What Does One Do When The System Pukes Up Two Unfit Candidates To Lead The Country?

The newest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll we were talking about earlier today, shows that Biden is outpolling Señor Trumpanzee by 7 points among registered voters. Many people can't stand either Trump or Biden but the vast, vast majority of them say they will just hold their noses and vote for Biden-- obviously-- to some-- the lesser evil. Of those who have come to the conclusion that neither Trump nor Biden is fit to be president, 60% (presumably supporters of Bernie and Elizabeth Warren) say they will vote for Biden and just a minuscule 10% say they will vote for Trump (presumably #NeverTrump Republicans and supporters of Michael Bloomberg).

In his Atlantic column yesterday, David Frum looked at the two "horrifying" ways Trump is dealing with the pandemic. "If he can’t confine the suffering to his opponents, he is prepared to incite a culture war to distract his supporters." As he points out, Trump is willing to sacrifice our lives for the economy-- and his floundering re-election prospects. By reopening some aspects of the U.S. economy in the next few weeks, which will surely increase infections and deaths, "Trump hopes to goose the stock market and restore jobs. It’s plainly impossible to return to full employment by November 2020, but Trump can hope that the trajectory of the economy will matter more than the economy’s absolute level." What a leader!

Bernie's NY Times OpEd yesterday took a more systemic look at what the pandemic has exposed in our country-- and might not be so quick to jump on Frum's assertion that "it didn't have to be this way." For it to have not been this way, it would have taken a lot more than just Trump being less narcissistic and incompetent and his regime being so dysfunctional. Bernie focussed on the foundations of a crumbling society. "We are the richest country in the history of the world," he wrote, "but at a time of massive income and wealth inequality, that reality means little to half of our people who live paycheck to paycheck, the 40 million living in poverty, the 87 million who are uninsured or underinsured, and the half million who are homeless."

In the midst of the twin crises that we face-- the coronavirus pandemic and the meltdown of our economy-- it’s imperative that we re-examine some of the foundations of American society, understand why they are failing us, and fight for a fairer and more just nation.

The absurdity and cruelty of our employer-based, private health insurance system should now be apparent to all. As tens of millions of Americans are losing their jobs and incomes as a result of the pandemic, many of them are also losing their health insurance. That is what happens when health care is seen as an employee benefit, not a guaranteed right. As we move forward beyond the pandemic, we need to pass legislation that finally guarantees health care to every man, woman and child-- available to people employed or unemployed, at every age.

The pandemic has also made clear the irrationality of the current system. Unbelievably, in the midst of the worst health care crisis in modern history, thousands of medical workers are being laid off and many hospitals and clinics are on the verge of going bankrupt and shutting down. In truth, we don’t have a health care “system.” We have a byzantine network of medical institutions dominated by the profit-making interests of insurance and drug companies. The goal of a new, long-overdue health care system, Medicare for All, must be to provide health care to all, in every region of the county-- not billions in profits for Wall Street and the health care industry.

It is true that the Covid-19 virus strikes anyone, anywhere, regardless of income or social status. Prince Charles of Britain has been diagnosed with Covid-19 and the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has just been released from a hospital. Rich people get the virus and rich people die. But it is also true that poor and working-class people are suffering higher rates of sickness and are dying at much higher rates than wealthy people.

This is especially true of the African-American community. This disparity in outcomes from exposure to the virus is a direct reflection not only of a broken and unjust health care system but also an economy that punishes, in terrible ways, the poor and working class of this country.

In addition to millions of lower-income families not having any health insurance, Covid-19 virus is vicious and incredibly opportunistic in attacking people with pre-existing conditions and weakened immune systems. For a wide variety of socio-economic reasons, it is the poor and working class in this country who are exactly in that position as they suffer higher rates of diabetes, drug addiction, obesity, stress, high blood pressure, asthma and heart disease-- and are most vulnerable to the virus. Poor and working-class people have lower life expectancies than rich people in general, and that tragic unfairness remains even truer with regard to this pandemic.

Further, while doctors, governors and mayors tell us that we should isolate ourselves and stay at home, and rich people head off to their second homes in less populated areas, working-class people don’t have those options. When you are living paycheck to paycheck, and you lack paid medical and family leave, staying home is not an option. If you’re going to feed your family and pay the rent, you have to go to work. And, for the working class, that means leaving your home and doing jobs that interact with other people, some of whom are spreading the virus.

If there is any silver lining in the horrible pandemic and economic collapse we’re experiencing, it is that many in our country are now beginning to rethink the basic assumptions underlying the American value system.

"Many?" Not enough... not even among self-defined Democrats. Most Democrats, for example, told pollsters that healthcare was, by far, their top issue for 2020 and most also told pollsters they are enthusiastic about single payer Medicare-for-All. Yet when it came to voting they chose the corpse who threatened to veto Medicare-for-All over the dynamic leader whose campaign was based on it.Which brings us Harvard's newspaper, The Crimson, where Joshua Fang reported how the Harvard for Bernie organization has declined to endorse Status Quo Joe.

Personally, I agree with this tweet from Harvard College Students for Bernie:

Harvard for Bernie’s position mirrors similar stances taken by other progressive groups, including the Democratic Socialists of America and many campus organizations across the country. In nearly identical tweets, those groups reaffirmed their refusal to endorsing Biden.