Post by Nadica (She/Her) on Oct 31, 2024 1:57:15 GMT
Despite Covid ‘Amnesia,’ the Pandemic Simmers Beneath the 2024 Race - Published Oct 29, 2024
By Sheryl Gay Stolberg
Dueling Trump and Harris rallies outside Atlanta offer a case study in how anger and anxiety over Covid-19, a proxy for the larger debate over trust in government, have shaped the 2024 race.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. walked onstage after a parade of pyrotechnics at former President Donald J. Trump’s rally outside Atlanta last week and immediately invoked a name that became a bugaboo of the right and a subject of wild conspiracy theories during the coronavirus pandemic: Bill Gates.
Mr. Gates, Mr. Kennedy informed the crowd, had “been indicted in the Netherlands for lying to the public about the Covid-19 vaccine.” Thousands of red-hatted Trump backers roared their approval. In fact, there had been no indictment; according to the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, a judge in the Netherlands ruled that a civil suit accusing Mr. Gates of “vaccination damage” may go forward.
The next night, at a rally for Vice President Kamala Harris in a different Atlanta suburb, former President Barack Obama blamed Mr. Trump for thousands of coronavirus deaths. More Americans would be alive today, he said, “if we had had a competent administration” that was “trying to do things better instead of talking about injecting bleach into your arm.”
As the most divisive American presidential race in recent history barrels toward a close, many Americans have developed what Wendy Parmet, an expert in public health law at Northeastern University, calls “amnesia” about the coronavirus pandemic. The economy, immigration, abortion and threats to democracy now top the list of voters’ concerns.
But anger and anxiety about Covid-19 are woven into all those issues, simmering underneath as a proxy for the larger debate over trust in government that has shaped the 2024 race.
Last week’s dueling rallies in Atlanta, home to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, offer a case study in the lingering effects of the pandemic on American politics. They tell the story of two Americas, red and blue.
At the Harris rally was Laura Judge, who has a background in bioscience and is running for school board in Cobb County, a onetime Republican stronghold that has been trending Democratic. She saw the political divisiveness that engulfed the board during the pandemic, she said, and decided to run for a seat held by a Republican.
“The type of misinformation and disinformation to parents about the Covid vaccine was worrisome,” said Ms. Judge, who brought her daughter with her to the rally. “The incumbent was sending out emails about, ‘Don’t get your children vaccinated because the government’s trying to kill them.’”
At the Trump rally was David Cross, 55, the second vice chairman for the Georgia Republican Party, and his wife, Shawn Cross, who have a neighbor who works for the C.D.C. They said they felt the vaccine, developed while Mr. Trump was president, was rushed to market, and that the agency was pushing Americans to take it — perhaps to drive up profits for pharmaceutical companies.
“It seemed like Covid was contrived,” Mr. Cross said. “It seemed like there was a huge drive of fear — and fear was really pushing people to get this thing.”
“We just didn’t trust anything they were saying,” Ms. Cross added.
Mr. Trump wants to blow up the “administrative state” — and with it, agencies like the C.D.C. and the Food and Drug Administration, which Mr. Kennedy argues have been “captured” by the pharmaceutical industry. There were no face masks to be seen; instead, people wore hats and pins bearing Mr. Kennedy’s new slogan, “Make America Healthy Again.”
The rally was hosted by Turning Point U.S.A., whose founder, the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, drew raucous cheers when he suggested that Mr. Kennedy might run the C.D.C. or the Food and Drug Administration. In a completely unscientific poll, more than two dozen attendees gave the same answer — “No” — when asked if they trusted those institutions.
“Crooked as the dog’s hind leg,” declared Mark Miller, a retired police officer. “They tried to smear Donald Trump, President Trump, during the pandemic. They were lying about everything. I think they’re politically motivated, and it ain’t for Donald Trump.”
Harris supporters, by and large, answered the question about trust with enthusiasm. “Absolutely!” several said. Those whose feelings were mixed said they wanted the agency to be more aggressive, not less. They included Vendella De Moors, a real-estate investor, and her 27-year-old daughter Chastity, who has long Covid and is in a wheelchair. Both wore masks.
“We’re acting as if it doesn’t exist,” the elder Ms. De Moors said, “and it’s still killing people and it’s still out there.”
The C.D.C., which sits on a sprawling campus next to Emory University, has a large footprint in Atlanta, whose residents have direct and indirect connections to it. Allison Lawhead, a hairdresser, said the first client to return to her salon during the pandemic was a C.D.C. virologist.
“For her to be the first person to want to come back, I thought that was pretty interesting,” Ms. Lawhead said. It suggested to her that the media and the C.D.C. were using scare tactics. Does she trust the agency? “Not anymore,” she said.
Mr. Kennedy has shifted his rhetoric lately away from talking about vaccines; he now warns that a “chronic disease epidemic” is “the most existential threat that our country faces today.” (Vaccine skeptics have long blamed immunizations for chronic illnesses like diabetes and autism, even though the “vaccines cause autism” theory was debunked years ago.)
Mr. Kennedy’s message is where the “crunchy granola left” meets the libertarian-leaning right. Many Trump fans said they were drawn to Mr. Kennedy’s assault on the pharmaceutical and food industries. Mr. Cross, the Republican official, said he and his wife were “looking forward” to Mr. Kennedy’s efforts to “clean up the food supply.”
“We trust no Pharma; we trust no C.D.C.; we trust no doctors except holistic,” Ms. Cross said.
Judith Hannon, a retired corporate executive and teacher, arrived at the rally wearing a T-shirt bearing a picture of a bloodied Mr. Trump, his fist raised, and the words “YOU MISSED,” with an expletive. She said she lost 50 pounds by “following best practices for eating and drinking,” and is especially enthusiastic about Mr. Kennedy.
“Part of making America great again is to make America healthy again,” she said.
The Trump crowd was overwhelmingly white; the Harris crowd was racially mixed. Only a handful of those interviewed at the Trump rally were vaccinated against Covid; at the Harris rally, the opposite was true. Rachele McGinty-Mock, a graphic designer, said she got vaccinated to protect not only herself, but also those around her.
“It was a personal choice, but also a community choice,” she said.
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the now-retired director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases — and the target of many Trump voters’ ire — remains a revered figure in the Harris camp.
“Dr. Fauci is the best,” declared Gary Tate, a Harris voter who grew up in Queens but moved to Atlanta in 1992. He praised the C.D.C. for its Covid response and was wearing a mask to protect himself, saying that he has health conditions, including high blood pressure and diabetes.
Of Mr. Trump, Mr. Tate said: “He thinks bleach can kill Covid. Only an idiot would think something like that.” (In fact, bleach can kill the coronavirus on surfaces, but injecting it, as Mr. Trump suggested in 2020, before quickly walking it back, is dangerous.)
Much like the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the pandemic created a sharp demarcation — there was an America before, and after. Mr. Trump invoked the pandemic only once during his remarks, using it to denigrate immigrants, while insisting the Biden administration had not created any new jobs.
“Millions and millions bounced back right after the pandemic,” the former president said. “Any pandemic anywhere, you have bounce-backs, and they had a bounce-back. But out of all the jobs that were created, most of those jobs went to illegal migrants.” (That is not true.)
Ms. Harris did not mention the pandemic at all. Mr. Obama did that for her, countering Mr. Trump’s claim that the country was better economic shape when he was president. In case anyone had forgotten, Mr. Obama was there to remind them: “We had a historic pandemic that wreaked havoc on communities and businesses.”
By Sheryl Gay Stolberg
Dueling Trump and Harris rallies outside Atlanta offer a case study in how anger and anxiety over Covid-19, a proxy for the larger debate over trust in government, have shaped the 2024 race.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. walked onstage after a parade of pyrotechnics at former President Donald J. Trump’s rally outside Atlanta last week and immediately invoked a name that became a bugaboo of the right and a subject of wild conspiracy theories during the coronavirus pandemic: Bill Gates.
Mr. Gates, Mr. Kennedy informed the crowd, had “been indicted in the Netherlands for lying to the public about the Covid-19 vaccine.” Thousands of red-hatted Trump backers roared their approval. In fact, there had been no indictment; according to the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, a judge in the Netherlands ruled that a civil suit accusing Mr. Gates of “vaccination damage” may go forward.
The next night, at a rally for Vice President Kamala Harris in a different Atlanta suburb, former President Barack Obama blamed Mr. Trump for thousands of coronavirus deaths. More Americans would be alive today, he said, “if we had had a competent administration” that was “trying to do things better instead of talking about injecting bleach into your arm.”
As the most divisive American presidential race in recent history barrels toward a close, many Americans have developed what Wendy Parmet, an expert in public health law at Northeastern University, calls “amnesia” about the coronavirus pandemic. The economy, immigration, abortion and threats to democracy now top the list of voters’ concerns.
But anger and anxiety about Covid-19 are woven into all those issues, simmering underneath as a proxy for the larger debate over trust in government that has shaped the 2024 race.
Last week’s dueling rallies in Atlanta, home to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, offer a case study in the lingering effects of the pandemic on American politics. They tell the story of two Americas, red and blue.
At the Harris rally was Laura Judge, who has a background in bioscience and is running for school board in Cobb County, a onetime Republican stronghold that has been trending Democratic. She saw the political divisiveness that engulfed the board during the pandemic, she said, and decided to run for a seat held by a Republican.
“The type of misinformation and disinformation to parents about the Covid vaccine was worrisome,” said Ms. Judge, who brought her daughter with her to the rally. “The incumbent was sending out emails about, ‘Don’t get your children vaccinated because the government’s trying to kill them.’”
At the Trump rally was David Cross, 55, the second vice chairman for the Georgia Republican Party, and his wife, Shawn Cross, who have a neighbor who works for the C.D.C. They said they felt the vaccine, developed while Mr. Trump was president, was rushed to market, and that the agency was pushing Americans to take it — perhaps to drive up profits for pharmaceutical companies.
“It seemed like Covid was contrived,” Mr. Cross said. “It seemed like there was a huge drive of fear — and fear was really pushing people to get this thing.”
“We just didn’t trust anything they were saying,” Ms. Cross added.
Mr. Trump wants to blow up the “administrative state” — and with it, agencies like the C.D.C. and the Food and Drug Administration, which Mr. Kennedy argues have been “captured” by the pharmaceutical industry. There were no face masks to be seen; instead, people wore hats and pins bearing Mr. Kennedy’s new slogan, “Make America Healthy Again.”
The rally was hosted by Turning Point U.S.A., whose founder, the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, drew raucous cheers when he suggested that Mr. Kennedy might run the C.D.C. or the Food and Drug Administration. In a completely unscientific poll, more than two dozen attendees gave the same answer — “No” — when asked if they trusted those institutions.
“Crooked as the dog’s hind leg,” declared Mark Miller, a retired police officer. “They tried to smear Donald Trump, President Trump, during the pandemic. They were lying about everything. I think they’re politically motivated, and it ain’t for Donald Trump.”
Harris supporters, by and large, answered the question about trust with enthusiasm. “Absolutely!” several said. Those whose feelings were mixed said they wanted the agency to be more aggressive, not less. They included Vendella De Moors, a real-estate investor, and her 27-year-old daughter Chastity, who has long Covid and is in a wheelchair. Both wore masks.
“We’re acting as if it doesn’t exist,” the elder Ms. De Moors said, “and it’s still killing people and it’s still out there.”
The C.D.C., which sits on a sprawling campus next to Emory University, has a large footprint in Atlanta, whose residents have direct and indirect connections to it. Allison Lawhead, a hairdresser, said the first client to return to her salon during the pandemic was a C.D.C. virologist.
“For her to be the first person to want to come back, I thought that was pretty interesting,” Ms. Lawhead said. It suggested to her that the media and the C.D.C. were using scare tactics. Does she trust the agency? “Not anymore,” she said.
Mr. Kennedy has shifted his rhetoric lately away from talking about vaccines; he now warns that a “chronic disease epidemic” is “the most existential threat that our country faces today.” (Vaccine skeptics have long blamed immunizations for chronic illnesses like diabetes and autism, even though the “vaccines cause autism” theory was debunked years ago.)
Mr. Kennedy’s message is where the “crunchy granola left” meets the libertarian-leaning right. Many Trump fans said they were drawn to Mr. Kennedy’s assault on the pharmaceutical and food industries. Mr. Cross, the Republican official, said he and his wife were “looking forward” to Mr. Kennedy’s efforts to “clean up the food supply.”
“We trust no Pharma; we trust no C.D.C.; we trust no doctors except holistic,” Ms. Cross said.
Judith Hannon, a retired corporate executive and teacher, arrived at the rally wearing a T-shirt bearing a picture of a bloodied Mr. Trump, his fist raised, and the words “YOU MISSED,” with an expletive. She said she lost 50 pounds by “following best practices for eating and drinking,” and is especially enthusiastic about Mr. Kennedy.
“Part of making America great again is to make America healthy again,” she said.
The Trump crowd was overwhelmingly white; the Harris crowd was racially mixed. Only a handful of those interviewed at the Trump rally were vaccinated against Covid; at the Harris rally, the opposite was true. Rachele McGinty-Mock, a graphic designer, said she got vaccinated to protect not only herself, but also those around her.
“It was a personal choice, but also a community choice,” she said.
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the now-retired director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases — and the target of many Trump voters’ ire — remains a revered figure in the Harris camp.
“Dr. Fauci is the best,” declared Gary Tate, a Harris voter who grew up in Queens but moved to Atlanta in 1992. He praised the C.D.C. for its Covid response and was wearing a mask to protect himself, saying that he has health conditions, including high blood pressure and diabetes.
Of Mr. Trump, Mr. Tate said: “He thinks bleach can kill Covid. Only an idiot would think something like that.” (In fact, bleach can kill the coronavirus on surfaces, but injecting it, as Mr. Trump suggested in 2020, before quickly walking it back, is dangerous.)
Much like the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the pandemic created a sharp demarcation — there was an America before, and after. Mr. Trump invoked the pandemic only once during his remarks, using it to denigrate immigrants, while insisting the Biden administration had not created any new jobs.
“Millions and millions bounced back right after the pandemic,” the former president said. “Any pandemic anywhere, you have bounce-backs, and they had a bounce-back. But out of all the jobs that were created, most of those jobs went to illegal migrants.” (That is not true.)
Ms. Harris did not mention the pandemic at all. Mr. Obama did that for her, countering Mr. Trump’s claim that the country was better economic shape when he was president. In case anyone had forgotten, Mr. Obama was there to remind them: “We had a historic pandemic that wreaked havoc on communities and businesses.”