"Can't Breathe" -- American Fighting With Trump Author: Zhong Yan, Senior Researcher of The Senstrat, WAKi International Media Center (2020 June 8)

2020-06-09

US Presidential Election is only about four months ahead, and the election campaign is in full swing now. Donald Trump is too busy in his political activities seeking to be re-elected, and he shown helpless when facing the pandemic of COVID-19. Now he is even more embarrass by a series of anti-racial discrimination demonstrations that broke out "I can't breathe" across the United States.

According to the latest polls, Trump, who represents the Republican for election, has a 5 to 11% lag behind his rival Democratic candidate Joe Biden. This means the campaigning situation in coming 100 days would create more tension, and the sentiment of dissatisfaction against COVID-19 and racial discrimination that stimulated by the political situation, might further deteriorate the development in US.

Trump emphasizing "Americans First" for a few years since he come to power. In this outbreak of COVID-19, he used a consistent approach and continuously dumped the blame to China. As a result, Asians were discriminated and many overseas Chinese were also victims. Recently, US police over-enforced the law and killed the African-American George Floyd with his feet, thus hundreds of thousands of people in dozens cities of US marched for demonstrations and protests for more than 10 consecutive days.

As US economy suffer severely lately, the unemployment rate remains high, and COVID-19 has exacerbated the gap between the rich and the poor. Video footage widely circulated recently shows that in some emotional demonstrations, some people openly took the opportunity to smash and rob on the streets, completely ignoring the rule of law in civilized society. In addition, there are videos highlighting the police at the scene brutally treating people, police cars crashing into the demonstrators, and putting dogs to bite people... These videos are shocking and lamenting why the American society under Trump's rule is so messy.

According analysis, during the outbreak of COVID-19, riots occurred elsewhere in US has shown the masses are dissatisfied with the brutal ways of the law enforcement police are only the surface. In actual fact, these exposed the multiple social contradictions and hidden worries that exist for a long time. As saying goes a single spark could start a prairie fire, if these dissatisfaction incited by populist politicians, plus COVID-19 is aggravating distress of the people and affecting the economy, thus they would fell into anarchy once involved.

Racial discrimination is the long-standing contradiction in American society. Martin Luther was assassinated for the rights of black Americans 50 years ago, since then the local blacks enjoying better education and social welfare, but the minority problem is still serious. In particular when Trump comes to power with his emphasizing of  "American First", survey shows overall situation in 2018: racial discrimination in judicial has no improvement, hate crimes increasing, more disadvantages on ethnic minorities, and official xenophobia stimulating racial sentiment.

For example, COVID-19 hits the world, and all countries are fully focused on cooperating with the World Health Organization to prevent the epidemic cautiously. Only Trump has repeatedly said to WHO: in mid-April, US stopped funding, and the end of May, US terminated relationship. Due to the common destiny of mankind, when the world urgently needs a strong and powerful WHO to coordinate and guidance to fight the pandemic, Trump's move is tantamount to deserting soldiers, blowing the confidence in global cooperation against the pandemic, and damaging the international public health cooperation system.

As the world's largest developed country, US shoulder the basic responsibility and to promote international cooperation. However, Trump even disregarded all blames, and tried to blame people constantly to divert his attention. How can he win the trust of the people then?

Data shows that COVID-19 in US is the worst hit in the world, with more than 2 million confirmed cases as of June 8, and the death toll exceeded 110,000. Among them, the death rate of black Americans is 2.6 times higher than that of whites. The pandemic is so rampant that the number of unemployed in US has set a historical record of 40 million people, but the few wealthy Americans who hold high official positions like Trump are so capricious. Under COVID-19, the dissatisfied people are now forced by their living with "can’t breathe", so how could they are not crazy and fighting with Trump?

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