U.S. needs president who embraces science not hate groups (commentary)

Courtesy of Bastrop Advertiser
Oct. 15, 2020
By Joni Ashbrook

President Donald Trump and Republicans have failed miserably at handling two of America’s crises – the coronavirus pandemic and the rise of white nationalists.

The fact that U.S. COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are increasing, and the White House held a superspreader event proves that Trump and his enablers’ plan to ignore science has been an abject failure.

Trump is not only a superspreader of coronavirus, but also of disinformation. Cornell University researchers found Trump was “the largest driver of the COVID-19 misinformation.”

Now, the scientific community is speaking out. The editors of The New England Journal of Medicine, the world’s leading medical journal, have broken their 208-year history of not entering the political fray.

They recently lambasted the Trump administration’s rejection of science during the pandemic calling our current political leaders “dangerously incompetent.”

They went on to say we shouldn’t “enable the deaths of thousands more Americans by allowing them to keep their jobs.”

Also, for 175 years the Scientific American has never endorsed a political candidate, but it endorsed Joe Biden. Its editors wrote: “Trump’s rejection of evidence and public health measures have been catastrophic.”

They also said, “Trump has hobbled U.S. preparations for climate change, falsely claiming that it does not exist.”

I’m sure our country and planet would be much healthier if Trump would work to undermine violent hate groups instead of science.

During the first presidential debate in 2020, moderator Chris Wallace asked Trump if he would disavow white supremacists.

It was shocking to hear an American president asked that question, but not surprising given Trump’s record on the subject.

In 2016, CNN’s Jake Tapper repeatedly asked then-candidate Trump if he condemned the former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.

Trump lied saying, “I know nothing about David Duke. I know nothing about white supremacists.”

But Trump made a home for white supremacists in our White House with Steve Bannon as his top aide. When Bannon was the head of Breitbart News he boasted: “We’re the platform for the alt-right.”

And we’ll never forget Trump’s disgraceful response to white supremacists shouting Nazi slogans and murdering a peaceful protester in Charlottesville, Va. Trump argued there were “some very fine people on both sides.”

Now there is QAnon, a conspiracy group that believes Trump is secretly saving the world from a cult of pedophiles and cannibals. The FBI identified it as a potential domestic terrorist threat.

Even though some in QAnon have been accused of plotting or carrying out violent crimes, Trump has called the group’s followers “people that love our country.”

People wonder if the Texas Republican Party is playing footsie with QAnon since it recently adopted the group’s catchphrase “We are the storm.”

Will Texas Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz along with Congressman Michael McCaul and other Republican leaders publicly disavow QAnon?

The FBI says domestic extremists, including white supremacists and anti-fascist groups, are one of our most serious threats, but Trump encourages them.

During the debate, Trump refused to condemn white supremacists, but instead gave a far-right hate group, the Proud Boys, a new rallying cry by telling them to “stand back and stand by.”

In April, armed men stormed Michigan’s state house protesting Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s COVID-19 lockdown causing some terrified legislators to wear bullet-proof vests.

Trump urged the armed men on by tweeting “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” Last week, at least three of those protesters were among 13 arrested for attempting to kidnap Whitmer.

The day of their arrests, Trump still didn’t strongly denounce these domestic terrorists. Instead, he criticized Gov. Whitmer for doing what he should have done from the beginning of the pandemic – follow the science to save lives and our economy.