Conservative Washington Post columnist Max Boot blasted President Donald Trump for putting the United States at the risk of a "terrible tragedy."
He explained it like a pilot getting on a plane and announcing two engines weren't working but because people want to get where they're going they'll fly anyway. The "pro-life" GOP's latest idea of the elderly and ill sacrificing their lives to get the economy back on track is the same as a faulty plane taking off to land on time. Passengers would be terrified and most would probably be ready to get off the plane.
Now, President Donald Trump is that pilot ready to take off and risk the lives of the passengers.
"Nothing that Trump has done to date will be remotely as destructive as trying to reopen the economy while a pandemic continues to rage out of control. He is going to spike the curve, rather than flatten it," said Boot.
The United States is about to overtake Italy with the largest number of coronavirus cases. While they have managed to lock down their country and work on diminishing the number of coronavirus cases, Trump wants to open things back up as the U.S. continues to climb to the peak.
"What Trump is hearing from the right-wing echo chamber — and now translating into policy — is that the cure is worse than the disease," wrote Boot.
A tweet from Fox News host Laura Ingraham helped egg on the Trump freakout: “A global recession would be worse for our people than the Great Depression.”
Ingraham, who isn't an economist, doesn't seem educated on the cause of the Great Depression and the economic issues facing the U.S. with coronavirus. But that is inconsequential to Trump and other Republicans who have adopted the human sacrifice idea as an ingenious policy.
"This is like something out of a dystopian science fiction movie (Logan’s Run, to be exact): kill our elders so that our children may enjoy a better life," wrote Boot. "I want to scream: You are not going to sacrifice my older friends and relatives on the altar of the Dow Jones industrial average! But leave aside the profound immorality of this very concept; it is also inherently impractical.
"In the first place, the risk is not confined to older Americans. A report last week from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that 38 percent of Americans hospitalized for the coronavirus were between the ages of 20 and 54, and 12 percent of those in intensive care were between 20 and 44. Reopening schools and workplaces now, or even a couple of weeks from now, risks a massive tragedy for young and old alike."
In New York, it was reported that this disease isn't only impacting the elderly. While other countries with larger elderly populations, a greater number of elderly people are dying. But New York numbers reveal that 48 percent of the hospitalized people infected with the virus are between 18 and 44.
"But Trump doesn’t care," wrote Boot. "He is doing what he does best: shifting the blame."
During a press conference in the Rose Garden last week, Trump made it clear: “I don’t take responsibility at all.”
If he calls for everything to reopen, he'll put the burden on governors, mayors, CEOs and others to keep things shutdown. If there's a recession, he can blame it on them.
"But in the process Trump will risk the lives not just of those credulous enough to believe his pronouncements — such as the Phoenix man who died after taking chloroquine phosphate, which Trump has touted as a miracle cure for the coronavirus — but of the whole population," Boot closed. "It will be much harder to enforce even statewide lockdowns if the president is saying it’s safe to go back to work. Perhaps there has been a more irresponsible presidential decision in U.S. history, but I’m not sure what it is."
