No. Just no.
This is not a war. This is not a military mindset. You can’t shoot a virus. The virus has no strategy. No political or strategic goals. But suddenly, taking impeached president Donald Trump’s lead, conservatives want to pretend that this is rah rah fuck-yeah AMERICA time. But it’s not. This is less glamorous than dropping bombs on civilians. This is a medical emergency.
It’s easy to see why Trump and his acolytes want Americans to see this as a military engagement. People die in wars. It’s expected. Of course, we expect the dying to happen somewhere else, “over there.” It’s not the job of American civilians to die from the policy prescriptions of their leadership. But still, Americans rally around the flag when the bombs start flying, right? Tie a yellow ribbon around a tree. Accuse the opposition of wanting the enemy to win. What’s more American than “rallying around the troops”?
But what would you call a war in which the president shows an utter lack of give-a-fuck about those who are dying? Who doesn't bother outfitting them with the necessary equipment and gear they need, or only sends supplies to the generals who sufficiently kiss his ass?
What would you call a commander in chief who urged his troops to inject themselves with Clorox and shove a UV light up their … behinds.
So what is Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade talking about when he says we need to “take on the enemy”? There is certainly a case for putting the country on a war-like footing—shut everything down, using the Defense Production Act to force American factories to pump out personal protective equipment and ventilators. Remind people that it is their patriotic duty to remain sheltered in place, not only for their own safety, but for the safety of our front-line medical personnel, emergency first responders, and essential workers. The country could dig deep into its pockets (and credit line) to make sure everyone was able to weather the economic fallout.
But that’s not what these conservative assholes talk about when they talk about “military mindset.” They literally want to excuse away the 80,000 dead as inevitable casualties of war, while preparing Americans for the next 80,000 (if not more) who will inevitably die before a vaccine is developed. “Taking on the enemy,” to them, means forcing people back to work to die in service of Trump’s reelection campaign.
That’s not “taking on the enemy,” that’s surrendering to it.
But these conservatives know that Trump is steadily and consistently losing the trust of the people:
Even Republicans are becoming increasingly discontented with the federal response, with 21% not satisfied. It was 13% when Trump first announced that up to 240,000 might die from the disease. And, most dangerously, Trump is losing the most reliable voters, otherwise known as his base—white seniors.
We’ve certainly seen it in Civiqs data, and so has Trump and his campaign team. “But seniors are also the most vulnerable to the global pandemic, and the campaign’s internal polls, people familiar with the numbers said, show Mr. Trump’s support among voters over the age of 65 softening to a concerning degree, as he pushes to reopen the country’s economy at the expense of stopping a virus that puts them at the greatest risk,” reported the NY Times.
Will calling this thing a “war,” one in which those very seniors are offered up as cannon fodder to the enemy, help prop up those numbers? Unlikely. If anything, it might just be a reminder of who is expected to die in service of the Republican’s true god—Wall Street.
But those very same conservatives (other than Trump) are feeling queasy about the rising death toll, so if a Blue Angels fly-by and talk of “military mindset” helps the burden of disgust and horror at the current American reality, why the hell not? It beats the alternative—admitting that their president and Dear Leader has precipitated and unprecedented mass-death event on our soil, the size of 27 9/11s and counting.