Image by Alexas_Fotos from Pixabay
A taut editorial published in the British Medical Journal provides a concise indictment of Donald Trump’s failed response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Put simply: “He downplayed the risk and delayed action, costing countless avertable deaths.” The editorial concludes with an appeal to social movement action:
To get through this, the US will need unprecedented social mobilisation. The dislocations call for a new social movement, inspired by the AIDS movement of the last 40 years—one that pushes local, state, and federal leaders to provide universal health coverage, universal sick pay, and rent and food assistance, focusing particularly on people who are poor, homeless, marginalised and those in jail or juvenile and immigration centres. Trump’s astounding incompetence was a political determinant of the US covid-19 epidemic. A new “politics of care” could be the corrective.
