The Big Squeeze: Economics Trumps Life After All

...the virus is not defeated, it is just bored. And we are about to stir it. 

Would America, when pressed, trade lives for economic security? Was it the patriotic thing to do? Was it even rational? 

When the idea was first expressed, it brought waves of incredulous outrage. Trump retreated quickly, recognizing the country was not quite of a mind to toss Grandma in the body bag just yet. A phalanx of both Democratic and Republican governors stood shoulder-to-shoulder defiantly indicating that epidemiologists would drive decisions, and they, not Trump, were in control. Doctor Fauci and Dr. Birx raised the battered shield of science to fight this last battle for genuine facts, decency and America’s honor (such as it remains). 

But what a difference a couple of months make. If there is anything surprising about the steady march of both blue and red states towards easing restrictions, it is the extent to which it was inevitable. And Trump knew it. 

The stark contrast could not be more clear. On the very day that the federal government upped its estimate of American lives COVID19 would ultimately claim, states mostly shrugged their shoulders in resignation, as they implemented ever broadening plans to “open for business”, knowing full well what the outcome will be. 

In case anyone has missed it, the white flag has been raised by states. Faced with crumbling budgets, and vanishing revenues, the outcome was inevitable, and masterfully executed with all the malevolence one would expect from Steve Bannon himself (rather ironic that states would be defeated by a group so enamored of state’s rights). 

Trump turned the federal government into an apparition. An unassailable target that would neither accept responsibility, nor blame. To paraphrase Trump, “it’s not his job”. Blame was outsourced to China, and all responsibility deferred to states.

The president, either wittingly or unwittingly,  created the dynamic by leaving the federal government and the Defense Production Act largely on the sidelines. Even the much vaunted stimulus Congress passed was largely captured by corporate grifters and Trump acolytes . As states reeled from managing every aspect of pandemic response, the president turned them out to the packs of corporate wolves. 

China must have looked on in wonderment at Trump handing them the opportunity to extort individual states and the US medical system. Even the consortiums announced by states to combine their purchasing power for vital medical supplies were too little, too late. The damage had been done. The scant funds and resources offered by the federal government allowed Trump the ability to engage in daily gaslighting at his briefings. Sure, he took hits of his own. But he had to know that ultimately, it was only a matter of time before he and his macabre gang of capitalist vultures would settle onto exhausted states to begin pecking them over. 

Though not unconditional, governors surrender to Trump is at this point near complete. None dare scorch the president with the indictments he has earned. Sure, they take a few pot shots at him here and there, but it is mostly for show at this point. Every governor may as well sign up for the MeToo movement at this point, because Trump has surely had his way with them. 

Americans who scoffed at recent protesters reveling in their own lunacy, must now contend with a reality that those protests were more victory party than a futile caricatured expression of patriotism gone mad. 

With no vaccine, and all but fraudulent assertions of sufficient testing and contact tracing, America is about to engage in the largest self inflicted economic genocide ever seen in the modern world. 

Genocide? Really? 

Yes, genocide. Because it will not be corporate titans who bear the mortal risks. It will be the poor, minorities and anyone desperate to avoid a food line or pay the rent/mortgage.

Small businesses will lead the way over the cliff, hoping against hope to salvage their life savings and dreams. But the scant dollars they earn will be no match for unaltered rents. Big retail, which was already on a death march, will cue up at the bankruptcy court door. Airlines will fall next, at least those not firmly attached to Trump’s rump. Shale oil, rural hospitals, restaurants, home builders and more will face the reality of an economy captive to both a virus, and Trump. 

America is guiltily buying an economic mythology, out of desperation, that if we simply march back out into the shops with face masks occasionally covering our noses, we can sneak past the virus and live somewhat normally. We can bypass the hardships above and contemplate the monuments we might make to commemorate this affair. But the virus is not defeated, it is just bored. And we are about to stir it. 

In the coming weeks, our economic mythology will again clash with the virus’ cold hard numbers. It will be then that Trump and his Republican enablers will have run out of gas to light. As a public, we will either choose to consummate this grim bargain, or come out into the streets (distanced and masked) and raise our muffled voices until the din is unavoidable. Only genuine fear will stop Trump or Republicans. 

If this virus has shown us anything, it is that in this country, money is life. We are judged by how much of it we have, or lack. More importantly, it is also the metric by which we individually judge ourselves. To defeat the pandemic, we may have to finally defeat the mindset that is enabling it in our country. 

Money isn’t everything, and money isn’t life. It is only a substitute for one. In this instance, choosing money, could in fact be choosing death, and not just individual deaths, but the demise of a nation we claim to cherish so much. If preserving the “American way of life” means preserving money, then we are hollow indeed. 

Just as states are caught in a big squeeze between humanity and financial reality, so too are we each individually caught in a moral dilemma. If politics could be set aside, we could have the frank, and necessary discussions about how we all work together to come through this together. Unlikely as that may be, it may be our only true choice. 

Current death toll estimates (even raised) are unrealistic. The decisions at hand will determine which number is eventually cast in bronze for future generations to regard and contemplate. We will either be able to explain our heroism, or make apology for an inexplicable insanity that failed to purchase economic salvation to any measure that could justify the bargain. 

Timothy P. Holmberg is an independent journalist who has served as a reporter for San Diego based publications. He has been published in The San Diego Free Press, The Gay & Lesbian Times, Uptown News Magazine and has extensively covered the HIV epidemic.