Necropolitics
or power that is wielded and leads to the purposeful murder of many
sacrificed on the alter of those the politicos deem "unfit" and by
those who wield political control over them. Trump owns, in my opinion,
the dubious historical distinction of being a Nazi-like leader who is
singling out for death, especially, in this pandemic but not exclusively
so, those whom he and others in his noxious administration think are
among the undesirables and therefore selectively "unfit" to live. This
includes, of course, the purposeful killing of those who include mostly
people who are black, brown, Hispanic, the nursing home aged, the sick,
the disabled and selected others who oppose his polices and any whom he
deems are lined up in opposition to him working for his electoral
demise.
The
politics that support his ruinous reign are many. They include locking
up in cages Hispanics and their children separated from their parents
whose only crime was to seek a better life in this once welcoming
nation. In this COVID-19 pandemic he has used the Defense Authorization
Act not to mandate companies make life saving devices such as PPE
equipment. Rather he is using the DAA for policies that will inure to
businesses of CEO's such as meat packing companies, he deems necessary
to keep the food chain from dwindling. Workers in meat packing
companies work in some of the most unsanitary most egregious conditions
found in this country and without any mandate for life saving implements
to protect workers they die in large numbers. They are also in large
part black, brown, and Hispanic people. Trump said the CEO's cheered
for his executive order commanding workers report for work irrespective
of sanitary conditions or risk loosing unemployment benefits if they
decide to protect their own lives and stay home. I am sure workers did
not cheer because they would be cheering for their own impending deaths.
Moreover, the CDC or Center for Disease Control, a leading United
States federal agency dedicated to protecting public health, issued
their instructions for these companies to remain open by selectively
watering down the language usually used giving certain owners
flexibility as to how they can remain open. Clearly Trump's mind was
not for protecting the lives of those workers he deems less valuable but
protecting the powerful business interests who either contribute to
Trump's campaign and/or who care only for their bottom line.
It has been said that Trump kept a copy of Mein Kampf on
his night table. I do not know if this is true but because of his
right wing extremist inability to empathize with the plight of those not
born lucky like he, I suspect, perhaps, it is. Clearly his politics
have killed many and in this era of the pandemic have killed thousands
and counting. He keeps mendaciously telling us what a fine job he is
doing. The numbers prove otherwise.
1,092,815
US cases and
64,283
US deaths largely but not exclusively persons of color and Hispanics.
If
Hitler was regarded by him as a "fine person" exemplar of how to
govern, the historical veracity tells the true story about the
destruction of World War II. On Hitler's march to power 50 million
human beings were slaughtered, millions of disabled, the sick, the
mentally ill and innocent including 6 million Jews and millions more
others -- those who did not fit into his white supremacist Aryan
agenda. They were slated for death in concentration camps and elsewhere
the brutality of which beggars the imagination of those we deem
civilized. The master race was Hitler's doctrine and murder was his
enforcer. Trump calls American Nazis marching to the tune of "Jews will
not replace us" "very fine people." American Nazis and the KKK who
just came out in support of Trump for his reelection will never be very
fine people. Those on the right are brutal, tyrannical, violent,
racist, machine gun toting threats to democracy and all for which this
nation has fought, bled and died.
The
Trumpian sewer in which this nation has become trapped is a threat to
those humanitarian values carefully etched over centuries in this nation
to make us sometimes the envy and sometimes savior of the world. How
have we fallen so far from our political ideals of fairness and justice
for all? I suspect historians will be studying that for decades and
studying how Trump became an indelible stain on our national soul. If
he is accorded an unthinkable second term, it will, I fear, be the end
of this nation as we know it. Quoting the Irish poet
Fintan O’Toole the "World has loved, hated and envied the United
States. Now, for the first time, we pity it." Now for the first time
so do I!
