Johnson clearly tries to minimize the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States:
Each year, approximately 48,000 Americans commit suicide and an estimated 67,000 die of a drug overdose. That level of individual despair has occurred in a strong economy with near-record low levels of unemployment in virtually every demographic.Once again, I'm reminded of Steve Earle's protest song, "Amerika v. 6.0 (The Best We Can Do)::
Imagine the potential psychological and human toll if this shutdown continues indefinitely, unemployment reaches 20% or higher, as some now predict, and we sink into a deep recession or depression. ...
Every premature death is a tragedy, but death is an unavoidable part of life. More than 2.8 million die each year — nearly 7,700 a day. The 2017-18 flu season was exceptionally bad, with 61,000 deaths attributed to it. Can you imagine the panic if those mortality statistics were attributed to a new virus and reported nonstop?
Yeah, I know, that sucks that your HMO
Ain't doin' what you thought it would do
But everybody's gotta die sometime and we can't save everybody
It's the best that we can do
The first time I recall hearing a politician make this kind of argument was from then-Vice President Spiro Agnew, who brushed off antiwar critics' citing of American deaths in the Vietnam Ware by saying that more people were killed in traffic accidents in the US every year than the total number of Americans being killed in traffic accidents every year.
The argument didn't really catch on. Because even simpletons can grasp the difference between deliberate, systematic killing in war and many thousands of discreet accidents. Some war critics no doubt noticed that the number of Vietnamese dead were left out of Agnew's comparison. But even war fans were more focused on the sacrificial value of those Americans who died in combat. And the military, of course, has a moral obligation to honor the combat dead as well as a very practical reason for doing so. If people regard soldiers dying in war as pointless loss, they aren't likely to cheer for the wars or encourage family members to enlist.
Chris Hayes did a book based on his own experiences covering armed conflicts called War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning (2002). As the title implies, it focuses heavily on how people are motivated to fight, kill, and sacrifice themselves in war. "War finds its meaning in death," he wrote. "The cause is built on the backs of victims, portrayed always as innocent. Indeed, most conflicts are ignited with martyrs, whether real or created." And the number of soldiers or innocent civilians lost in a war become the justification for continuing the war. "The cause, sanctified by the dead, cannot be questioned without dishonoring those who gave up their lives."
That's why it's rare to see a politician sluffing off the significance of combat deaths, as Agnew did. And politicians who did not serve in the military, or who like Donald Trump made real effort not to do so in the case of conscription during the Vietnam War, are more likely to go out of their way to praise and idolize soldiers and those killed in war, at least in their public statements.
But deaths from COVID-19? It's hard for people to imagine those as patriotic sacrifices. The combat dead of the First World War were honored by their fellow citizens as patriotic sacrifices and remembered as heroes. The victims of the "Spanish" flu epidemic at the end of the war were unfortunate, tragic deaths to be mourned.
So when Sen. Johnson and other Republicans, including the Mad King Trump himself, seek to minimize the seriousness of COVID-19 deaths, they are being callous and morbid. But they don't risk drawing immediate charges of being unpatriotic the way someone dismissed the soldiers lost in a current war would be.
The crassly partisan motives of Republicans for doing so is not hard to see. Trump has been downplaying the significance of the virus and has been recklessly irresponsible in his statements about it and his formal policy responses to it. On February 26, he made this remarkable statement, “Because of all we’ve done, the risk to the American people remains very low. ... When you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero. That’s a pretty good job we’ve done." [my emphasis] And that is only one example among many. (Aaron Blake, Timeline: Trump’s efforts to downplay the coronavirus threat Washington Post 03/31/2020)
This MSNBC Deadline report contrasts Trumps's panicky backtracking in his daily (de facto) campaign press conference yesterday, April 1. Trump’s Revisionist History On Coronavirus 04/01/2020:
Given Trump's April 1 warning that we could be seeing 100,000 to 240,000 COVID-19 deaths, maybe Sen. Ron Johnson will share with us what to him would be an acceptable US body count of deaths over the next year under which no special measures are justified.
Some reporter should also ask Sen. Johnson whether the body count for the flu that he seems to consider a purely natural result might be affected by a health insurance system which provides universal coverage so that everyone can get prompt treatment when they get flu symptoms instead of opting to tough it out for fear of getting hammered with unpayable hospital bills.
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As we see from the following two articles, both by Eric Litke, the Johnson article was cited by The Intellectualist with the headline, "Americans Should Go Back To Work, Because ‘Death Is An Unavoidable Part Of Life.’" Ironically, The concluding lines on the two Litke articles are different, too:
- Fact check: Did Wisconsin senator say Americans should go back to work? USA Today 04/01/2020: "We rate this a False Headline."
- Did Ron Johnson say Americans should go back to work because “death is an unavoidable part of life?” PolitiFact 04/01/2020: "We rate this Half True."
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