“You’re supposed to keep us safe.”
That was Senator John Kennedy’s (R-La.) response on Tuesday to acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf on the agency’s inability to give a satisfactory briefing on how well the U.S. is prepared to deal with the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19). Wolf’s answers to many of Kennedy’s questions were vague, or differed from the information Senators had received during an earlier Senate briefing that day.
“You’re supposed to keep us safe and the American people deserve some straight answers on the Coronavirus and I’m not getting them from you.”
This brings to mind one of the episodes of ABC television network’s After School Special from the 1970s. (For some reason, living under this administration brings to mind a number of applicable episodes.) In this particular episode, at least the way I remember it, the mom had a drinking problem that she thought she was hiding pretty well from her kids.
She repeatedly endangered her kids by doing things like falling asleep drunk while smoking in bed. The kids, who of course knew that mom drank too much, were so afraid that she would accidentally burn the house down that they decided to craft a fire exit plan and practice a fire drill so that they could get out of the house safely in case it caught fire.
Like this mom, the Trump administration also makes poor, dangerous decisions, as well as hiding things from “the kids,” the American people. Unlike this administration, however, when the TV mom realized the peril she was placing her kids in, and how unsafe the kids felt (and were) because of her, she got help so that she could stop endangering her family.
In contrast, the Trump administration, whose job it is to keep us safe, doubles down on defending its actions or further trying to cover them up when an error in judgment (or a lapse in ethics) comes to light. It has demonstrated that it values personal opinion over science and facts, and loyalty over competence.
Similarly to how it was for the After School Special kids, it’s left up to us to figure out how to keep ourselves safe from the ones who are supposed to keep us safe.
On Wednesday, President Trump held a press conference in which he updated Americans on the novel Coronavirus and how this administration was handling it. After allowing several infectious disease and public health experts on his newly formed task force to speak briefly, he contradicted much of what they said by downplaying the severity and the inevitable spread of the virus in the U.S.
He then announced that he was appointing Vice President Mike Pence to head up the task force. “He’s very good and I think — and he’s really very expert at the field,” Trump said about Pence, who has no health care background, who is not a fan of science, and who has had perilous public health failures such as failing to respond in a timely manner to an HIV crisis in his home state of Indiana.
One can’t forget, either, that Pence once wrote this in an op-ed: “Time for a quick reality check. Despite the hysteria from the political class and the media, smoking doesn’t kill.”
Apparently in an effort to prevent contradictory statements, the Trump administration has instructed experts such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, not to speak to the public or the press about the Coronavirus without clearance from the White House.
Coronavirus: “You’re supposed to keep us safe,” Sen Kennedy to Chad Wolf – Appropriation hearing | C-SPAN/Sense in That [2020-02-25]
Trump frustrated by CDC’s coronavirus severity warning |
CBS This Morning [2020-02-27]
