Americans losing faith amid Washington failures
People protest over the death of George Floyd in New York, the United States, June 1, 2020. Photo: Xinhua
A
recent survey found that an overwhelming majority of Americans believed
their country had spiraled out of control, as the nation has been
besieged by riots and a never-ending COVID-19 pandemic, with Chinese
analysts warning that the US has become a "failed state."
The NBC
News-Wall Street Journal survey showed that 80 percent of American
voters felt their country was unstable. The "out of control" selection
covers Republicans (66 percent), Democrats (92 percent), and
Independents (78 percent).
Chinese experts noted that US society
has become divergent and polarized, and regardless of their opinions on
the Trump administration, most agreed on one thing - they had lost
faith in their country.
The poll, released Sunday, came amid
nationwide protests triggered by the death of George Floyd and
widespread concerns from US local governments and experts that the
protests could exacerbate the COVID-19 pandemic.
The NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll surveyed a sample of 1,000 voters, with a margin error of 3.59 percentage points.
According
to the latest data on Monday from the Coronavirus Resource Center of
Johns Hopkins University, confirmed cases in the US had reached
1,942,363, with the death toll hitting 110,514.
Data also
revealed that it took the US 50 days for the number of COVID-19 patients
grow from one to 1,000, and only eight days to see the number surge
past 10,000 from March 11 to March 19. By the following week, the US had
100,000 confirmed cases. And in less than three months, the US reported
2 million cases.
United States Leads the World in Covid-19 Deaths
 |
NEW YORK, May 18 2020 (IPS) - It’s an indisputable fact:
the United States leads the world in the number of Covid-19 deaths. As
of 15 May, three months after the country’s first confirmed coronavirus death, the US death toll from the pandemic has reached a remarkable 88,000 deaths. That rising figure is more than double the number of coronavirus deaths of the next highest country, the United Kingdom at 34,000 deaths.
The pandemic is still in its early stages and many fear the worst
is yet to come. Today’s coronavirus mortality picture will no doubt
change over time, continuing to evolve and remaining a long-term threat,
as the coronavirus spreads death and suffering to populations across
the planet.
Among the world’s ten most populous countries,
representing 58 per cent of the world’s population, a strong
correlation exists between population size and the total number of
annual deaths from all causes.
China and India, for example, represent 18 percent of the world’s
population and about 18 percent of the world’s total number of annual
deaths. Similarly, the United States population is 4 percent of the
world’s population and has about 5 percent of the world’s annual number
of deaths
However, the distribution of deaths from the coronavirus pandemic
differs greatly from the distribution of the world’s total annual
deaths. Whereas the US accounts for 5 percent of the world’s number of
annual deaths, the country now has 29 percent of the world’s total
Covid-19 deaths. In contrast, China, which accounts for 18 percent of
the world’s total number of annual deaths, now has about 2 percent of
the world’s total Covid-19 deaths (Figure 1). |
Chen Xi, an associate professor of public
health at Yale University, warned that amid the unrest, protocol has
been ignored. People have forgotten about social distancing and
self-quarantine which will lead to new COVID-19 infections.
The
US government and society are giving up on virus prevention efforts due
to ineffective measures aimed at subsiding the riots. The protesters
could care less about the virus, and there are some who feel it's not as
important as demonstrating against racism and police brutality,
according to Chinese analysts.
The US, as a country that
possesses the most advanced medical resources and scientific
capabilities, ironically has become the nation hardest hit by the virus
and deserves to be labeled as one of the world's most failed states amid
the COVID-19 pandemic, Sun Chenghao, an assistant research professor at
the Institute of American Studies, China Institute of Contemporary
International Relations.
"These are typical characteristics of a
failed sate - angry people, an irresponsible and dysfunctional
government, exhausted police force, low-credit media, and leaders
without leadership capabilities. It seems like the US has them all,"
said a Beijing-based expert on China-US relationship who requested to
remain anonymous.
On social media, there has been an
overwhelming number of voices among Americans who believe the Trump
administration failed the people. Some say the Trump administration is
only creating divergence when it doesn't dare to slam racism, but
instead threatens to quell the unrest with the military, while the
country continues to suffer from the virus.
The poll also showed
that Americans are troubled by other concerns. About 60 percent worry
they or their family members could be infected by the virus, 46 percent
thought the US economy was doing badly, and nearly 60 percent said they
are more troubled by George Floyd's death and the actions of the police
than the violent demonstrations.
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Trump adds fuel to fire as racial tensions reach boiling point
"Lowlifes
and losers": US President Donald Trump is doing his best to intensify
the conflict instead of solving the problem by lashing out at the
protesters and calling them lowlifes. Illustration: GT
"The
lowlifes and losers are ripping you apart. Act fast!" US President
Donald Trump decried protesters who refused to tolerate an unjust and
racist system on Twitter Tuesday. Even if the President has made racist
remarks many times in the past, the words he chose against the backdrop
of the ongoing violent protests spreading across the US still shocked
many people.
Protests triggered by the death of George Floyd
have spread to at least 140 American cities, but it seems Trump has done
little to appease the anger. Instead, he used tweets to hurl insults
and threats, which has fueled rage and violence escalated as a result.
Calling
protesters "lowlifes and losers," Trump clearly was attempting to
demoralize protesters while catering to his white supremacist electoral
base. Can you imagine Trump using the same words to refer to right-wing
protesters at white supremacist demonstrations?
The riots have
highlighted the racial injustice in US society. People take to the
streets to vent their anger and disappointment toward the country that
has tacitly allowed racial discrimination.
But, sadly under US
electoral politics, the Trump administration has no interest in hearing
their voices or finding a solution to the ingrained social woes.
African
American voters are key to the Democratic Party, while Trump relies
largely on a white, working-class base he energized in 2016. During the
ongoing unrest, Trump cares more about how to embarrass and attack
Democrats and woo white voters. He bashed Democrat-run cities, urging
"Democrat Mayors and Governors" to "get tough" after riots broke out.
It's
difficult to tell when the riots will come to an end. But it's almost
certain that under the leadership of current US administration,
especially within US electoral politics, it's hard to find a real
solution to address racial injustice.
Racial issue has become a
Gordian knot for the US. Racial inequality is so deeply-rooted that even
an African American president failed to address it. Racial equality
didn't improve during the tenure of former US president Barack Obama,
but worsened. Under US electoral politics and given the country's
institutional and structural defects, the historical injustice and
inequality cannot be fixed.
Repeated riots over racial issue have
shown that the US' racial equality policy has failed. When US strength
was on the rise in the past, the country was able to allocate more
resources to soothe ethnic minorities at the bottom.
But the US
is declining, and, in the process, various conflicts have broken out
compounded by the COVID-19 epidemic, which further constrained the US'
ability to launch reforms. The two political parties of the US has
neither real interest nor the necessary resources to completely address
the racial inequality.
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