It was only about a week ago, or seven years in quarantine time, when the U.S. was fairly united in their agreement that celebrities should sit out the COVID-19 pandemic. To go one step further, anyone who is using the pandemic to score political points by blaming the opposing party for the outbreak should sit this one out as well.
Circulating through social media are dozens of posts blaming the entire COVID-19 situation on Republicans from George W. Bush to Donald Trump to Bobby Jindal, as if any of them could have foreseen that a man eating a bat would spark a global pandemic. This hypocrisy is exhausting, and it is not solving the actual problem at hand.
A recent article by Truthout.org was quick to name-drop Steve Scalise when it explained that in 1997, the state legislature drafted and passed a state preemption law, which banned city governments from raising the local minimum wage higher than the state’s. This law, along with the blocking of mandatory paid sick leave for all businesses, is argued to be the cause of the dire conditions currently seen in New Orleans.
However, it is interesting that the article looks 23 years in the past to blame Republicans for the outbreak of COVID-19, rather than blaming the 2020 New Orleans government for not taking preventative measures before Mardi Gras to prevent the virus from infecting the city.
Call me a radical, but I do not see the productivity in blaming 1997 Louisiana politicians, who were in power when “MMMBop” was still topping the billboards, for an international pandemic that the mainstream media was still comparing to the flu only three months ago.
If any fingers were to be pointed, they should be pointed at the current New Orleans Mayor, LaToya Cantrell, who was marching along the New Orleans streets during Mardi Gras, and who later blamed Trump for not warning her to stop a celebration in the city that she is in charge of.
However, pointing fingers at Cantrell or Trump is not going to fix the fact that over 4,000 people are suffering from COVID-19 in New Orleans, and over 16,000 people are suffering from the disease statewide.
Furthermore, people are quick to state that Trump did not take coronavirus seriously enough, particularly when it was first reported in early January. This is especially seen in MSNBC, when the “Morning Joe” host, Joe Scarborough, said that “everybody” could see the devastating effects of coronavirus and that Trump should’ve acted sooner.
However, the first time coronavirus was discussed on “Morning Joe” was Jan. 24, when Scarborough discussed with an expert the reasons why people should be more concerned about the seasonal flu. The rewriting of recent history is not unique to MSNBC, as nearly all news agencies have been redrafting history. The New York Times was quick to lash out at Trump’s first travel restrictions in his initial coronavirus response, but is now running pieces on how Trump “failed” to act in the beginning, when bold action was needed most.
The truth is the COVID-19 response is everyone’s fault and nobody’s fault. Everyone in a position of leadership probably could have done more to prevent the spread of COVID-19, but then again, nobody could have foreseen the damage that was about to come to American shores.
In 2005, then President George W. Bush warned the country about the need to prepare for a potential health crisis, saying, “If we wait for a pandemic to appear, it will be too late to prepare. And one day many lives could be needlessly lost because we failed to act today.”
Since 2005 we have not prepared. Right now, nurses and doctors are rising above and beyond the call of duty, not caring if the ill are Republican or Democrat. The healthcare professionals do not really care which politicians failed or succeeded; all they care about is that their patients survive. Before anyone gets on Facebook and starts pointing any fingers, let’s remember that there is more at stake than politics in this fight, and let’s have the same focus as our men and women in scrubs.
Brett Landry is a 21-year-old political communication senior from Bayou Petit Caillou, Louisiana.