Americanism is a Pandemic’s BFF
By: Tim Wise
Tags: Covid 19, Politics, Religion, Health, Economics

The virus would be bad enough on its own. The pandemic now gripping much of the world is capable, based merely on science, of wreaking sufficient havoc on public health and the global economy to last several lifetimes.

But add to that some of the most deeply-seated components of American ideology, and you can see why the United States is positioned to feel the pain even more acutely than most other nations.

While much of Europe and Asia have implemented drastic measures to flatten the curve of infection and transmission, America has done what we always do. First, deny that what others around the world experience could happen here — something we believed for a long time before 9/11 too — and then bask in our bravado, satisfied that even if awfulness visits our shores, it will be no match for the red, white and blue.

Thus, the reassurance early on from national security advisor Robert O’Brien, to the effect that America has “the greatest medical system in the world,” and thus we had little to fear — a pronouncement that was untrue in both the first and second parts of the claim. Nevertheless it sure sounded confident, badass even, which is no doubt why O’Brien said it.

We have long believed we could defeat any enemy: Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, or a deadly illness that apparently failed to take Toby Keith seriously when he made clear where America would put its boot.

Silly virus.

To which self-assurance the virus has replied, in effect, hold my beer, cowboy.

While it is tempting to blame Donald Trump’s venal incompetence for the current tragedy — and he certainly deserves plenty of criticism — it would be a mistake to do so and then believe culpability had been sufficiently assigned. The reasons for our current predicament are more systemic than that.

Don’t misunderstand: this president did several things tragically wrong, first and foremost, continuing to downplay the seriousness of the virus even after experts in the intelligence community briefed him in January that a pandemic was likely. By soft-pedaling the emergency at hand — a move thoroughly in keeping with Trump’s concerns for public image over public health — he indisputably made things worse than they needed to be.

His nonchalance delayed testing, social distancing, and the ramping up of equipment and protective gear purchases for health care providers. It also pushed back the timeline on the economic countermeasures that have now been taken to help stave off the financial apocalypse into whose face we are currently staring.

And as he petulantly delays assistance to states whose Governors have criticized him, or demands that such leaders “be appreciative” for aid before receiving it, there is little doubt that his temperament and ego needs have put millions at risk.

And yes, the right-wing echo chamber deserves its share of the blame too. For years they have stoked a pathological mistrust of mainstream media as operating from such liberal bias as to render them unworthy of being heeded on any matter. Most recently, with his “enemy of the people” shtick, Trump has escalated this mindless conspiracism to new levels. As such, if doctors on CNN say something, or an epidemiologist is quoted in the Washington Post, that’s enough for the MAGA cult to ignore it, or presume it the devious manipulation of some deep state operative looking for any way to bring down their Emperor God. For weeks, Limbaugh, Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and other ghoulish denizens of the Trumpian propaganda machine insisted the novel coronavirus was a hoax, just the flu, or hardly different from the common cold.

Still, beyond all this, there are things about American culture itself that deserve critical examination at this moment. Because unless we attend to these things, we will never be able to get ahead of such viruses in the future.

There are at least three essential Americanisms that enhance the risks to which we are exposed in times of crisis like this, and put us at higher risk than persons in other nations with which we like to compare ourselves.