The right and left will continue to make political hay from a pandemic thrust on the world by China. Although I don't believe the virus was not intentionally weaponized at first, China definitely weaponized it by: 1) keeping it secret until it was spread to the rest of the world by allowing flights from Wuhan to points in Europe, U.S, etc. while:2) limiting the spread within China by disallowing travel out of Wuhan to the rest of China. They also cornered the market in PPE, even turning freighters back to China, causing shortages in the rest of the world. As an added benefit, the virus has not only killed over 100,000 citizen here in the U.S., but divided the nation even further, as each political wing uses it as a bludgeon on the other. Well done China.
Oh, no, no, no. You are wrong on two counts here:
1) You conservatives don't get to pull the left into the political pool that the right created. It was Trump and his GOP sheep who politicized this from the very beginning. From accusing the media and the Democrats of exaggerating this virus to wearing a re-election campaign hat to a crisis center, Trump pushed the virus into identity politics. Those who wear masks are weak and those who don't wear masks are brave and deny the left its new hoax. It was Trump who finally declared a national emergency, issued social distancing guidance and told people to listen to state authorities, and then he encouraged his protesters to "liberate" themselves from Democratic governors. And it was Trump who bullied Republican governors to open with reckless abandonment, thus slowing the path to economic recovery. Some of these states, Texas and Florida and Utah for example, are sucking wind because the virus was turned into a political statement by the right. The fact that the left now gets to shove Trump's very poor leadership in his face (again) is called an earned consequence of his own doing. As with so many things anymore, the left, once again, gets to be correct about reality because the right, again, foolishly decided that opposite arguments somehow defines their conservatism.
2) Blaming China also quickly became politicized by the right. If all focused on China, then all might ignore Trump. But President
Xi Jinping warned the public on January 20. China publicly
completed its second COVID-19 hospital on February 6 in some 10 days. Whatever blame China earned certainly stops there. From January 20 to March 13, Trump played political games for 53 days. I guess he thought those massive Coronavirus hospitals going up in China in early February were just fake news. In the meantime,
Trump publicly praised Xi and his transparency 15 times between January and March, even as the U.S. intelligence community and his own White House advisors were sounding the alarm about the impending pandemic and China’s public handling of it. But ever since he declared a national emergency on March 13, he has sought to blame China and WHO for his pathetic display of American leadership.
Again...53 ****ing days. You don't get to pretend those days don't exist. Whatever China tried to do on its own and then tried to cover up early on, Trump's much longer 53 days of sheer stupidity is what sent plenty of Americans, who liked the idea of it being the latest hoax, to their graves.
eace
