Paul Krugman’s latest is all about the war on public health Trump has unleashed.
One enduring theme of the MAGA movement has been hostility toward the “deep state” — what people outside the movement might call professional civil servants. Trump and company believe that the deep state is out to get them, which is paranoid. But they’re not wrong to believe that public employees who see themselves as working for the nation rather than for whoever currently occupies the White House pose a problem for their agenda.
So what will MAGA do, now that it’s in power? Many observers, myself included, have focused on plans to convert a number of civil service jobs into political appointments. But just a few days into the new regime it’s clear that the assault on professional government will be much broader than that — that it will involve an effort to intimidate and politicize civil servants, too.
And early indications are that one prime target will be agencies devoted to protecting public health.
emphasis added
Krugman goes on to document all of the reasons Trump and the MAGA Party have decided the government agencies that protect public health must be suppressed. He shows how it is happening, and what the likely consequences will be. He concludes with this:
And when — not if — the next pandemic strikes, do you expect our battered, politicized public health agencies to keep Americans properly informed? If Trump is still in charge, do you expect him to respond effectively, as opposed to minimizing the threat and muzzling anyone who might contradict him? It’s hard to feel optimistic about any of these concerns.
Krugman predicts Americans are going to die because of this — and given the thousands who got sick and died from Covid because of Trump’s ‘leadership’ in his previous presidency, it looks like a sure bet.
I spent 40 years working in public health in a blue state government agency. I can tell you from personal experience that most people have no idea how much such agencies do to keep people alive and healthy — and that’s the way we like it because it means we’re doing our jobs.
If you’ve had a child in this country, depending on where you live that child was tested shortly after birth for a number of health conditions that can be treated IF identified quickly. It’s called newborn screening. If nothing is found you’d likely not even be aware it had been done, but if something is detected action will be taken immediately, saving lives and money.
A number of people became sick with hepatitis in my state a while back. Health department DNA analysis in one of our labs identified common strains among the cases, allowing them to be traced back to the source: contaminated dialysis machines.
Say there’s an outbreak of food poisoning. Testing food samples and tracing them back identifies the source. Got clean water? How do you know? Somebody somewhere tests it, right?
Worried about terrorism? I used to work right around the corner from the BioDefense Lab — people trained to deal with potential biological threats. They might never be needed, but would you really want them defunded or hamstrung, unable to go to conferences or hold training sessions?
When the Zika virus was in the news because of cases showing up in the U.S. a few years back, I was one of the people pressed into service to help process the hundreds of specimens coming in — because our lab was one of the few in the country able to do the testing.
Combine the Republican Party assault on public health agencies and health professionals with their attacks on science and expertise, on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and ObamaCare, it’s clear Krugman’s title on his commentary is not an exaggeration.
The Republican Party is truly the Party of Death.
Turns out it’s not an either/or choice; it’s a package deal.