As COVID-19 erupted out of proportion in the US, with over 2 million cases by early June comprising a third of the world’s cases, it became necessary to, once again, find scapegoats among the masses: “covidiots.”
Countless articles and news segments have highlighted these individuals, each seeking to outdo the others in finding the most outrageous and infuriating cases, then invited smug satisfaction when those covidiots were proven wrong. Clearly, it is the fault of stupid people that we are in this current situation.
Above all, there is a crisis of trust in this country, and the onus falls on the government and media to earn that trust. Regrettably, they have instead proven time and again that they are not worthy of trust, from the “weapons of mass destruction” debacle to treatment of whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden and journalists like Julian Assange to decades of policy that have had devastating effects on the working class. CNN and MSNBC seamlessly transitioned from two years of using phrases such as “walls are closing in” and “beginning of the end” to fear monger about Russiagate, which has been demonstrated to be a baseless conspiracy, to speaking about the coronavirus crisis in much the same apocalyptic tone. The sensationalism was evident before the validity of the claims became clear. Thus, we ended up in a “boy who cried wolf” scenario. It should not come as a surprise than many Trump supporters, and perhaps even Trump himself, likely saw this as simply the newest attempt to take down the president.
Protesters are a major focus of hatred against covidiots. These protesters are portrayed as selfish people who want businesses to be opened just so they can be served. In a capitalist society that prides itself on individualism and conveys to people to look out only for their own interests, as no one else will, people like this, admittedly, can always be found. However, by painting all protesters with the same brush and stirring up general hatred toward the protesters, many other voices which do not generate sensationalist news or align with the overall agenda go unheard.
Saturday Night Live had a segment poking fun at the protesters in rural Texas and South Carolina wondering where else they would be besides Walmart or their basement. Some media outlets, as well as Trump, characterize these protests as people expressing that they want to get back to work.
The key point that is missed is that nearly half of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. The topic of discussion needs to be the insanity of imposing a stay-at-home order in such a society without pairing it with a universal basic income. People are not eager to get back to work; they are desperate to survive, and this is the only reasonable way they know to obtain money because the other option is scary socialism.
Sure, there are many individuals whose actions are putting the rest of us at risk, and some of these actions may be downright irresponsible. Rather than place the blame entirely on them, the establishment ought to take responsibility for the environment of mistrust and desperation that it created.
Written by Ramya. Artwork by Dhanya.
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