HOW DO WE START rebuilding our lives and our nation amid the continued threat of the coronavirus pandemic, more than nine months after it has become a health emergency around the world?
Earlier I wrote about Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s plan “Build Back Better.” His website states that Biden believes “this is no time to just build back to the way things were before, with the old economy’s structural weaknesses and inequalities still in place. This is the moment to imagine and build a new American economy for our families and the next generation.” More excerpts:
That starts with a real strategy to deal with the pandemic. We can’t solve the jobs crisis until we solve the public health crisis. Biden will also provide further immediate relief to working families, small businesses, and communities.
But that’s just the start. The Biden economic recovery plan for working families will build our economy back better. Whenever America has had its back against the wall, we have acted together to lay the foundation — through public investment and a strong social contract — for the American people to pull together and push forward.
Building back better means an updated social contract that treats American workers and working families as essential at all times, not just times of crisis –– with higher wages, stronger benefits, and fair and safe workplaces. We’ve seen millions of American workers put their lives and health on the line to keep our country going.
The Biden plan will mobilize the American people in service of four bold, national efforts to address four great national challenges. As President, Biden will:
Mobilize American manufacturing and innovation to ensure that the future is made in America, and in all of America. We’ve seen the importance of bringing home critical supply chains so that we aren’t dependent on other countries in future crises. But Biden believes we can’t stop there — he is releasing a plan today to build a strong industrial base and small-business-led supply chains to retain and create millions of good-paying union jobs in manufacturing and technology across the country.
Mobilize American ingenuity to build a modern infrastructure and an equitable, clean energy future. We’ve seen the need for a more resilient economy for the long-term, and that means investing in a modern, sustainable infrastructure and sustainable engines of growth — from roads and bridges, to energy grids and schools, to universal broadband.
Biden will soon release updated proposals to meet the climate crisis, build a clean energy economy, address environmental injustice, and create millions of good-paying union jobs.
Mobilize American talent and heart to build a 21st century caregiving and education workforce which will help ease the burden of care for working parents, especially women.
We’ve seen in this pandemic the immense burdens working parents, and especially women, carry in juggling their jobs and their caregiving responsibilities. We’ve learned anew how hard this work is, and how underappreciated those who do it are.
Mobilize across the board to advance racial equity in America. We’ve seen again this year the tragic costs of systemic racism. Biden believes that addressing those costs has to be core to every part of the economic agenda, and also a distinct priority in its own right.
Donald Trump: “Let’s Go Back”
President Donald Trump’s plan is to go back — go back to the pre-COVID-19 pandemic days. And despite supposedly having been infected by the virus himself along with his family, members of his staff and the Republican Party in super spreader events, Trump continues with rhetoric and course of action that just exacerbated the effect of the pandemic in our health, our lives, or economy.
Trump’s plan of action to “go back”: downplay the threat of the virus, downplay the number of Americans infected by the virus, downplay the death toll of Americans killed by the virus.
Just last October 27, Tuesday, the White House “Science Office” put out a statement yesterday listing “ending the COVID-19 pandemic” as the top accomplishment of President Trump’s first term.
On Thursday, October 29, Trump’s son Don Jr. appeared on Fox News host Laura Ingraham’s show to downplay the U.S. death toll saying, “The reality is this: If you look, I put it up on my Instagram a couple days ago, because I went through the CDC data, because I kept hearing about new infections.”
“But I was like, ‘Well, why aren’t they talking about deaths?’ Oh, oh, because the number is almost nothing. Because we’ve gotten control of this, and we understand how it works,” Don Jr. concluded.
President Trump himself has been complaining that all the news media had been talking about was “COVID! COVID! COVID!”, instead of all his accomplishments. He has also been doubling down on his discrediting testing, tweeting again on Friday, October 30, “More Testing equals more Cases. We have best testing. Deaths WAY DOWN. Hospitals have great additional capacity! Doing much better than Europe. Therapeutics working!”
These claims and misinformation tactic are so different from the reality. As NBC News reported:
The United States set yet another pandemic record with more than 90,000 new Covid-19 cases reported in a single day, the latest NBC News tally showed Friday.
The new benchmark of 90,456 cases was hit Thursday just hours after the U.S. logged its 9 millionth coronavirus case and shattered the previous daily record of 80,662 infections, set a day earlier.
Also, the 540,035 new Covid-19 cases reported from last Friday, Oct. 23, to Thursday was the most for any seven-day period since July, the figures showed.
Amid the uptick in coronavirus cases and death in the United States and heading to the November 3 election, Trump has been holding super spreader campaign rallies around the country — no masks, no social distancing in these crowded events. There were reports of stranded Trump supporters in freezing temperatures after the Trump rally, 30 had to be rushed to the hospital for hypothermia. Trump supporters also passed out amid the heatwave in Florida.
Trump did not care. What mattered to him were the adoring crowd, the cheers and adulation he needed to brag about — all for the optics that his fans pack his rallies without regard to their safety.
Cases of coronavirus have spiked in a series of states where Donald Trump has held campaign rallies, according to a new analysis of infection rates, the Independent reported.
In Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the number of coronavirus cases rose at a faster rate after the rally than before. Researchers at USA Today found coronavirus cases have spiked in these areas where Trump held his rallies at, contributing to the third spike in cases across the country.
This is the Trump plan toward healing and rebuilding America amid the coronavirus pandemic. Go back to pre-Covid days and disregard facts, science, and denigrate and discredit those who do not go by his playbook — the news media, scientists, doctors, health officials, local government officials, critics.
As revealed in journalist Bob Woodward’s interview with Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior White House adviser, the plan was to let the governors handle the state restrictions to mitigate the pandemic because these are unpopular among people.
“But the president also is very smart politically with the way he did that fight with the governors to basically say, no, no, no, no, I own the opening. Because again, the opening is going to be very popular. People want this country open. But if it opens in the wrong way, the question will be, did the governors follow the guidelines we set out or not?” Kushner told Woodward.
Kushner also bragged in that interview with Bob Woodward on April 18 about Trump “getting the country back from the doctors,” in reference to the lifting of coronavirus restrictions, Axios reported.
“Trump has campaigned on a message of “opening up” the country after lockdowns designed to curb the spread of COVID-19 in the spring resulted in widespread economic disruption. But some health experts have criticized states for opening up too fast, leading to a second and third surge of coronavirus infections as Election Day nears,” Axios further reported.
So this is Trump’s plan? “Let’s go back” at the expense of the life and safety of the American people. Let people get infected and die and maybe there will be herd immunity? Really?
We’re down to the final days until the election. Who do you trust more to heal and rebuild America amid the coronavirus pandemic: Joe Biden or Donald Trump?
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The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints of the Asian Journal, its management, editorial board and staff.
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Gel Santos Relos has been in news, talk, public service and educational broadcasting since 1989 with ABS-CBN and is now serving the Filipino audience using different platforms, including digital broadcasting, and print, and is working on a new public service program for the community. You may contact her through email at [email protected], or send her a message via Facebook at Facebook.com/Gel.Santos.Relos.
