So Much Better to Be a Little Ahead Like New Mexico, Instead of Leagues Behind Like Trump’s Federal Government

It might be fun to say that President Trump is acting like a Goop when it comes to coronavirus, even though on Friday the 13^th he belatedly and grudgingly declared a national emergency. Goops are globular and empty-headed, pinch-faced, nose-picking, finger-licking, girl-harassing little monsters who model bad behavior so good little kids are forewarned and won’t have to become Goops themselves. Goops were the invention of cartoonist Gelett Burgess in the 1920s. They had a lasting and hilarious impact on parents and children for decades. Those of us who are old enough to remember their horrid antics, and who are also the most vulnerable to coronavirus, see the petulant president as an alarming embodiment of Goopism in power.

But there’s no fun to be had here now. Instead of leading the nation with poise and common sense, Trump is modeling all the wrong behavior when it comes to thwarting the spread of this disease, especially when he had originally refused to have a coronavirus test after his very close encounter with a Brazilian politician known to have COVID-19 who shook the president’s hand and hugged him some days ago. After a series of contradictory statements that was described by the Washington Post as a debacle, Trump was allegedly tested and found to be negative.

The president’s behavior gives his “base” an excuse to treat coronavirus testing with an anti-vac kind of dismissal, and allows them to underplay the deadly potential of this virus that is now seen clearly and alarmingly in Italy where doctors are so overwhelmed that they have to triage patients, often being forced to let the older and infirm just die.

But while Trump’s folly has left the federal establishment in disarray and desperately far behind in coming to terms with this new pandemic, the state of New Mexico’s leadership is doing exactly the right thing, as is the Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi.

When Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham declared a state of emergency in New Mexico when three confirmed cases of corona virus appeared last week, she was doing what a sensible, responsible, mature leader would do. It was rumored, as of the end of last week, that the federal government finally might — though don’t wait for it — rescind the cuts Trump has proposed to CDC funding and perhaps reopen the White House office of pandemic preparation that it closed earlier in the year.

Because of Michelle Lujan Grisham’s intelligent and responsible actions, which have closed schools and caused large public gatherings and sporting events to cancel or be postponed, the spread of this virus has been perhaps slowed down a bit in New Mexico. But who’s to say for sure, so little is known about this “novel” pandemic. There’s a chance if everyone takes this one seriously, though, that we’ll be in better shape to handle the pandemics that might be coming our way in the future, as has been long forecasted by climate change scientists around the world.

If you live in New Mexico’s 1^st Congressional District, you probably saw Congresswoman Deb Haaland’s spot-on e-mail about how to conduct yourself during this viral outbreak. Haaland’s is a serious, mature, responsible attitude, totally unlike that of the President and the fidgeting, indecisive members of Trump’s Republican Party.

The most troubling thing for me about coronavirus is that it will, as the Center for Constitutional Rights asserted last week, “disproportionately harm the most vulnerable in our society. We must keep in mind people who are incarcerated or in ICE custody, people who are experiencing homelessness, health care providers, service workers, particularly those working right now to keep our public spaces clean and safe, and people working at the margins of our economy, among so many others at risk.”

In Governor Lujan-Grisham’s emergency declaration she warned against using coronavirus to further xenophobic or racist ends. As the Center for Constitutional Rights said, “We also know well that crises can often clarify our collective failure to support vulnerable members of our community….As with past health crises like the HIV/AIDS and crack epidemics, these moments present the powerful with an opportunity to demonize people and leverage xenophobia to punish and exclude.”

As we all face the bombardment of coronavirus “news” and pronouncements and rhetorically flourishing pro and con, I can’t help but think that sorting fact from fiction, learning what one needs to survive a pandemic without a dangerous strain on one’s mental health, finding out how to reasonably perform useful self-quarantines and how to get though government imposed ones, will hold us all in good stead for the next pandemic and perhaps even for the waves of them in the overheated years ahead.

While there’s always uncertainty and controversy in such crises, we know for sure that cruelty, scapegoating, racial and ethnic demonizing, heavy handed martial law and sacrificial malign neglect are never right or useful or moral. It is these social side effects that frighten me more that the “novel” virus we are currently all trying to avoid or recover from so we can go back to our normal lives. It seems entirely possible, however, that this sort of novelty will be our new normality as global warming drastically changes the natural and human patterns of the world.

*Nullius in verba: take nobody’s word for it