Opinion: Trump And SCOTUS Conservatives Have Americans’ Blood On Their Hands

Well over a half-a-million American lives were lost due to Trump’s deliberate inaction to mitigate the devastation of a global pandemic, and it was not mismanagement or incompetence. It was deliberate malfeasance and arguably criminally negligent homicide. He knew the deadly consequences of doing nothing, and then he purposely did nothing. If no criminal court is going to send him to jail, then he needs to be the target of a massive class action lawsuit – for purposeful negligence resulting in mass fatalities of American citizens. After all, America hunted down Osama bin Laden and killed him with extreme prejudice for purposely killing 2,977 innocent American citizens.

However guilty Trump is, he is not the only one with Americans’ blood on his hands. The six conservative Justices on the Supreme Court are just as guilty as Trump and deserve to be severely punished for deliberately aiding the virus’ spread unimpeded because they believe a tiny minority’s religious liberty trumps myriad American lives.

A recent study from the Brookings Institute reported:

“U.S. COVID-19 fatalities could have stayed under 300,000, versus a death toll of 540,000 and rising, if by last May the country had adopted widespread mask, social distancing, and testing protocols while awaiting a vaccine.”

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That was an (under) estimate by Andrew Atkeson who is an economics professor at University of California, Los Angeles. However horrible those numbers appear, they are a gross misrepresentation of the real numbers. If Trump had taken immediate action in November 2019 when American intelligence services informed him of the coming pandemic, the numbers most likely would have been a slight percentage of what Professor Atkeson estimated,

Trump also knew in January 2020 about the deadly virus’ severity and he still did nothing. He was too concerned about being reelected to take immediate action that might have affected Wall Street and “make him look bad.”  The rest, as they say, is deadly history that is still unfolding.

One significant reason the CIVID19 virus continues ravaging Americans’ lives and livelihoods is the unchecked spread among communities plagued by religious groups’ refusal to abide by public health mandates.

Of course the religious conservatives on the Supreme Court are wholly responsible for exacerbating the virus’ spread because they refused to support various state officials’ mitigation efforts. Those efforts were driven by a regard for public health and saving American lives, and yet because many mainly evangelical malcontents claimed they were victims of religious persecution, the conservative wing of the court sided with the religious persecution-complex crowd.

The odd thing about the conservative SCOTUS refusal to protect American lives during a once-a-century global pandemic is their silence in explaining why they so willingly “revolutionized the law of religious liberty without bothering to explain why.”

That was the theme of an article over at Slate a couple of weeks ago and it is a mystery why so many news outlets failed to call out the High Court’s willingness to endanger innocent American lives in the name of religious liberty. They decided they had no obligation to explain anything because religion is the law of the land in their sick twisted minds.

Despite its lack of allowing debate and justifying its lopsided rulings, the Slate authors pointed out that everything about the court’s ruling on blocking state officials’ pandemic mitigation efforts began in earnest when uber-Christian fanatic Associate Justice Barrett joined the court.

Prior to the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, the court struck down early religious challenges to state public health mandates because American lives were at stake. After Barrett joined the court, the other conservatives, the religious cohort, disregarded the clear and present, and deadly, threats to public health and sided with the faithful who could not care less who, or how many, innocent Americans they endangered.

The SCOTUS conservatives are just as guilty as Trump for the lives of an untold number of American citizens. They knowingly and with malice aforethought endangered American lives by striking down state officials’ mitigation efforts in the name of religion and for the sake of a few extremists.

For this little screed, it is irrelevant that they failed to give a reason or explanation for allowing some religious groups to openly flout states’ mitigation efforts. However, only a fool is unaware of the real reason – right wing religious conservatives on the nation’s highest court could not care less if tens-of-thousands of innocent American citizens perished so a few fanatical evangelicals can exert their deadly power over the government.

At least now Americans might begin to comprehend what lies in store going forward with every case before the Supreme Court with an honest-to-dog right wing Christian fanatic on the bench. An evangelical fanatic who will willingly sacrifice any number of innocent American lives in the name of her interpretation of religious liberty and the unchecked power of the High Court.

Rmuse

Audio engineer and instructor for SAE. Writes op/ed commentary supporting Secular Humanist causes, and exposing suppression of women, the poor, and minorities. An advocate for freedom of religion and particularly, freedom of NO religion.

Born in the South, raised in the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn’t look good.

Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.