Left and Right Use the Pandemic for Political Gain
Say it isn’t so! Politicians using the pandemic for political gain? Surely you jest.
Start with President Trump.
A previous column took Democrats to task for using the pandemic to chip away at Constitutionally-guaranteed religious freedom. No better than his opponents, Trump played to his base with a meaningless suspension of all immigration into the country.
Trump tweeted, “In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!”
His order changes nothing over its 60-day duration. The administration already has barred travel to the U.S. from much of the world and has stopped processing almost all new visas for foreigners.
Foreign governments have suspended nonessential travel to the U.S. Add the mandatory 14-day quarantines for new arrivals intended to block any new coronavirus cases from overseas.
Per the Pew Research Center, about 44 million people living in the U.S. today were born in another country, 14 percent of our population. There is no evidence that these immigrants are making the country’s COVID-19 pandemic worse.
Where immigrants are infected in large numbers, it’s a result of living or working in close quarters. Even in those locations, their infection rate is no different than the population in general.
During his 2016 election campaign, Trump made populist claims about immigrants taking American jobs. This new executive order revives that theme. But the claims weren’t true then and aren’t true now.
Only a few short months ago, Trump was basking in an unemployment rate at its 50-year low with job openings outnumbering those looking for work by over a million. Minority group poverty had fallen to record low levels and wages were rising faster for less-skilled workers than for their supervisors.
This outstanding economic record was accomplished without a border wall, without mass deportations and without banning new immigrants. In other words, Trump’s anti-immigrant populism is a political bogeyman with no relevance to the real economy.
Bowing to reality, Trump’s new order exempts job classifications that are vital and in which immigrants are a substantial portion of our workforce. For example, his order exempts health care workers, recognizing that 28 percent of our doctors are foreign-born. He likewise exempts immigrant farm laborers needed to harvest food crops.
Trump’s grandstanding to his base using the pandemic doesn’t sit well with me.
Meanwhile, some Democratic politicians have shown a shocking disregard for public safety by unleashing prison inmates on the populace in the name of reducing COVID-19 infections among the incarcerated.
Inmates should not be subjected to “cruel and unusual punishment,” but early release for some of them flies in the face of protecting the public.
As of the middle of April, over 16,000 prisoners were slated for release nationwide. Significant numbers are older prisoners and those convicted of non-violent crimes, but the bad apples among them call the entire process into question.
Extreme-left New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio championed prisoner release, playing to progressives who see prisons as discriminating against minorities and non-violent drug users. The pandemic gave him an excuse to release over 1,000 inmates, including an alleged murderer.
His action ignores a painful experience. A 2018 Justice Department report found that “an estimated 68% of released prisoners were arrested within 3 years, 79% within 6 years, and 83% within 9 years.” An early-release Colorado inmate waited only three weeks before committing murder.
Given these statistics, it’s not surprising that already over one hundred of New York City’s released prisoners have been re-arrested. Feigning surprise at the re-arrests, de Blasio called their actions “unconscionable.” Instead, I see his disregard for public safety as unconscionable.
De Blasio designated New York City as a so-called sanctuary city where illegal aliens would be protected by local authorities. But there’s no sanctuary for New Yorkers who don’t abide by the city’s social distancing rules. He’s called on citizens to rat on their neighbors who disregard his dictates, echoing totalitarian Gestapo and Stalinist tactics.
Let’s all work together to halt the pandemic and stop using it for misguided political gain.
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Thanks, Howard, for what I consider to be a reasonable assessment of the situation.
Sadly most Americans are not getting it. Sadly the main stream media has proven it is sociopathic. Sadly mass protests are going to result in a 2nd wave which will become evident by end of June. Sadly Utah now has an R (0) >1. Sadly by the end of this week Wa County will be over 500 cases and rising. BUT THE MOST SAD THING OF ALL is the lack of unity to address this pandemic together. As in Chess there is always the best move on the board. Public ignorance + lack of political leadership + disinformation = a half assed response that is luke warm at best. What is that POGO quote from the last Century? Well America, hope we get it right the 2nd time around.