The wall was always about racism, not immigration—not even about immigrants from Mexico. If Trump had been concerned about immigrants from Mexico or anywhere else, he would have increased funding for the airports. Instead, he took funding away from the airports in order to build his wall-and-fence.
Even now, troops are still at the US-Mexican border: there are 5,200 (March 23, 2020):
Under the “national emergency” President Donald Trump declared in February 2019, roughly 5,200 troops remain at the U.S. southern border to assist in detecting undocumented migrants, though apprehensions are at the lowest levels in years. While other National Guard and military units respond to the rapidly spreading virus, the troops at the border are authorized to stay there through Sept. 30, according to the Defense Department.
Trump cut TSA funding in 2018 and froze new hiring in February of 2020 -- a month after the virus first arrived in the USA.
Trump does not want to give money to airports because they are located in Democratic cities that have significant minority populations. Spending money in cities doesn’t send a sufficiently racist message.
No Screening for People Arriving from Italy
On the one hand, Trump pretended to stop flights from China (according to this diary here on dailykos flights from China to the US were still available on websites), he never said anything about quarantining arrivals from Italy. And in fact, he appears never to have done so, even as Italy took a brief lead in number of confirmed coronavirus cases. See Flights continue to land in the U.S. from coronavirus hotspot Italy - so where are the checks? Why? Because it did not conform to the Team Trump racist narrative.
Team Trump Sees Racism as Key to Reelection
Team Trump needs to hide the fact that the coronavirus arrived in South Korea on almost the same day it arrived in the USA, and that South Korea had an effective response while the USA did not. See the Reuters Special Report: How Korea trounced U.S. in race to test people for coronavirus. Really, if you need one article to show someone, it should be this Reuters special report.
Team Trump has decided that a racist narrative will again win him the election -- this time, it’s the racist message that China and the Chinese are responsible for coronavirus in the USA when in fact, it’s Trump’s fault. It’s the #TrumpVirus.
Grace Meng Fights Back
NY Dem Rep Grace Meng has introduced new hate crimes legislation. In her press release, she says:
Today, U.S. Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY) introduced a resolution in the U.S. House of Representatives that denounces the anti-Asian sentiment caused by the outbreak of the coronavirus.
“The increased use of anti-Asian rhetoric, particularly from our nation’s leaders such as the President, and their use of terms like ‘Chinese virus,’ ‘Wuhan virus,’ and ‘Kung-flu,’ is not only irresponsible, reckless, and downright disgusting, it threatens the safety of the Asian American community; such language demeans, disparages, and scapegoats Asian Americans,” said Meng
(Hey this is good news from a front page diary: Amid coronavirus pandemic, Hispanic National Bar Association condemns anti-Asian bigotry.) Everybody should be standing against anti-Asian bigotry.
What Should Have Been Done
If our response had been more like South Korea’s — lots of testing immediately — we could be where South Korea is, wary, but on the other side of the curve.
As NPR noted:
South Korea's foreign minister, Kang Kyung-wha, speaking to the BBC last week, said the key lessons from her country are that it developed testing for the virus even before it had a significant number of cases.
"In mid-January, our health authorities quickly conferred with the research institutions here [to develop a test]," Kang said. "And then they shared that result with the pharmaceutical companies, who then produced the reagent [chemical] and the equipment needed for the testing."
Every County in the USA Has Corona Now
Areas that do not think they have an outbreak need to start testing—especially if they are college towns, tourist areas, or resort areas. Tourist areas and resort areas seem to be aware of the problem: see An Unexpected COVID-19 Hotspot Emerges In The Colorado Rockies and Ski Vacation Hot Spot Becomes Coronavirus Ground Zero in Idaho.
As for college towns, these diaries from here at Dailykos should be a stark warning to every college town in the USA : Startling Visualization of how Spring Break Revelers could be spreading COVID-19 and, from a diary about Mardi Gras:
In February, people I know started getting The Crud.
Mixed symptoms, but none you wanted. Nausea for some, endless coughing for others, fatigue and crazy-ass fever. I took one friend at wit’s end to a doc in the box. Swab for influenzas negative. Told to overamp on ibuprofen and cough suppressant. Not the only one I know, but anecdotal.
And then, of course, Mardi Gras. Well, come on over, world. Let’s laugh joke drink smoke share food and suck face.
A week ago, we heard the first of the inevitable: positive cases out of state who had been at Carnival. Now, imagine yourself a diligent public health case tracker interviewing someone positive for a spreading disease and they tell you, “Well, me and some friends went to Mardi Gras.” Pretty much when you sterilize with ethanol internally.
All of the transmissions from Mardi Gras and Spring Break could have been prevented if we were doing the common sense thing and were testing. But since that involved spending money on airports and listening to scientists, Trump couldn’t do it.
Kudos to a single GOP governor who (eventually) sounded the alarm: Ohio’s. See
Ohio Department of Health believes 100,000 Ohioans are carrying coronavirus Cases expected to double every 6 days
Of course, unlike Trump, he’s listening to doctors:
Of course, here in NYC, I’m tuning in to Cuomo’s daily press statements, which are fantastic. Here’s the most recent one (it’s got a lot of facts and it’s not short):
Here’s his pinned tweet:
What Should Be Done Now
Areas that are already locked down need PPE and ventilators. At some point, every place in the USA will be locked down to visitors. And at some point, there will be no air travel to or from the USA because most of the rest of the world will have done the right thing at the right time, and the rest of the northern hemisphere will be ready when coronavirus returns in the fall.
The countries that are failing to test or are faking the numbers are Trump’s friends in the Axis of Fascism — India, Brazil, and Russia chief among them.
Democrats need to stand by Grace Meng and others among their colleagues and fight the racism. Democrats need to be willing to call white nationalism what it is and expose how the GOP’s white nationalism contributed to the pandemic (others are doing very well discussing the harm inflicted by the GOP’s anti-science rhetoric).
Be well and stay safe.