Donald Trump’s Republican Senate is crashing and burning
It’s been said that times of crisis show you who people really are. Nothing could be truer with the comparison between how Republicans and Democrats have acted in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. One side is trying to negotiate a way to prevent the economy from crashing while hurrying to aid the people most vulnerable to the new virus. The other is caught between deciding if the coronavirus is a thing, and if we should emphasize China when we talk about it, while their only consideration of how to respond to the tragedy is how badly it will affect their bottom line.
That’s what we’re currently seeing in the GOP-led Senate as a number of Republicans are suspected of insider trading – knowing a crisis was coming while doing nothing as Trump routinely lied to the rest of us. It’s also why no one – yourself included – should ever again say that Democrats and Republicans are just as bad as each other. Not only is this happening at the legislative branch – we’re seeing something similar taking place right now as state governors are trying to fight the outbreak at home, with limited resources.
Senator Ron Johnson was met with criticism this week when he made a dumb metaphor about the coronavirus’ impact on the population. Lt. Governor Dan Forest of North Carolina, the state’s Republican candidate for Governor, pulled something similar – opposing Governor Roy Cooper’s common sense decision to close down the state’s bars and restaurants. Since only 16 of 100 counties have cases of COVID-19, Forest argued that he didn’t want to jeopardize the economy across the state.
This is absurd because the low numbers are likely due to a lack of testing, which hasn’t been done as aggressively in the US as other countries – when the numbers of positive cases are likely to grow exponentially. Cooper’s campaign immediately fired back, calling Forest’s attempts to politicize the crisis for what they were. The crisis has clearly shown the GOP for what they are from the top down – and this is why it’s essential to vote them out of all elected offices down the balllot come November.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making