Blame it on China

Trump’s abysmal handling of the pandemic, with 1,100,000 infections, 60,000 dead, and no end in sight, represents a national catastrophe. The Republican Party, seemingly unconcerned with the human tragedy, is laser focused on the coming electoral tragedy…for them. They need a scapegoat to survive this November. Beleaguered Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has come up with a 3 point plan: China, China, China. His blueprint for Red success specifies blaming the pandemic on China, standing up to an aggressive China and painting Democrats as ‘soft on China’. McConnell’s charges “China is not an ally, and not just a rival – they are an adversary and the Chinese Communist Party is our enemy.” McConnell hit man Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas chimed in “China’s leaders wanted the coronavirus to spread because they did not want to see their relative power and standing in the world decline. It’s a scandal to me that we have trained so many of the Chinese communists. If Chinese students want to come here and learn Shakespeare and the Federalist Papers – that’s what they need to learn from America; they don’t need to learn quantum computing and artificial intelligence from America." Down in Xenophobic Hell, Sen. Joe McCarthy is applauding Cotton’s red-baiting.

McConnell would be well served attempting to figure out how China, with 4.3 times as many souls, has one twelfth the US infections and deaths. He might learn about fostering national unity and lifesaving leadership.

Walt Zlotow

Glen Ellyn