Trump's Sword of Damocles?

The emergence of the word "officials," now ubiquitous in the news, reminds me of its recurrent use  in Fukushima's Stolen Lives: A Dairy Farmer's Story, a memoir by Kenichi Hasegawa (translated by Amy Franks).  As its editor, I spent several months immersed in what happened to the Village of Iitate in the wake of the 3/11/11 Japan earthquake and tsunami, and the subsequent nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.

As the scope of these several disasters unfold, it soon becomes  clear to the author, Kenichi Hasegawa, that a fault line is opening up between officials and citizens, and between minor civic leaders and more senior leaders (aka, officials) and government ministers (also officials).

Kenichi Hasegawa, a civic leader who has long enjoyed a close friendship with the mayor of  his village, finds himself on the outside looking in, as layer upon layer of officials begin circling the wagons in an effort to control information about the extent and ramifications of the disaster.

State officials send national experts on nuclear energy to Hasegawa's village to assure residents that the level of contamination is not harmful to their health.

Hasegawa notices that the geiger counters used around his village top out a certain level. When he borrows a higher-grade dosimeter from an international journalist, he discovers that the actual rates of contamination are much higher. In some places where Hasegawa observes children playing outside and laundry hanging out on lines, he measures levels of radioactive contamination that absolutely pose an immediate danger to the health of the residents--and especially, to the children.

Alarmed, Hasegawa rushes to the Village Hall to tell his old friend, the mayor. But the mayor doesn't want to hear that the village is contaminated. The mayor is focused on preserving the hard-won prosperity of Iitate, which is his legacy as mayor of five years.

Iitate's economy and prosperity--and the mayor's legacy--hang in the balance.  The friends argue bitterly.  Hasegawa points to his dosimeter readings, and the mayor points to the fact that official experts from the ministry of nuclear energy have assured him that the levels of contamination in Iitate are not harmful to the health of residents.

The mayor refuses to initiate a systematic evacuation plan. Week after week, villagers (those who hadn't decided to evacuate on their own) remain exposed to high levels of radioactive contamination.

It is not until international media cast a light on the full extent of contamination throughout Fukushima that officials at the highest levels of government in Japan suddenly reverse course, and initiate plans to evacuate all contaminated areas of Fukushima--in direct contradiction to what they had been telling citizens: that they had nothing to worry about.

I was working on Hasegawa's memoir in 2016, when the scandal about Flint, Michigan's contaminated drinking water broke in the American press.

For two years, lead had been leaching from the city's pipes into Flint's water supply, exposing thousands of children to dangerously high levels of lead.

High levels of lead in children cause significant and irreversible intellectual deficits and behavioral disorders.

Citizens in Flint noticed that the drinking water smelled foul and tasted odd. Officials told them not to worry.

"It's a quality, safe product," said the mayor of Flint. [https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jul/03/nothing-to-worry-about-the-water-is-fine-how-flint-michigan-poisoned-its-people]

Today, in response to COVID-19, the highest official in the land makes wild speculations on TV about possible cures for the virus: hydroxy chloroquine, disinfectants, UV light.

Some local officials, like the mayor of Las Vegas, Carolyn Goodman, decline to implement "safer at home" policies that spell disaster for the local economy--and potentially save hundreds of lives.

I am grateful to Governor Evers, of Wisconsin, for closing schools here on March 16, and swiftly implementing a "safer at home" rule--successfully averting a severe spike in cases of COVID-19.

Challenging Evers' authority to take these measures, Republican legislators are suing him in the state's Supreme Court. A Republican judge is set to hear the case on Tuesday via videoconference.

Also happening this Tuesday, in a desperate bid to prop up the country's economy, Trump will shift the focus of his address from COVID-19 to "Returning to Work."

Without current federal guidelines in place for COVID-19, without adequate numbers of tests for COVID-19, with hospitals (at least, here in Dane county) continuing to solicit donations of home-made masks from area residents, and with no cure or vaccine in sight, our president will encourage Americans to go back to work.

Will going back to work restore prosperity to the country? Will it drive up the Dow and Nasdaq for a few days or weeks?  Will it get millions off of unemployment benefits, at the risk of their health?

Will "Going Back to Work" give rise to a subsequent surge of COVID-19 infections and deaths?

We live in the era of Trump: of lies and propaganda, of misinformation and disinformation...

It comes to us through our phones, computers, and tablets. It comes to us as social media, as news, as the passionate rants and hand-wringing whines of shapeshifting robots and mercenary trolls.

It is tweeted and retweeted, posted and reposted.

It plays on our heartstrings, outrages and depletes us.  It nudges and prods, seduces and tickles us. It whispers. It screams.

It hides in plain sight.

But the thing about COVID-19 is, it can't be spun or repackaged to be made more appealing.

Ignoring it brings predictable consequences.

COVID-19 may be Trump's Sword of Damocles, dangling over his presidency.

Yes, Trump is toxic and powerful, but is he any match for COVID-19?