virus is teaching us something. It feels like every new fact that emerges about the coronavirus reveals how little we really know. Some of the things we are learning show how we are connected not only to each other at this moment in time but also to our distant past. The virus takes its advantages anywhere it can find them. I have an “occipital bun” which I learned some years ago suggests that I have some Neanderthal DNA. The same test that showed that I have west African DNA also confirmed my Neanderthal DNA which is not a surprise given the fact that many people of European heritage have some Neanderthal genes. A recent theory and some data suggests that there is a gene from Neanderthals that predisposes the people who have the gene to be more susceptible to the severe inflammatory reaction that has been seen in some patients with COVID-19 infections. 8% of people with European heritage carry the gene.

 

The same article about COVID-19 and Neanderthal DNA points out that we have also learned that an even more deadly “pre existing” circumstance that makes many people vulnerable to a more severe infection and death is their race and social status. The increased risk of Black, Latinex, and Native Americans is probably not genetic but is just another manifestation of a real problem about a set of related problems about which Donald Trump shows little regard. I have never heard the president refer to the social determinants of health. He has never shown much interest in economic inequality. He has not put forth a housing bill. He sees no need to raise the floor of minimum incomes to a living wage. His only interest in education is to collect a few votes from evangelicals and catholics who want government support to undermine public education. His job creation concept is to let private enterprise produce lots of service sector jobs that lower the unemployment statistics while they perpetuate poverty and the virtual servitude of those who are simultaneously losing the support of the antipoverty programs which he seeks to dismantle. His policies are a virtual ally of the virus. He has effectively prepared the soil for a bumper crop of deaths of low income, social disadvantaged individuals who make the good life possible for an increasingly smaller percentage of the upper classes who for once might have something to really worry about.  

 

The header for this post is lifted from a “must read” New York Times article published earlier this week entitled “The Fullest Look Yet at the Racial Inequity of Coronavirus.” The article was written by Richard A. Oppel Jr., Robert Gebeloff, K.K. Rebecca Lai, Will Wright and Mitch Smith. The article implies that the extent of the skew is not limited to large metropolitan areas with their crowded public transportation systems, ghettos, and crowded public housing, but is also prominent in small town middle America. The Times had to sue the CDC to get the data which suggests that some information about the pandemic may be suppressed. 

 

Early numbers had shown that Black and Latino people were being harmed by the virus at higher rates. But the new federal data — made available after The New York Times sued the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — reveals a clearer and more complete picture: Black and Latino people have been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus in a widespread manner that spans the country, throughout hundreds of counties in urban, suburban and rural areas, and across all age groups.

 

Latino and African-American residents of the United States have been three times as likely to become infected as their white neighbors, according to the new data, which provides detailed characteristics of 640,000 infections detected in nearly 1,000 U.S. counties. And Black and Latino people have been nearly twice as likely to die from the virus as white people, the data shows.

 

That is information that needs explanation. In New York we know that survival has been a function of ZIP code with people living closer to high end academic centers faring better than those relegated to care in understaffed public hospitals. This is not a reality that was created by Donald Trump, but it is hard to imagine any attempt at repair of the social inequities that make some people more vulnerable to this virus and the future viruses that are certain to come by any administration that he leads.

 

We could have spent the last three years building a stronger and more equitable health care system, but we did not. Recent work published by the Kaiser Foundation in May suggests that perhaps more than 25 million people will have lost their employer supplied health care to the economic downturn precipitated by the pandemic. An even more recent article from the Commonwealth Fund presents an even darker picture:

 

Among people who said they or a spouse or partner lost a job or were furloughed because of the pandemic, two of five had health coverage through the affected job. Among those who previously had coverage through an affected job, one of five said they or a spouse or partner were now uninsured.

 

 

Once again those who were most affected were the poor and minorities. We have much work to do and many lessons left to learn before we emerge from this pandemic. A vaccine may do it, but once again who will get it, what will it cost, and how effective will it be? Elisabeth Rosenthal approaches all of those questions and shows yet again how our system of care built on  concepts of a “market” fails to protect our poorest citizens and endangers even the wealthy in an opinion piece entitled “How a Covid-19 Vaccine Could Cost Americans Dearly: The United States is the only developed nation unable to balance cost, efficacy and social good in setting prices.” She begins with the  warning below that captures our attention, and she then fully develops her thesis in the rest of her opinion piece.

 

Yes, of course, Americans’ health is priceless, and reining in a deadly virus that has trashed the economy would be invaluable.

But a Covid-19 vaccine will have an actual price tag. And given the prevailing business-centric model of American drug pricing, it could well be budget breaking, perhaps making it unavailable to many.

 

The pandemic has taught us a lot and only a narcissist driven by a need to win again would ever imagine that the lessons are over. The biggest lesson left to learn is how to treat everyone equitably when the outcome of our policies will be so basic as the difference between life and death.