the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Nov 9, 2020
When Donald Trump began attacking Dr. Anthony Fauci, a prominent immunologist and longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, it was a shock to many people. Dr. Fauci has been the only scientist to appear for the U.S. government on a consistent basis who spoke in a way that made the coronavirus understandable and helped us safeguard against it.
Fauci has not wavered from his warnings about the highly infectious virus; he has not wavered from advising the wearing of masks from March onwards. He explained over and over again how the virus is communicated and how to block its transmission by social distancing, masks, and frequent hand-washing.
Preceding the election, Dr. Fauci, like science itself, became inconvenient for Trump. Responding to capitalists large and small, Trump was determined to make the virus discussion go away so he could “open the economy.” Poof, like magic, he said the virus would disappear. He discounted the danger of virus spread, and finally, through his rallies and parties, spread the virus to hundreds and got sick himself.
Trump’s personal actions made it clear that he was willing to sacrifice the population for his own personal gain.
But a deeper look reveals the same disregard for the population all across the U.S. capitalist system. Capitalism, represented by Republicans and Democrats alike, has torn away at the public health system for decades. It has destroyed hospitals and clinics, reducing the numbers of trained staff and leaving neighborhoods and entire rural areas without a medical facility.
U.S. capitalism failed to prepare for medical emergencies that the administrators of health care knew were coming, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands. And capitalism produced the underlying diseases caused by lack of care, stress, poor diet, poor air quality, that condemned many to death by virus.
The science, the technology, the ability to test, trace and isolate, the ability to intervene quickly before a patient got deathly ill, all these tools to fight the virus were available. They were not supplied because the bosses and banks saw no profit in it.
The threats to fire Dr. Fauci by Donald Trump are only the open expression of the everyday functioning of a ruling class that is deadly for the working class and has to be taken out of power.