Candidate Biden told us that he would “shut down the virus.” He told us, “Anyone who is responsible for that many deaths should not remain as president of the United States of America.” That was unfortunate rhetoric.
After his election, deaths have continued to mount. OurWorldInData's figure for December 19 puts the total at 806,439 deaths. Of those, 351,754 deaths occurred in 2020, while nearly 455,000—in 2021. Meanwhile, medical resources have continued to be constrained by little more ‘investment’ into the system with fewer hospital beds than in the 1970s. In 1975, there were about 1.5 million hospital beds in the U.S., but by 2019 the number had dropped to just about 919 thousand. Hospitals squelch competition and shovel up money for administration. The ‘non’ profit rather than people centered US medical system is a disaster.
And on a video call with governors in late December, President Biden told them, and all of us, that regarding the virus, “There is no federal solution. This gets solved at the state level.” In short, follow Trump’s policy.
As Covid-19 cases climb across the U.S., President Biden and his administration are preparing Americans to accept the virus as a part of daily life, in a break from a year ago when he took office with a pledge to rein in the pandemic and months later said the nation was “closer than ever to declaring our independence from a deadly virus,” in particular taking aim at rival Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
The recalibration of Mr. Biden’s message comes as the country braces for another round of disruptions wrought by the pandemic. A growing number of schools temporarily have returned to virtual instruction and many businesses are strained by staffing shortages, in both cases due to infections triggered by the highly transmissible Omicron variant. Thursday marked the 12th straight day of more than 1,000 flight cancellations, and many states warned that ongoing testing shortages will make it harder to return people to work and school.
Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard arguments about the Biden administration’s vaccine or testing requirement for businesses that have more than 100 employees—a centralizing, federal measure of executive power.
A majority of the justices indicated they thought such a mandate was government overreach. Following Biden, Chief Justice John Roberts said that the pandemic “sounds like the sort of thing that states will be responding to or should be, and that Congress should be responding to or should be, rather than agency by agency the federal government and the executive branch acting alone.”
You really can’t blame Biden and his handlers except for their unfortunate rhetoric, as there are multiple power centers, and a China-like complete shutdown response is untenable.
The turn to the states will affect other areas of public life, as Republican senators reiterated their opposition to the Democrats’ Freedom to Vote Act.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told reporters “The notion that some state legislature would be crazy enough to say to their own voters, ‘We’re not going to honor the results of the election’ is ridiculous on its face,” he said. Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) said that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) “is using the false narrative that our states cannot protect voters’ access to voting.”
Of course this is all a farce as voters’ choice is constrained by the duopoly of choice, and the duopoly is in turn controlled by who finances them, or individuals running under their banner. And that means, in a ‘capitalist democracy,’ choice is constrained by the Dream Hoarding bourgeois top 20%.
The capitalists want to make and circulate money. That means exploiting workers. And that means keeping the economy humming, whether through the states or the federal government.
Notes
https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-have-more-americans-died-covid-under-joe-biden-donald-trump-1661528
https://www.wsj.com/articles/behind-your-rising-health-care-bills-secret-hospital-deals-that-squelch-competition-1537281963