Thom Hartmann for BuzzFlash: The Republican Death Cult Continues to Let Americans Die

December 1, 2020

South Dakota’s pro-Trump COVID-Enabling Governor Kristi Noem should change the state’s motto to “A Good Place to Die” (Mike Licht)

By Thom Hartmann

Florida governor Ron DeSantis says that he won’t put into place a mask mandate because people in blue states that have used mask mandates are still getting infected. His logic is extraordinary; let’s extend it.

All across the northern American states today, people are wearing coats, gloves, scarves and hats as they go outdoors. Yet only around 1330 Americans die of hypothermia every year, and almost all of those people were wearing coats, gloves, scarves and/or hats!

And the majority of people who die of hypothermia we’re not only wearing warm clothing, they also had pre-existing conditions! That must be the real cause that they died, right? Those 1300 death certificates must be wrong!

South Dakota governor Kristi Noem has turned her state into the hottest of Covid hotspots in the world right now. Mask mandates are not the solution, she asserts; one wonders if she wears a coat when she goes outside. By Republican logic, coats don’t work!

In trying to imitate Trump to suck up to his radical, neo-Nazi base Republican governors across the country are actively committing manslaughter. They think it will help their political chances in the future, and for them that’s more important than the lives of the people in their states.

While the US is averaging 47 Covid deaths per 100,000 people, the death rate in Taiwan is 0.03 people per 100,000. Vietnam is 0.04 deaths, Thailand 0.09, China 0.34, and New Zealand and Singapore tie at 0.51. South Korea is way up there at 1.02, and Norway is at an embarrassing 6.17.

Those were all countries that took Covid seriously, that imposed mask and social distancing mandates, and whose governments protected their people from the worst pandemic in a century. Here, though, Republicans gave us a Fox News quack doctor promoting herd immunity.

As Americans face the most massive health and economic crisis in a century, Mitch McConnell and Republicans in the Senate refuse to pass any of the several health & stimulus packages that have already passed the House. Purely because they think it will help them politically.

Instead of worrying about the 13 million Americans with Covid, the 20 million Americans on unemployment that’s running out, or the one in five American families who right now don’t have enough food for their children, Republicans are pushing “liability limitations“ so workers can’t sue their employers.

For the last 40 years, every time Republicans take control of government they give massive tax breaks to the richest Americans, let corporations increase their pollution and rip off their customers, and fill critical government posts with political hacks.

And now they’re allowing mass death, whether you call it murder or manslaughter or simply massive political malpractice. All so they can serve their first priority: wealthy Americans safely cocooned in their mansions with live-in staff and private jets. People like Kelly Löffler.

Reagan told us government was the problem, not the solution. Republican slogans like “smaller government,“ “fiscal responsibility” and “deregulation“ all translate into ineffective government when it’s needed the most: during a crisis like this. It’s insanity.

Over 10 million Americans are sick, more than twice that many are in danger of losing their homes and livelihoods, and a third of the country is uninsured or underinsured. But the GOP is making sure their special interest donors and fat cat overlords are taken care of first.

Throwing Trump out of office was a beginning, but the Republican party still adheres to their cancerous stew of Neoliberalism, Calvinism and Reaganism. In 40 years it has gutted the middle class, and has now overseen a quarter million American deaths.

It’s time to close the door on the 40 years this country has been living in Ronald Reagan‘s fantasy world. Experience all around the world proves that governments CAN do good, they CAN protect their people from both health and financial crises, and they CAN make “happy” societies.

Covid has made it excruciatingly obvious that the Republican Party has devolved into a sort of wealth-worshiping death cult devoted only to rich people and big corporations who, in turn, fund their campaigns. Democrats and the media need to shout that from the rooftops.

Thom Hartmann is a talk-show host and the author of The Hidden History of the War on Voting and more than 30 other books in print. His most recent project is a science podcast called The Science Revolution. He is a writing fellow at the Independent Media Institute

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