Passive Eugenics: The Right Wing Cure for Coronavirus Pandemic
The ‘coronavirus is a hoax’ types in and out of government are moving towards a ‘market-based solution’ now that it’s clear an additional tax cut won’t do the trick.
The solution, they’re saying, is to go back to business as usual and accept whatever the death rate for COVID-19 infections ends up being. Such an approach, they believe, would get the economy humming again, while “thinning the herd,” since fatalities would largely include the poor and sick.
From the Washington Post:
President Trump is weighing calls from some Republican lawmakers and White House advisers to scale back steps to contain the coronavirus despite the advice of federal health officials as a growing number of conservatives argue the impact on the economy has become too severe, according to several people with knowledge of the internal deliberations.
Loosening restrictions on social distancing would override the internal warnings of senior U.S. health officials, including Anthony S. Fauci, who have said the worst of the pandemic has yet to be felt in the United States.
“WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF,” Trump said in a late-night tweet Sunday. “AT THE END OF THE 15 DAY PERIOD, WE WILL MAKE A DECISION AS TO WHICH WAY WE WANT TO GO!”
The 15-day period is set to end on March 30.
Conservative economists Stephen Moore (opposed to child labor laws) and Art Laffer (trickle down) have taken the lead in lobbying the Trump administration to scale back guidance on the closure of restaurants, retail outlets, and gathering spots.
Exhibit A in the campaign to quick-start the economy and suck up the consequences is an article by Richard A. Epstein of the Hoover Institution, titled “Coronavirus Perspective,” that downplays the extent of the spread and the threat posed by the outbreak.
Inside the White House, National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and officials from the Office of Management and Budget are pushing to get the economy back to normal as quickly as possible.
“The president is right. The cure can’t be worse than the disease,” Kudlow said on Fox News on Monday. “And we’re going to have to make some difficult trade-offs.”
https://twitter.com/Amy_Siskind/status/1242180417668763648?s=20
https://twitter.com/justinbaragona/status/1242123028802174977?s=20
Calls for ending preventative measures have echoed through the conservative media.
From Right Wing Watch:
The Federalist published an article Monday that considers an argument to consciously allow hundreds of thousands of people to die in the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic if it means Americans would regain a sense of normalcy.
“Probably almost everyone would be willing to live a somewhat shorter normal life rather than a somewhat longer life under current conditions,” Hillsdale PhD student Jonathan Ashbach wrote in his article titled “Is Social Distancing Saving Lives Or Ruining Them?”
In the Mar. 23 article, Ashbach questions whether social distancing measures that U.S. officials have implemented in an effort to flatten the curve and lessen the number of deaths from the coronavirus are more trouble than they are worth. Pointing to shuttered businesses and cancelled public events across the country, Ashbach adopts an extreme position that they are not.
https://twitter.com/IngrahamAngle/status/1242068254153232385?s=20
https://twitter.com/mmfa/status/1242167985059569664?s=20
The hope among advocates for ending restrictions on movement and social interactions is expiration next Monday of the administration’s "15 Days to Slow the Spread" guidelines could serve as a light at the end of the tunnel and a possible pivot point to restart the economy.
These people are just plain wrong. And evil. And lacking any sense of decency. It’s the kind of thinking we’ve come to expect during an administration led by a sociopath.
In the hope of keeping the riff raff quiet, the Justice Department has asked Congress for the ability to ask chief judges to detain people indefinitely without trial during emergencies — part of a push for new powers coming out of the novel coronavirus spreading nationwide.
Fortunately, this and other DOJ proposals need to go through the House of Representatives, where cooler heads should prevail.
h/t to Brooke Binkowski for the inspiration.
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Lead image: The late (okay, he's alive) Actor Eric Idle in a scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail