Trump’s herd immunity approach to hatred is killing us
Stephen H. Provost
Trump’s herd immunity approach to hatred is killing us
If Joe Biden wants to heal America, he’ll have to cut out the cancer first. If the Republican Party wants to reclaim its legitimacy, it will have to eradicate the virus.
(Warning: I’ll be mixing these metaphors throughout this post, and I make no apologies, because both analogies provide important insights into just how serious our condition has become.)
All this talk about healing and unifying the country is no better than a placebo if we don’t address the disease at the root of it all. Taking a placebo when you’re sick may provide some (apparent) relief from symptoms, but it’s one of the worst things you can do, because it keeps you from doing what needs to be done: aggressively treating the underlying cause.
If you don’t do that, the cancer will only spread, and the patient will die.
On life support
We are that patient. Those who want us to just move on toward healing without dealing with the cancer that’s enmeshed itself in the core of our being are deluding themselves. It’s understandable that Joe Biden wants to focus on his agenda as the nation’s new president, but he can’t accomplish that by simply brushing Donald Trump’s insurrection under the rug. Not in the long term.
If you’re infected with a deadly virus, you might want to write a book or paint a masterpiece, but you might have to go a little slower than he planned while you rest and take your medicine. That book will still be there once treatment is complete, and so will that masterpiece, but YOU might not be if you don’t address the illness.
A cancer has invaded the Republican Party, and our nation as a whole. Trump isn’t the virus; that would be too easy. But he’s spent the last four years treating it the same way he’s dealt with the coronavirus: Letting people die left and right in an effort to build up herd immunity.
And it has worked.
We’re becoming numb to the kind of outrage that used to overtake us when Trump does something outrageous. And each move he makes is more outrageous than the last. Grabbing women by their private parts. Enabling white supremacists as “very fine people.” Trying to undermine democracy — first by blackmailing a foreign leader, then by trying to overturn an election, and finally by calling on a rabid mob to invade the Capitol.
He always ups the ante.
Malignant mentality
This is how cancer works, too. If left untreated, it always gets worse.
We can’t leave it untreated in the naïve hope that it will somehow, miraculously disappear. That’s what Trump said would happen with COVID, and look where it got us. More people dead, more jobs lost, more businesses ruined, more hospitals overrun by patients.
The cancer in this case is a way of thinking. It’s a belief in baseless conspiracy theories. It’s a victim mentality. It’s “might makes right.” It’s racism and sexism and homophobia. It’s all these things rolled into one.
Before Trump came along, the cancer was confined to a few small cells in the body: neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and religious extremists. Under Trump, they have transformed themselves from pariahs and outcasts into the foundation of the Republican Party — popularly known as “the base,” which translates into Arabic as “al-Qaida.”
Any notion that we have to reach out to these radicals and incorporate them back into civilized society is misguided. Do you want to incorporate cancer back into the body? Do you want to try to appease it by surrendering your appendix so it will spare your colon? It will just attack your colon next, and after that, if you’re not already dead, your liver.
Vital organs
This is how extremists operate: Like a cancer. And we must treat them as such, by marginalizing them and keeping them away from the vital organs of our democracy. Our failure to do exactly that resulted in last week’s assault on our Capitol. And failure to aggressively treat the cancer now will make the death of our republic all but inevitable.
That cancer has yet to reach the heart of our nation. But make no mistake: We are at in critical condition, and our ICU units are overflowing with casualties.
Biden wants to treat this disease by making the patient more comfortable. In one sense, this isn’t a bad idea. We should be providing relief and understanding to those who gravitated to Trump because they felt politicians didn’t care they were losing their jobs. Didn’t understand the struggles of rural America. Didn’t care about their way of life.
But we shouldn’t be doing this to appease them. We should be doing it because it’s compassionate, and it’s the right thing to do. We should be doing it for everyone, from rural farmers to people in big-city housing projects. And we shouldn’t for a moment believe that any of these measures will cure a religious bigot or a white supremacist. They won’t.
Cut it out
Once a cancer has taken hold, the only hope of recovery is to cut it out.
That means the Republican Party must repudiate and expel those who put Trump ahead of country and believe in the violent overthrow of our democratically elected government (because that is exactly what they believe in).
It means Trump must be removed from office legally and immediately.
It means he must never be allowed to run for elective office again.
It means he must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and the same thing goes for anyone who took part in the violent assault on our Capitol.
It means enacting laws against domestic terrorism and making the penalties every bit as strict as those imposed on foreign terrorists.
It means treating security threats at the Capitol the same way we treat security threats at the airport: Those making them must be removed immediately, arrested and prosecuted.
It means assessing potential threats to public safety based on action and stated intent, not based on the color of someone’s skin.
It means never confusing hate speech with free speech, or incitement with insight.
It means treating the virus before it kills any more people, and distributing a vaccine as soon as possible. Herd immunity in this case isn’t immunity at all. It’s acceptance of the unacceptable. It’s euthanasia for our democracy.
But the prefix “eu” translates as “good,” and there’s nothing good about this.