On the first night of the Democratic National Convention of 2020, I kept thinking back to the crescendo of Donald Trump’s inaugural address. “This American massacre stops here and stops right now,” he said in 2017.
When Trump said those words, they shouted strangely. The unemployment rate was 4.7 percent. Poverty fell. Terrible crime fell. The proportion of Americans with health insurance was increasing. America had real and serious problems, from climate change to wage stagnation to child poverty to systemic racism. But it was not the murderous dystopia that Trump described.
Almost four years later, the word carnage feels apt. More than 170,000 Americans have died in the coronavirus pandemic. The United States sees about 155 confirmed cases of coronavirus per million people per day, more than five times the rate in the European Union. Children are home from school, with no safe path back to class. Unemployment is above 10 percent – higher than in the worst months of the financial crisis. The proportion of Americans with health insurance is falling, and the murder rate is spike in cities.
The first night of the Democratic convention may have been American massacre. Moments of it were wrenching to watch. Kristin Urquiza remembered her father, who caught Covid-19 after attending a karaoke night with his friends. He believed President Trump when he said the virus was fading. He died a few weeks later, isolated from his family. “My father was a healthy 65-year-old,” Urquiza said. “His only pre-existing condition was to trust Donald Trump, and for that he paid with his life.”
Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, remembers her son, who was murdered by a New York City police officer. “I know that when my son was killed, there was a big uprising, but then it fell down,” she said. “We can not let things settle.” Rodney and Philonise Floyd lead a moment of silence for their brother George Floyd, hidden to death by a Minnesota police officer. DC Mayor Muriel Bowser returned the day when the president asked peaceful Protestants with tear gas so he could take a picture with a Bible.
A parade of Republican officeholders announced they were signing Joe Biden – not because they agreed with him, but because they could not bear to see what her party’s nominee did to the country.
“I’m a lifelong Republican, but that commitment holds second place to my responsibility for my country,” said former Ohio Gov. John Kasich. ‘That’s why I chose to appear at this convention. In normal times such a thing would probably never happen, but these are not normal times. ”
In his speech, scenario Bernie Sanders summed up the situation sharply. America, he said, is facing the worst public health crisis in 100 years and the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. We face systemic racism and the enormous threat to the planet of climate change. And in the midst of all this, we have a president who is not only incapable of tackling these crises, but is leading our path of authoritarianism. “
In her keynote speech, Michelle Obama made the comparison with election day explicit. “Four years later, the state of this nation is very different,” she said. “More than 150,000 people have died, and our economy is in disrepair because of a virus that downplayed this president for too long. It has left millions of people unemployed. Too many have lost their health care; too many have difficulty caring for basic necessities such as food and hair; too many communities have been left in the lurch to wrestle with if and how we can safely open our schools. “
“Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country,” she continued. ‘He’s had more than enough time to prove he can do the job, but he’s clearly over his head. He cannot fulfill this moment. He just may not be who we need him to be. It’s what it is. ”
When Trump took office in 2017, he said the carnage “just stops here and stops right now.” In truth, the massacre had just begun. That’s Trump’s record. To simply tell the reality of the moment is to deliver a damning accusation of his presidency. It’s what it is.
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