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THE PUBLIC EYE:Whatever Happened to Personal Responsibility?
It may be hard to imagine but, a couple of decades ago, Republicans described themselves as "the Party of personal responsibility." The Grand Old Party imagined itself as the Party of rugged individualists, folks who clawed their way to the top with an unstoppable combination of ambition, perseverance, and moral rectitude. Republicans claimed the moral high ground. No more.
In the last year, we've seen Donald Trump, and his Republican cohorts, dodge responsibility for the Coronavirus pandemic and for the January 6th insurrection. Each of these actions was shameful and should be sufficient to tarnish the GOP for decades.
In every regard, Donald Trump mismanaged the pandemic. When he left office, at noon on January 20th, he was responsible for 25 million U.S. Covid-19 cases and 400,000 related deaths. It's an understatement to say that Trump did a terrible job; it's more accurate to say that he made a bad situation much, much worse. The prestigious medical journal Lancet (https://www.thelancet.com/
It wasn't entirely incompetence. Trump politicized the pandemic. He had a chance to act responsibly and, instead, chose "the dark side." In a recent CNN documentary (https://edition.cnn.com/2021/
(On March 29th, Trump responded to the CNN documentary (https://www.politico.com/
The truth is Trump made a political calculation that it was in his best interests to discount the pandemic. In the 2020 presidential election exit polls (https://www.cnn.com/election/
Trump set an example for his base: minimize COVID-19, refuse to wear a mask, and disavow social distancing. After being hospitalized with Coronavirus, Trump tweeted: "Don’t be afraid of Covid, Don’t let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago!”
This reckless attitude has greatly influenced his base: A recent PBS/NPR/Marist Poll (http://maristpoll.marist.edu/
Trump has never taken responsibility for the pandemic. In an August interview (https://thehill.com/policy/
My point is not to belabor Trump's incompetence or his lying. I want to emphasize Trump's absolute failure to take responsibility for the mistakes of his Administration. Thousands of deaths and millions of illnesses are his fault.
Since the beginning of the 21st century, we've seen remarkable evidence of Republican incompetence: the 9/11 attacks, the unnecessary war in Iraq, and the 2008 financial crisis -- to mention only a few. Trump's failure to handle the Coronavirus pandemic stands alone as a testimony to GOP self-serving greed.
Trump may be gone. (I hope.) But, the appalling failure of the Republican Party must not be forgotten. They can no longer claim the moral high ground. The GOP is not the party of personal responsibility. At best they are incompetents; at worst, traitors.
Bob Burnett is a Bay Area writer and activist. He can be reached at bburnett@sonic.net