President needs to unify the country
To the editor:
Take a close look at a U.S. map showing which states are proactively dealing with the coronavirus crisis and which states are following Trump’s version of downplaying it. There is a distinct Democrat-Republican difference. On March 20, New York was the second state to announce “stay-at-home” measures, after California. By March 23, eight more Democratic governors followed suit until all were taking part. As of this writing, 10 Republican governors have no measures in place, three are only singling out cities/counties, and four are simply “encouraging” people to stay home (footnote 1). Republican governors’ desires to please their voters and Trump are putting the whole rest of the country at risk.
If our president wants to be a “wartime president,” he needs to take command, follow the advice of our Surgeon General Adams and support a national “shelter-in-place” mandate (2). Dr. Fauci has tried to get the president to understand there is equal risk for low-density areas and low-population states. Fragmented regulation doesn’t work because viruses don’t respect party lines (3). The coronavirus is not Trump’s fault, but it is his responsibility to recognize the danger of using weak Republican measures to combat the coronavirus in some states, as opposed to stringent Democrat measures in others.
The president is the one who can bring unity by asking his Republican supporters to lay down the political swords during this crisis and focus on battling the disease. Once he explains to the American people the part he played in driving the country into two groups (those who followed Republican talking points and Democrats who followed the advice of experts), he can invite us all to commit to a uniform, medical approach that saves lives. Trump has to be the one to endorse consistent mandates soon to make up for lost time.
Martha Hodges
Massena
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Footnotes:
2. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/apr/1/jerome-adams-us-surgeon-general-fed-guidelines-are/
3. https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/02/politics/fauci-stay-home-coronavirus-states-cnntv/index.html