Trump’s care for nation’s safety in question
2020 is a year packed full of uncertainty and injustice. Right now, we’re dealing with a global pandemic and racial bias. Rules have been put in place to protect the general population from the spread of COVID-19. There has been a continuing debate in the U.S. over whether wearing masks and social distancing is necessary.
Donald Trump is being careless with the country’s safety by not enforcing stricter rules. As of September 3, there are 187K deaths due to COVID-19 and 6.17M cases. In an interview with Axios on HBO, Trump and political reporter Jonathan Sawn discussed the death toll in the US.
“When they hear you say, ‘everything’s under control. Don’t worry about wearing masks,’ I mean, these are people, many of them are older people,” Sawn said.
“Well, what’s your definition of control?” Trump said. “I think it’s under control.”
“How? A thousand Americans are dying a day,” Swan said.
“They are dying. That’s true. And you — it is what it is,” Trump said. “But that doesn’t mean we aren’t doing everything we can. It’s under control as much as you can control it.”
After watching the interview, I was disappointed to witness the President of the United States respond “it is what it is” to 1,000 Americans dying a day. This statement was made on live television where thousands of people watched him declare that he doesn’t care about Americans and their health concerns.
There are also people protesting for Black Lives Matter because of the death of George Floyd, the innocent man that was choked to death by a police officer. The Black Lives Matter movement first started on July 13, 2013, because of the death of Trayvon Martin. Trump hasn’t done a good job of protecting black people because police brutality is still happening. Recently, Jacob Blake was shot seven times by a white police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin. According to Wall Street Journal, Blake was reported to have a knife in his hand during the incident, and when he opened the door to his vehicle to leave, he was shot seven times in front of his kids. While people were protesting Justice for Jacob Blake, Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old white male, had a firearm, and when people tried to take the gun away from him, he shot them, killing two people and injuring one. He is in police custody and has been charged with one count of first-degree intentional homicide and one count of first-degree reckless homicide. Kyle Rittenhouse walked away without getting shot and Jacob Blake was shot seven times and if he did have a knife in his hand, why does it take seven bullets?
Trump believes that all lives matter, but if that’s the case, then why hasn’t he done anything to end police brutality from killing black people?
Trump hasn’t been dealing well with the spread of COVID-19 nor the Black Lives Matter protests. There are still thousands of Americans dying every day, and Trump isn’t doing anything about it. Instead, Trump is playing golf while not wearing a mask nor social distancing.
It’s disappointing that black people are still dying by police hands and Trump has only said that white people are also dying by police. Trump also has been calling Black Lives Matter protestors “thugs” while also calling people that were protesting over masks, “good people.” Keep in mind those people had guns, swastikas, and confederate flags, which makes it very unfair that Black Lives Matter protesters were getting gassed and people with guns protesting about masks walked away without incident.
