Robert Bridge

Robert Bridge is an American writer and journalist. He is the author of the book, ‘Midnight in the American Empire,’ How Corporations and Their Political Servants are Destroying the American Dream. @Robert_Bridge

18 Jun, 2020 18:38 

As Donald Trump prepares for his first political rally in months, Liberals are hand-wringing over the event, saying it will be a coronavirus “super spreader.” Where were such fears just days ago, amid massive anti-police protests?

Oh, what a difference a Black Lives Matter protest, and a Trump political rally in an election year, can make.

As destructive as the Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Antifa protests may have been, they did carry, for one faint moment, a silver lining: America seemed to be getting back to normal, so to speak, as tens of thousands broke quarantine and took to the streets – many without the de-rigueur masks or social distancing – to protest the tragic death of George Floyd through the actions of a white cop.

Amid the ensuing mayhem, Covid-19 was dropped in the back of the media fridge like yesterday’s leftovers as “racism in America” now topped the menu. Suddenly, the joyless days of mask-wearing, social-distancing and shelter-at-home measures looked to be on the wane.

Such optimism was given a boost by some of the leading voices in the health industry, who awarded protesters what amounted to a medical waiver to hit the streets.

Just as America was boiling over in racial tensions, some 1,200 public health professionals and “community stakeholders” signed a letter that supported “demonstrations” that call attention to the “lethal force of white supremacy” in the US, CNN reported.

No longer obsessed about the possibility of a pandemic tearing through Main Street, the anonymous officials said they “do not condemn these gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission.”

Meanwhile, a number of other prominent medical authorities took to social media to express similarly twisted ideas.

“In this moment the public health risks of not protesting to demand an end to systemic racism greatly exceed the harms of the virus,”  tweeted Jennifer Nuzzo, Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

Dr. Tom Frieden, a senior fellow at none other than the Council of Foreign Relations, said something almost equally perplexing when he tweeted, on the very same day as Nuzzo: “The threat to Covid control from protesting outside is tiny compared to the threat to Covid control created when governments act in ways that lose community trust…”

Will the medical community remain this consistent on its rules regarding ALL mass gatherings, thereby green-lighting Trump’s plans to hold his first rally in months over the weekend? I think we already know the answer to that. A headline this week in the New York Times summed it up: “Tulsa Officials Plead for Trump to Cancel Rally as Virus Spikes in Oklahoma.” Can anyone recall similar calls for BLM and Antifa to stay home amid the George Floyd fallout?

And what is particularly strange about this reversal of medical opinion is that hundreds of thousands of BLM and Antifa protesters, all breathing, chanting and occasionally looting in unison, far outnumbered the people expected to show up on Saturday in Tulsa to hear Trump rally his troops.

“The Covid virus knows no political affiliation,” Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, told the New York Times.

I would respectfully disagree with the good doctor. In fact, I’d go so far as to suggest that the medical community is aware that deadly little viruses can make moralistic judgment calls – very much like liberals today – with regards to what groups deserve to be attacked and which do not.

Indeed, it seems this incredibly adroit, liberal friendly bug understands the difference between a morally outstanding protest, aimed at “white supremacy”, and a political rally headed by the most loathed US leader to enter the White House in many years – in the most consequential elections to come along in many decades.

Nothing else can explain the medical authorities’ inconsistency on the matter. Perhaps, under the microscope, it is even possible to observe that the coronavirus is a card-carrying member of the Democratic Party.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

Original article can be viewed here

  Black Lives Matter, coronavirus, covid-19, george floyd, trump