On Monday night, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick went on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show to make an impassioned plea for capitalism and the U.S. economy. This plea consisted of Patrick saying he thought grandparents like himself should be willing to sacrifice their lives so that the United States economy can continue moving forward during the coronavirus pandemic. It was as grotesque as it sounds. Patrick was only echoing the angle taken late afternoon Monday, during Donald Trump’s disastrous coronavirus press conference—the one that didn’t feature the head of the CDC but did feature Attorney General William Barr.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York held a press conference today to talk about the very real crisis going on in New York State right now, as infections of COVID-19 continue to increase at an alarming rate. During the presser, Gov. Cuomo was asked about Trump and crew’s statements alluding to getting back to work in the next 5 to 14 days—something that not one single expert or responsible adult believes to be true. Cuomo had a lot to say in response to the truly depressing new Republican Party talking point, championed by death cultists like Patrick.
“My mother is not expendable and your mother is not expendable and our brothers and sisters are not expendable and we're not going to accept a premise that human life is disposable.” And while I’m not a particularly big fan of Andrew Cuomo, he is honestly one of the only frequently interviewed politicians acting like an adult and saying adult things about our current crisis. Cuomo went on to try and make the GOP’s position that much clearer, explaining that “we're not going to put a dollar figure on human life.”
But if we cannot turn American citizens into bottom lines to be downsized for the one percent’s profits, what are we supposed to do? Here, Cuomo gave a great example of how, unlike projecting conservative bullshit artists’ assertions, it is politicians on the Democratic side of the aisle who are not panicking and fearmongering.
CUOMO: First order of business is save lives period. Whatever it costs. Now, I also don't believe it's an either/or. I believe you can have an intelligent, refined public health strategy. We talk about risk stratification. You can have people go to work. You can test people and find out that they are resolved from the virus. Let them go back to work. You can have younger people go back to work. You can have an economic start-up strategy that is consistent with the public health strategy. It's smart. It's complicated. It's sophisticated. But that's what government is supposed to do, right? That whole concept of develop government policy and program. You can do both.
And anytime someone not licking Donald Trump’s boots says the words “clumsy” or “ham-handed,” you know exactly who they are talking about.
CUOMO: But not in a clumsy ham-handed way, right? Well, we'll just sacrifice old people. They're old people anyway. And the old get left behind. What is this? Some modern Darwinian theory of natural selection? You can't keep up so the band is going to leave you behind. We're going to move on and if you can't keep up, you just fall by the wayside of life. God forbid.
All of those evangelicals who voted for Trump better get to praying for their own souls because they’re going to need to.