Trumper Blame Game and the Delta variant

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As the highly contagious Delta variant increases, public health officials are trying to stay focused on the urgent need for more vaccinations.

But with growing vehemence, Trump’s Republicans are falling back on their old game of deflecting attention by blaming immigrants crossing the southern border.

Last week, Trump released a signature charge: ICYMI: Thousands of COVID-19 positive migrants passing through the border town of Texas, linking a New York Post article claiming that nearly 7,000 immigrants tested positive for COVID-19 passed through a town in Texas that became the epicenter of the wave of illegal immigration.

Trump’s Republicans are falling back on their old game of deflecting attention by blaming immigrants crossing the southern border.

You might remember Trump used this racist and nationalist theme before. For years he has fixed his anger on Mexicans and Central Americans through shit holes, as he so delicately put it. He began his 2016 campaign by accusing criminals, drug dealers and rapists of crossing the southern border of the Americas, then spent much of the next four years trying to erect a fence to keep them out. .

Trump’s henchmen adopt the same demagogy for Delta’s surge. As Florida hospitalizations topped 12,000 this week, surpassing a record already broken last weekend, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis accused President Biden of facilitating the virus by failing to curb immigration across the country. southern border.

Why aren’t you doing your job? DeSantis broke after Biden suggested that DeSantis stop opposing masks. Why not secure this border? And until you do that, I don’t want to hear a word about Covid from you, thank you.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott was also quick to blame the delta’s surge for immigrants entering Texas from Mexico, while banning Texas municipalities from requiring masks or vaccines.

On July 28, Abbott issued an order allowing state soldiers to stop vehicles suspected of transporting illegal immigrants on the grounds that they could spread COVID. (The order was later blocked by a federal judge.) Days later, Abbott issued the order banning Texas counties, cities or universities from requiring masks or vaccines.

The Trumpist media are quickly lining up behind this nativist garbage. Over the past week, Fox News Sean Hannity claimed the biggest super-spreader was the immigrants crossing the southern border rather than the lack of vaccination.

The National Review says the Bidens border crisis merges with its Covid crisis and says the federal government is successfully terrifying people about COVID while shrugging its shoulders at the thousands of infectious illegal aliens entering the country and spread the virus. A headline in the Fort Worth Star Telegram demands that we stop pretending that the immigration crash at the Texas border was not the root of the COVID cases.

Hold it. Can we please look at the actual data?

The Delta variant was first detected in India in December, then moved directly to the United States in March and April according to the CDC.

GISAID, a nonprofit organization that tracks the genetic sequencing of viruses, has shown that each of the four variants currently circulating in the United States arrived here before spreading to Mexico and Central America. International travel rather than immigration across the southern border brought the viruses to America.

Haven’t we had enough demagoguery and diversion? Haven’t Trump and his ilk done enough damage yet?

The blame game must end. Let’s be clear. The best way to contain deaths and hospitalizations from Covid is to get more Americans vaccinated. Period.

Robert reich

Republished with permission from Robert Reich’s blog.

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