To be honest, what this pandemic has shown me is how susceptible most of us are to motivated reasoning. (And I include myself in this.)
My sense is that the same folks who are interested in finding ways to blame China are the same people who support Trump and therefore have an interest in him coming off as good as possible. Indeed, Trump has been fundraising off the message we need to "hold China accountable." It seems the American Right is throwing everything possible into the argument that we should be blaming China, the WHO, etc. Anyone but Trump, who has said "I don't accept responsibility at all." As far as I am concerned, these arguments are as persuasive as South Park's trenchant musical number:
The folks who have tended to bang the drums about getting the economy to "re-open" as quickly as possible tend to support Trump, a President whose strongest reelection argument was the strong economy. As of today, we've lost nearly all of the jobs created since the Great Recession. With a Great Depression Economy and horrible job losses, what's Trump's reelection pitch? I'd be a great President but for China? I'd be a great President but for these pesky state governors and their efforts to protect their citizens?
I'm sure those on the right can throw similar accusations at the "TRUMP RUINED EVERYTHING" posts.
None of these folks has shown how any of these arguments does anything to help the US enhance testing, implement a nation-wide social contact tracing system, get people back to work, or develop treatments and a vaccine (the latter of two of which would likely be accelerated by cooperation with China). Those are the only measures that will help us "re-open" the economy. Restaurant bookings on Open Table had fallen 70% before state and local governments began the lockdowns. Those cancellations were because folks didn't feel confident dining out, and they won't again until we have the testing, tracing, and isolation infrastructure in place.
So: I, for one, want to try, going forward, to focus on practical solutions, be they social, economic, or public health. I'm going to stop engaging with these arguments - the blame China theories, which won't help us defeat COVID-19 NOR re-open the economy, and the "we have to re-open" arguments that are not accompanied by a thoughtful plan for how to do that - for testing, tracing, and isolation, etc.. Otherwise, these are arguments are just whaboutisms to change the subject from our own governments' (plural - federal, state, and local) failures to put these measures into place. And yes, I mean all of them - there are some clear heroes in this pandemic, but it's clear to me that, collectively, we as a country were largely asleep at the switch.
To the degree others would like to focus on practical solutions going forward, I would welcome and encourage you to do the same. We've had some really great discussions about the future of WFH, how restaurants will survive and adapt, and how small businesses are trying to handle this. These are great. If I want to debate blaming China, etc., there are like 8 cable news networks that will serve up your preferred flavor of partisan fury.
My sense is that the same folks who are interested in finding ways to blame China are the same people who support Trump and therefore have an interest in him coming off as good as possible. Indeed, Trump has been fundraising off the message we need to "hold China accountable." It seems the American Right is throwing everything possible into the argument that we should be blaming China, the WHO, etc. Anyone but Trump, who has said "I don't accept responsibility at all." As far as I am concerned, these arguments are as persuasive as South Park's trenchant musical number:
The folks who have tended to bang the drums about getting the economy to "re-open" as quickly as possible tend to support Trump, a President whose strongest reelection argument was the strong economy. As of today, we've lost nearly all of the jobs created since the Great Recession. With a Great Depression Economy and horrible job losses, what's Trump's reelection pitch? I'd be a great President but for China? I'd be a great President but for these pesky state governors and their efforts to protect their citizens?
I'm sure those on the right can throw similar accusations at the "TRUMP RUINED EVERYTHING" posts.
None of these folks has shown how any of these arguments does anything to help the US enhance testing, implement a nation-wide social contact tracing system, get people back to work, or develop treatments and a vaccine (the latter of two of which would likely be accelerated by cooperation with China). Those are the only measures that will help us "re-open" the economy. Restaurant bookings on Open Table had fallen 70% before state and local governments began the lockdowns. Those cancellations were because folks didn't feel confident dining out, and they won't again until we have the testing, tracing, and isolation infrastructure in place.
So: I, for one, want to try, going forward, to focus on practical solutions, be they social, economic, or public health. I'm going to stop engaging with these arguments - the blame China theories, which won't help us defeat COVID-19 NOR re-open the economy, and the "we have to re-open" arguments that are not accompanied by a thoughtful plan for how to do that - for testing, tracing, and isolation, etc.. Otherwise, these are arguments are just whaboutisms to change the subject from our own governments' (plural - federal, state, and local) failures to put these measures into place. And yes, I mean all of them - there are some clear heroes in this pandemic, but it's clear to me that, collectively, we as a country were largely asleep at the switch.
To the degree others would like to focus on practical solutions going forward, I would welcome and encourage you to do the same. We've had some really great discussions about the future of WFH, how restaurants will survive and adapt, and how small businesses are trying to handle this. These are great. If I want to debate blaming China, etc., there are like 8 cable news networks that will serve up your preferred flavor of partisan fury.