Donald Trump must go to prison for genocide

| 3:00 pm EDT June 14, 2020
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It is easy to accuse a sitting President of the United States of genocide. All you need to do is point to a military engagement or foreign policy you disagree with and pin the responsibility for lives lost on that President. Donald Trump has recently been accused of genocide for his negligent response to the COVID-19 threat, but this accusation is measurable and bears professional credibility. Even more tragically, this genocide is continuing without a foreseeable end.

“Genocide” is a strong word that should be applied to a person or situation only when accurate. Last month, Yale psychiatrist Bandy X. Lee, who has engaged in global violence prevention work, made the case for why Trump is guilty of genocide. In a commentary for Raw Story, Dr. Lee noted that according to the United Nations’ Genocide Convention, genocide requires an “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” She cited the Trump administration’s acknowledgement of “the disproportionate deadly effects of the virus on minority communities” as a sign of that intent.

Dr. Lee also explained that in teaching law school students how to represent asylum seekers, she has “emphasized that if a government fails to protect a racial, religious, national, social, or political group against violence, it is considered governmental violence.” Although Trump may not have created COVID-19, she argued, so many deaths are the result of Trump’s failure to act swiftly to halt the pandemic.

How many lives can be attributed specifically to Trump’s disregard for protecting Americans from the novel coronavirus threat? Two months ago, the New York Times reported that an estimated 90 percent of U.S. deaths from COVID-19 could have been prevented had Trump taken basic action two weeks earlier. More conservatively, this figure could have been 60 percent had Trump acted only a week earlier.

This disturbing revelation inspired filmmaker Eugene Jarecki to create the “Trump Death Clock,” which was unveiled on a Times Square billboard on May 8. You can access the clock at TrumpDeathClock.com and check the updated estimation of Trump’s genocide, which is calculated based on this 60 percent figure. As of this writing, the number, written in blood red, is 69,171 and climbing.

Unfortunately, this chilling number will not freeze anytime soon. Trump’s proclamation in February that COVID-19 would “miraculously” vanish with April’s warm weather has proven to be hogwash. Now, not only do experts fear a second wave as coronavirus cases rise in recently reopened states, but Florida researchers believe the virus has mutated to become even more infectious, according to new reporting from CNN.

If Trump’s curriculum vitae were to list all the crimes he has credibly committed, you would need an extra ink cartridge to print it all out. If fraud, extortion, and rape, to name a few, aren’t reprehensible and scary enough to sway swing voters toward giving Joe Biden a chance this November, hopefully Trump’s genocide will convince them. Trump is literally hazardous to our health, and America can’t take it anymore.