by admin | May 25, 2021 | Opinions
By Haider Abbas
The entire world is gripped with the possibility of a coming war, and the theatre which was assumed to be India-China , is now suddenly getting shifted to the much awaited Iran and Middle-East, which very arguably, has all the potential to turn into a third world-war, as the on-going duel between US president Donald Trump and incumbent president Joseph Biden, may fast turn out to be ‘out-of-hand’ . Trump supporters have started to march to Washington to protest the allegations of ‘fraud-in-elections’ by Trump and Biden has expressed his grave concerns, for the first time, that ‘more people may die’. If Trump refuses to cooperate on transition’ of power, informed The Guardian on November 17, 2020 1, but amid all the spree, it has come to light that Trump is mulling an attack on Iran, cited BBC on November 17, 2020 2 and has called all his advisors to assuage the options of a strike on nuclear sites of Iran, towards which Iran has vowed a ‘crushing’ response, tells Al Jazeera on November 17, 2020 3.
Trump who is credited not to have started any fresh war, in contrast to a war-mongering image of Biden, in fact had long been pressurised by the Jewish state of Israel to start a war on Iran, in apprehension to the Iranian nuclear programme, in all these last four-years, and now Trump in desperation to please the Israel state, is standing on a very critical moment as a war at this juncture has every possibility to engulf the whole world. Iran has to be decimated on the charges of its nuclear enrichment programme, as after all in the wake of the hoax of weapons of mass destruction claim, Iraq too had to be reduced to ashes, once by George W Bush and the world just saw to be a witness to millions of deaths in Iraq, followed by Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Yemen etc!
It is worth to recall that Trump in May 2018 had scrapped the US-Iran nuclear deal, which Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu boasts to have got it done himself, reveals TimesofIsrael on July 17, 2018 4 might not have succumbed to Israel, but in his desperation right now, might out-trigger a war with Iran, in his next 65 days i.e. until he remains confirmed with the same powers, or else it is also an understandable reality that soon Biden would pick from where Trump would leave. Thus, a war on Iran, to the tunes of Israel, whether be it from Trump or Biden, is therefore likely to come. As Biden had always been a self-professed Zionist, disclosed Scoop.Co.NZ on March 17, 2020 5.
Trump has been overtly pro-Israel as he played an instrumental role into getting UAE, Bahrain, Sudan formalise their ‘relations’ with Israel apart from giving status to ‘Jerusalem’ to be the capital of Israel. He complied with the annexation-plan of West Bank by Israel, and it was also quite conclusive that Trump, if re-elected, will supervise it to happen. But, Trump to the liking of Israel fell dramatically short of a war! Trump is therefore now searching for moves to placate Israel and has already deployed his US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, who recently declared that a second-term of Trump is coming, his highest ranking official to visit the ‘Israeli illegal settlements’ in West Bank , which is to provide a legitimate-cover and also to take one more step forward towards the ‘annexation-plan’ of Israel, although US state department has not confirmed Pompeo itinerary as yet, notified Al Jazeera on November 13, 2020 6 .
Iran as its part of defense mechanism, is also moving to safeguard its boundaries, and therefore, its foreign minister Javed Zarif made a visit to Pakistan on November 10, 2020 to coordinate a response from Pakistan, for US would surely try to seek to use Pakistan Shamsi airbase to bombard Iran, or obviously from its biggest military base in Al Udeid in Qatar. And, no wonder the chief of Qatar air force, therefore, made a visit to Pakistan on November 17, 2020, to help clear the air that Qatar too would not oblige US in its attack on Iran, as then Iran would also target US base in Qatar, and moreover, Qatar is now firmly with Turkey which is now in a new bloc with Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia-supported by Russia and China. Plus, in one of the biggest deals in history China and Iran have entered into a 25 years 400 billion USD ‘military and trade’ agreement which has sent everything spinning in Middle-East as well as in Israel, US and India. India, ironically, has been made to move out from Iran Chabahar project which even the visits of defense minister Rajnath Singh (September 5, 2020) and external affairs minister S Jaishaker (September 9, 2020) , could not re-stitch again.
If Trump is to give a go-ahead against Iran, it will most certainly have a fallout on Pakistan and China, who are at daggers-drawn with India over India’s PM Narendra Modi annulment of Article 370, on August 5, 2019, which gave special status JK&L, and it hadn’t been that long enough when Pakistan distanced itself from Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, one year later, after allegations that KSA did not stand with Pakistan on the issue of Kashmir, and therefore, KSA King Salman, response after the visit of Javed Zarif, at the behest of US, was quite predictive as he sought for a ‘decisive-stance’ against Iran, corroborated Al Jazeera on November 12, 2020 7 .
There might be a stealth-fighter attack, or a missile attack from Iraq or even a cyber-attack, as Iran had experienced mystery-fires in July last , when seven of its ships had caught fire , but whatever is to happen is to make it to the advantage of Israel, and India is very firmly with Israel, which ironically has been accorded as a ‘black-sheep’ by Russian president Vladimir Putin in ‘BRICS family’ on November 17, 2020, according to HindustanTimes 8 , as India has bid adieu to Russia by signing BECA with US, despite when around 70 percent of India’s military wherewithal has a stamp of Russia.
But, despite all if US goes on to attack Iran, China alongside Pakistan, due to CPEC, would also be there to the defense of Iran. Perhaps, if all this happens, then surely it would be advantage India. Even if, when Biden takes over on January 21, 2021.
The writer is a former State Information Commissioner, India. He is a media analyst and writes of international politics.
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Opinions
Frank F. Islam
By Frank F Islam
Under Joe Biden, US-India relations in areas like trade and commerce, as well as defence and strategic ties, are likely to be strengthened. New Delhi will be a large part of the Biden administration’s Asia Pacific strategy.
Now that the all-consuming debate on who will be better for New Delhi — Donald Trump or Joe Biden — is settled, India-watchers here have moved on to the next set of questions.
They are: what will the Biden White House look like? Who will lead the two key departments, state and defence, which matter the most to India? And, how many Indian-Americans will be in the next administration?
To those who are not familiar with the nitty-gritty of Washington, when an administration changes, the churn rate in personnel is quite high. As many as 4,000 vacancies arise whenever a new president is sworn in, with the White House complex alone accounting for 10 percent of those jobs. Key positions to be filled in include cabinet secretaries, assistant secretaries, dozens of ambassadorships, and district attorneys.
DIVERSE CABINET
To answer the above questions one by one, it is safe to assume at the outset that the new administration will look like the America of today, diverse and representative of the larger Democratic umbrella coalition.
That coalition, which propelled Joe Biden to the presidency, includes a number of ethnic and ideological groups, such as African-Americans, Hispanics, Asian and Indian Americans, labour union members, working-class people, progressives, and moderates. Women voters played a significant role in Biden’s victory — 57 percent of women voted for him, compared to 42 percent for Trump.
Each of the above-mentioned groups is certain to find representation in the administration. As a matter of fact, Kamala Harris ticks off at least three out of four of these boxes: woman, African-American, and Indian-American.
Two names that are speculated about for the state and defence secretaries’ position are women. Former US Ambassador to the UN and National Security Advisor, Susan Rice, is reportedly among the frontrunners for secretary of state, while former Clinton and Obama official Michele Flournoy is said to be considered for secretary of defence.
Whoever is picked for these positions, India will be a big part of the next administration’s foreign policy. That will not be because of the cabinet secretaries, but because of their boss, president-elect Joe Biden.
When Biden is sworn in as president on January 20, 2021, he will enter the Oval Office with one unique distinction: He will have more India expertise than any of his 45 predecessors had at the beginning of their White House tenure. The president-elect has engaged with India for decades, first as the chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee and then as vice president.
During his nearly half a century of public life, Biden has seen the highs and lows of India-US relations through his own eyes. When he first ran for the Senate in 1972, the bilateral ties were at their nadir, with President Richard Nixon siding with Pakistan in the Indo-Pak war the previous year.
As the relations began improving and reaching new heights over the past quarter-century, Biden had a seat at the high table, as an active participant, in many of the seminal moments. So, more than anyone else, the President himself will be invested in America’s relations with India.
Therefore, irrespective of whoever is in charge at Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon, the bilateral ties, in all areas, trade and commerce, as well as defence and strategic relations, will be strengthened. New Delhi will be a large part of the next administration’s Asia Pacific strategy.
Where India will gain the most will be on the trade and commerce front, where the Trump administration took a number of steps backward with its protectionist trade policies.
Will there be any disagreements between the United States and India on areas such as human rights? Absolutely. But, unlike the interactions on differences of opinion with the Trump administration, I am confident that the two sides will handle all disagreements in a mature, professional, and diplomatic manner.
INDIAN-AMERICAN REPRESENTATION
Based upon the track record of previous Democratic administrations, one can expect a significant presence of Indian-Americans in the Biden White House. Obama currently holds the record for nominating and appointing the largest number of Indian-Americans. Now, judging by their presence in various transition committees, it appears that an even larger group of Indian Americans will be working in the executive branch after January 20.
The president-elect has tapped nearly two-dozen Indian Americans to serve on his 500-member transition agency review teams. Three of the teams are led by Indian Americans. Stanford professor Arun Majumdar leads the Department of Energy review team; March of Dimes Chief Medical and Health Officer Rahul Gupta heads the Office of National Drug Policy team; the Office of Personnel Management team is led by Philanthropy Northwest CEO Kiran Ahuja.
Similarly, the president-elect’s 13-member Covid-19 task force has three Indian Americans. Its co-chair Vivek Murthy, a former surgeon general, is touted as a potential candidate for the top Health and Human Service job. In the new administration, no cabinet member will have a more important role than the HHS secretary, who will be in charge of fighting Covid-19, which was described by Biden as his Number One priority.
What the presence of a record number of Indian Americans on various transition teams and the Covid-19 task force indicates is the incredible expertise and deep pools of talent within the community in a number of fields, such as healthcare, technology, law, economics and finance. Given this, there is no doubt that Indian Americans will be well represented in the Biden administration.
The community, like most minority groups, has been reliably Democratic for decades. A number of Indian Americans worked hard for the victory of the Biden-Harris ticket. Their representation will be a just reward for the community for its loyalty and hard work. More importantly because of their competence and commitment to the country, beneficial to the entire United States as well.
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Opinions, World
Frank F. Islam
Never mind! That would be the response of tens of millions of Donald Trump’s loyal supporters on what to do to counteract his egregious actions, tweets and statements.
They would say that to others, as they themselves would always mind. They would embrace whatever Trump says and do whatever he asks.
Why is that? Who are the Trump supporters?
As we noted in an August 2016 blog before the presidential election that year, “Trump supporters are of two principal types: right wing populists and Republican diehards.”
Those populists who were early supporters of Trump tended to skew male, older, whiter, and less educated. As we observed back then, however, “Frequently, citizens’ votes have more to do with who they are rather than who the candidates are or what their ads say. That’s why when it comes to winning elections in close races, understanding psychographics trumps demographics.”
Here’s what various researchers and analysts discovered about what was on and in the minds of early Trump supporters at that time. They were Republican voters who:
Were “true authoritarians” that scored high on authority/loyalty/sanctity
Felt that discrimination against whites had become as big a problem as discrimination against Blacks and other minorities.
Scored highest on racial resentment and were much more likely to support Trump than their more moderate counterparts.
Didn’t feel they had a voice. And wanted to wage an interior war against those who are different than them (e.g. immigrants and Muslims).
That mindset and these populists made Trump victorious in the Republican primaries. By general election time, they were joined by what might be labeled “diehard” Republicans.
As we wrote in 2016, these stanch Republicans came “… from across the party continuum.” They were loyal Republicans who would never leave the Party nor ever vote for a Democrat or a third-party candidate. They included single or wedge issue voters such as business owners, gun owners and evangelical Christians.
The diehard Republicans were not uniformly enthusiastic about supporting Trump in 2016. Within just about a year after his winning the presidency, they had become much more approving.
In a blog written in October 2017, we noted that Trump’s support among Republicans as a group was substantially higher than that of the Republican congressional leadership. His approval ratings and the belief that Trump was taking the Party in the right direction were extremely strong and extended across the board. Based upon an assessment of the significance of that data, we stated, “What we can tell at this point in time is to a greater rather than a lesser extent, the Republican Party is the party of Trump.”
Over the next three years, from 2017 through 2020, Trump’s approval ratings with Republicans remained very high and remarkably stable. More importantly, in that time period he solidified what might be called his stranglehold on the Republican Party, which must now more correctly be called the Party of Trump.
The extent of Trump’s ownership and control of the party was demonstrated by the fact that the Party adapted no platform at its annual convention this year. Trump was the platform and the Party is his.
Trump established this total mindshare by governing and communicating in a manner that increased his support with his expanded core group while adding a couple of new constituencies, such as white supremacists and right-wing conspiracy theorists. He did this by focusing and championing the issue or item that was top of mind for them.
The top of mind concerns of key groups of Trump supporters and selected actions that Trump has taken to address them are summarized below:
The base of populist supporters: Being an outsider is top of mind. Trump channeled the animus, agitation, and alienation of these supporters and magnified and personified it during the primaries and presidential campaign through rallies, tweets, and public statements. He persisted along this same trajectory after he was elected. He has never stopped campaigning. He has held more than 130 in-person and virtual rallies since taking office. He has issued tens of thousands of tweets to his millions of followers. He has encouraged his most loyal supporters to take to the streets on his behalf with calls to “Liberate Michigan” and other states to reopen them during the COVID-19 shutdowns, and to turn out and be pseudo “poll watchers” to intimidate voters in polling places in swing states this election.
Corporate executives, business owners and the rich. Profits and personal wealth enhancement are top of mind. During his presidency, Trump has benefitted businesses by eliminating or modifying regulations in agencies from the Department of Labor to the Environment Protection Agency. The sweeping change that was most beneficial was the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which was ostensibly drafted and passed to benefit America’s middle and working class. The truth, according to the Congressional Budget Office projections, is the tax cuts will save partnerships, S corporations, and large businesses billions of dollars over ten years. And higher income individuals have done much better initially in terms of savings than middle- or lower-income Americans.
Gun owners. Unrestricted access to and use of guns of all types is top of mind. What Trump has done for these “Second Amendment people,” as Trump calls them, is to ensure their “rights” have gone untrampled. In spite of the Parkland shooting, other mass shootings, and various national surveys showing the majority of the American public is in favor of some form of gun control, Trump has advanced no meaningful gun legislation. At one point he told legislators to not be afraid of the National Rifle Association and advocated some background checks for guns. He later backed away from those positions. In February, 2020, the AP ran an article titled “Trump campaigns as a 2nd Amendment warrior.”
Evangelical Christians. Abortion is top of mind. Evangelical Christians want to see Roe V. Wade, which makes abortion legal, overturned. Trump received 80% of their vote nationally in the 2016 elections, and that vote may have made the difference for him in the swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. The abortion issue is similar to the guns issue. Numerous surveys taken over the past few years show that a large majority of Americans do not want Roe v. Wade countermanded. In spite of this, Trump has weighed in with the Evangelical Christians by proposing Notre Dame law professor Amy Coney Barret, who has consistently advocated for limiting abortion rights, as his Supreme Court nominee.
White Supremacists. Racial superiority/discrimination is top of mind. Even though many early Trump supporters demonstrated racist tendencies, this segment was not explicitly identified as Trump supporters during the 2016 presidential campaign. After the violent confrontations in Charlottesville, VA, which included a woman being killed by a white supremacist, Trump brought it out of the closet by saying “..there were very fine people on both sides.” He resurrected white supremacists again during the first debate with Vice President Joe Biden by not condemning white supremacism specifically and stating that the Proud Boys, an acknowledged white supremacist group, should “Stand back and stand by.”
Conspiracy theorists. Domestic upheaval and terrorism are top of mind. QAnon (Q), which asserts that prominent Democrats, A-list personalities, and others in the so-called deep state, are involved in a cabal engaged in satanism, child sex trafficking, and other devious acts is in a class by itself in terms of generating completely unfounded inflammatory charges through social media. Q now also has dozens of Republican political candidates this election cycle either embracing or espousing some of their beliefs. In August, Donald Trump said, “I don’t know much about the movement, other than I understand they like me very much which I appreciate.”
Those are the top of mind issues for some major groups of Trump supporters. They bring us to the elephant and the fox in the room.
The elephant is the elected officials in the Congress of the United States in Washington, D.C. The fox is Fox News.
The elephant was the symbol for the Republican Party when it was the GOP, before it became the Party of Trump. There is a need for a new symbol because those officials are now in a space defined by President Donald Trump and not themselves.
Early in his campaign to secure the Republican presidential nomination, Trump had only one Senatorial ally — Jeff Sessions (R-AL). His senatorial opponents such as Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) spoke about him in derogatory terms.
After Trump won the nomination, the Republican members of the Senate and House of Representatives begrudgingly became supporters. After he was elected President, the support increased and some politicians, such as the members of the Freedom Caucus in safe districts and states, became outspoken and ardent advocates.
As it became obvious early in his tenure in office that Trump’s popularity and approval ratings were much higher than their own, the Republicans shifted to become accomplices and enablers in advancing Trump’s agenda. They did this because the top of mind issue for the majority was and is re-election.
The impact of Trump upon the Republicans was evident during the impeachment trial in the Senate. In his closing argument there, House impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) declared, “It is said that a single man or woman of courage makes a majority. Is there one among you who will say, ‘Enough’?”
The answer to Schiff’s question was a resounding “No.” Trump might not have control over the minds of the Senators, but he definitely has control over their votes and mouths.
By contrast, because of Fox News, Trump has mind control over his strongest supporters. The reason for this, as polling by the Pew Research Center revealed, is that Fox is overwhelmingly the most trusted source for news among the traditional TV news media sources for these supporters.
Fox News is the primary purveyor of Trump’s fake news. Because of its one-sided presentation of information and opinions, it also serves as an unofficial public relations firm for Trump.
Indeed, Fox News commentators such as Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Tucker Carlson not only spin their presentations to reflect favorably on whatever the President says and does. It is also reported that he seeks their advice frequently, or listens to them and then repeats things they have said.
Fox News commentators shape or reinforce what’s on and in Trump’s mind. And Trump, in turn, shapes and influences what’s in and on the minds of his supporters.
Trump is able to do this because each of us has our own belief system and tends to accept information which fits within that system. Social psychologist Milton Rokeach from Michigan State University was one of the foremost experts on belief systems. As we noted in our first book, Renewing the American Dream, published in 2010, Rokeach developed a psychology of dogmatism. He found that dogmatism was a measurable personality trait created by the convergence of a closed cognitive system, authoritarianism, and intolerance.
We’ve seen no study on the profiles of Trump supporters but it is likely many of them would score highly on the dogmatism scale. There is a new book, however, by psychology professor Bob Altemeyer and lawyer John W. Dean titled Authoritarian, which presents recent survey results confirming that many Trump supporters have right-wing authoritarian mindsets. Other Trump supporters would do what many of us do because we are human.
If a fact, figure, or statement doesn’t fit with our belief system, we ignore or reject it. Studies have found that people will not seek or attempt to secure data if it does not reinforce with their own viewpoints. And they will accept inaccurate information over definitively accurate information if it conforms with their views. In other words, there are ideological blinders through which we filter information.
In a recent New York Times article, political scientist Greg Weiner asserted that President Trump’s “..orienting principle is that everything that benefits Mr. Trump is true and everything that inconveniences him is false.” Weiner goes on to state, “Five centuries ago Niccolo Machiavelli called this the “effectual truth:” Claims that are true, he wrote in The Prince, are so not because they correspond to objective reality but because they are politically ‘useful.’”
The most adamant supporters of President Trump accept and endorse his effectual truth on all matters on which he opines. It becomes their political mantra and defines their societal mission.
This was proven most recently by the fact that there was little negative reaction among the Trump supporters to his catching COVID-19 or his reprehensible tweet and video instructing the American citizens, “I’ve learned so much about the coronavirus. Don’t let it dominate you. Don’t be afraid of it. You’re going to beat it.”
There are more than 210,000 Americans who have not beaten it. And there have been more than 7 million cases to date, with many more deaths and cases in the offing. This is not a blessing.
Some have called Trump supporters mindless. They are not mindless but they do mind less.
They mind less about the health of their fellow citizens. They mind less about the growing inequality in the country. They mind less about equal justice. They mind less about religious freedom. And, most importantly, they mind less about the future of the democracy.
From one perspective, Trump supporters might be labeled mind full. That’s mind full not mindful. Their minds are full. These supporters have not drunk the Kool Aid or the hydroxychloroquine.
But their minds have been dominated and infected by Donald Trump. If that dominance results in Trump’s re-election in November of this year, it will be the embalming fluid for the American democracy.
Fortunately, there will be many other minds at work and voting in this election cycle. They include the normal big tent Democratic coalition and cross-over voters who supported Trump in the 2016 election, from groups such as women, senior citizens, suburban residents, citizens with college degrees, and working-class heroes and essential workers.
This should produce a Biden victory. That victory will provide the opportunity for concerned citizens of all political stripes and persuasions to unite and start the hard work that will be required to revive and build a collective and more inclusive American mind and memory.
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Opinions
“Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”
Frank F. Islam
By Frank F. Islam
Those words spoken by President John F. Kennedy nearly six decades ago at his inauguration on January 20, 1961 have inspired generations and millions of Americans to serve their country. I am among them.
President Kennedy has inspired others through his deeds as well as his words. He was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal of Honor for his heroic actions after the sinking of his PT 109 boat during World War II. He served with distinction as U.S. president from 1961- 1963 and before that as the U.S. Senator and Congressman from Massachusetts from 1947–1960. He made an indelible mark on national service with the establishment of the Peace Corps during his presidency to send volunteers to contribute to peace and progress in developing countries around the world.
In summary, JFK lived a life of service and provided platforms for others to join him. That is why it is fitting that the National Commission on Military, National and Public Service in its final report Inspired to Serve, issued in March of this year recommends building upon his contributions.
In the Executive Summary of its report, the Commission proposes that, “By 2031 — the 70th anniversary of President Kennedy’s call for Americans to serve the nation — the Commission envisions that 5 million Americans will begin participating in military, national or public service each year.” Achieving this target would be transformative, “minimizing the need for traditional military recruiting”; producing 1 million federally supported national service opportunities — “a more than tenfold increase from today’s numbers”; and, modernize Government personnel systems “to attract and enable Americans with critical skills to enter public service.”
In its 245-page report, the Commission present 49 robust recommendations and provides 45 pages of implementation guidance for bringing about that transportation. The recommendations include:
- Revitalize civic education and expand service learning.
- Promote cross-service marketing, recruitment and retention.
- Strengthen and expand educational pathways for military service.
- Establish new models for national service
- Reform Federal hiring
Inspired to Serve is a landmark study that was developed based upon two and a half years of extensive research. It provides the road map for future legislative and administrative actions to expand and extend JFK’s service to country call to future generations. It builds upon the present and the past to move the country forward.
This is especially critical in these trying times when political polarization, systemic racism, and the economic and health consequences of Covid-19 has the country virtually impaled. As Senator John F. Kennedy advised a Loyola College alumni group in 1958 before he became President “Let us not despair but act. Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past — let us accept our own responsibility for the future.”
Indeed, it is not time to despair but to prepare. The bad news is that is unrealistic to think or believe that there will be any movement upon the Commission’s recommendations because of immediate priority needs and the chaos of this presidential election year.
The good news is that the report will be there as point of reference and action in 2021. The better news is that so many U.S. citizens have heard JFK’s call to service in 2020 and stepped forward individually and in groups to make the U.S. a better nation.
They include the Covid-19 heroes. The health care professionals and essential worker who did their jobs and the country moving during its lockdown. The JFK Library will be acknowledging the work of those in the frontline with individual stories on its website and by honoring a representative group of all of these heroes at its annual Profile in Courage ceremony next May.
They also include those on the sidelines and those in the streets. The tens of millions of Americans who stayed at home and sheltered in place during the first wave of the pandemic. And, the diversity of those who protested against structural and societal racism.
These brave Americans have enlisted in service to their country. There is much more to be done and the Inspired to Serve report provides the launching pad for doing much more.
Noted historian Robert Dallek titled his brilliant biography of President Kennedy, An Unfinished Life. JFK’s own life was tragically cut short. He lives on, however, through the lives of others who have and will serve this nation by making it a better and fairer place.
JFK’s call has been heard. It is an enduring one. It cannot and will not be silenced as long as there are Americans who are willing to put the interest of others above their own in order to create a more perfect union.
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Opinions
Frank F. Islam
By Frank F Islam
Driven by politics rather than science, Donald Trump took a set of reckless decisions. Here are 10 lessons
The United States (US), which has the most expensive health care infrastructure in the world, remains, by far, the country most affected by the coronavirus pandemic with more than 3.5 million cases and around 140,000 fatalities as of July 15. Sadly, more than six months after the onset of the pandemic, the US appears to be far from flattening the infections curve.
These problematic conditions were created by a seriously flawed response to Covid-19 from its initial identification until today. There were 10 major deficiencies, all of which provide lessons on what not to do.
One, decisions were made politically, rather than scientifically. This failure began at the top with President Donald Trump. He was initially dismissive of the coronavirus comparing it to the seasonal flu. He appointed Vice-President (V-P) Mike Pence to head a task force to advise on what to do but gave it no real authority.
Two, no national plan, backed by law, was devised to address the pandemic. The V-P’s task force developed guidelines for states and localities for testing, tracking and treatment of the virus; sheltering in place; and, the use of masks and social distancing to prevent its spread. These were only guidelines, not mandatory rules or law.
Three, the pandemic was treated as a state and local issue. There was no standardised federal intervention on the pandemic. The governors and local officials were made responsible for handling it. As a result, the approaches and results varied considerably from state to state.
Four, there was limited national access to testing, medical equipment and supplies. The federal government furnished a nominal amount of these, but the supplies and supply chain were woefully insufficient. The states were left to source these, and fought among themselves, to acquire these materials from overseas and private sources.
Five, there were mixed messages related to the pandemic. The task force held regular briefings until the country began to reopen and Trump essentially silenced it. He commandeered those briefings and used them to grandstand, argue with the press, contradict the medical experts, and even promote unproven drugs.
Six, there was a push towards a rapid reopening. Trump was always opposed to sheltering in place. He started suggesting considering reopening the country shortly after people started staying at home. He also tweeted to his millions of followers to liberate states such as Virginia and Michigan where he felt the governors might resist or be too slow in reopening. Trump appeared to be driven solely by his re-election possibilities, at the cost of public health.
Seven, reopening one part, based on relative success in another, ignored the nature of the disease. The original hotspots for the pandemic were primarily states and urban cities in the Northeast and Midwest and in California. By mid-May to early June, the spread was weakening in those locations and appeared to have peaked around the country. So states such as Georgia, Florida, Texas and Arizona moved ahead with relatively rapid re-opening. As a consequence, they became and are the new hot spots.
Eight, the US had no uniform enforcement mechanisms. The extent to which states enforced sheltering at home, wearing of masks and social distancing varied sharply. In some states such as Georgia and Texas with Republican governors and large cities with Democratic mayors, the governors only recommended these actions to battle Covid-19, while the mayors required them by law.
Nine, a misplaced prioritisation of economic concerns over health concerns. The reopenings were done almost solely to stimulate the economy which had cratered due to the pandemic. This had huge costs.
Ten, and perhaps most important, there has been the consistent rejection and discounting of expert advice. From the outset, Trump minimised the advice of experts such as internationally-renowned infectious disease and task force member Dr Anthony Fauci, and constructed his own alternative version of reality.
Overall and with a few exceptions in hard-hit states where individual governors demonstrated leadership, the US has managed Covid-19 reactively rather than proactively. A large part of this failure must be attributed to Trump who, after months of not wearing a mask, has only recently been seen in public wearing one, and who continues to insist that, at some point, the pandemic will just disappear.
Trump is a role model of what not to do personally, politically and professionally in response to a pandemic. His coronavirus playbook is a template for current and future national leaders on how not to fight a pandemic.
These are the primary lessons that India and other countries can learn from the US’ disastrous handling of this situation. India must pay heed, as cases are continuing to rise, indicating that possibly the toughest lockdown in the world did not yield the outcomes that had been anticipated. Sometime shortly, India will pass the grim milestone of one million cases to become the third nation to do so, after the US and Brazil.
That is bad news for India. There is a silver lining in the cloud though. That is because of its much lower fatality rate. Moreover, according to Indian government officials, 80% of active cases are from 49 of the country’s 720 districts, which mean a vast majority of the cases are restricted to less than seven per cent of the districts. By taking a targeted approach to testing, tracking and treatment to flatten the curve in these hot spots and ensuring no spread beyond these areas, the impact of the pandemic can be minimised going forward.
