“What we currently have going on right now is a complete collapse in confidence. So many commenters are debating the death rate, case counts, hospitalizations, etc, which is all besides the point.“
That’s what happens when political parties and now the president and his administration are spreading misinformation as long it helps their short term needs. Nobody believes anything anymore. I am already worried about the election. No matter the result, a significant part of the population will most likely not trust the results. I don’t think a country can survive such distrust without significant damage to its institutions.
It's not the case. This is clear because lots of countries are having problems with teaching unions refusing to go back to work, but only one country has Trump.
There's a lot of evidence teachers aren't actually afraid, but rather, are in hock to hyper-aggressive unions. They have been paid to not work. They can keep being paid to not work. Why would they work?
To go back to the US context, there's now a teaching union in LA that's refusing to go back post-COVID until their demands are met. Their demands include .... defunding the police. Obviously.
(The Center Square) – One of the largest teachers unions in the state of California, the United Teachers Los Angeles with 35,000 members, says public schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District should not reopen if certain policies are not implemented on the state and national level, including defunding the police and implementing Medicare for All
This isn't a COVID problem. This is a political problem.
I followed this link which contained the blurb about “defunding the police...” to the next link and read the summary of the actual research paper from the teachers union.
Nowhere in that summary does it mention any demands wrt defunding the police or Medicare for all.
Your comment prompted me to read the actual "research paper", vs the press article.
The article is correct. The paper is filled with hyper-leftist demands. You read the summary, not the actual paper.
Here are some quotes:
[we demand] "Explicit plans to carry out health and safety protocols without resorting to punitive policing and punishment"
"No standardized testing infringing on instructional time"
In the section about federal funding:
"Medicare for All: Coronavirus shows definitively why we need Medicare For All."
"Wealth Tax: A new tax on unrealized capital gains to California billionaires only, 1% a year until capital gains taxes are met. This would generate an estimated $10 billion a year initially"
"Defund Police: Police violence is a leading cause of death and trauma for Black people, and is a serious public health and moral issue.65 We must shift the astronomical amount of money devoted to policing, to education and other essential needs such as housing and public health"
It says:
"Because of the forces of structural racism, Blacks, Latinx, and Pacific Islanders in Los Angeles County are dying of COVID-19 at twice the rate of white residents"
"Meanwhile, U.S. billionaire wealth has surged by more than $584 billion. Over 150 of those billionaires live in California. There is money to safely restart schools, if federal, state, and local governments are willing to
finally prioritize pupils over plutocrats."
"No matter the scenario in August, it’s clear that it will not be a “normal” school year. But when “normal” means deep race and class fissures that result in increased infection and death rates in Black, Brown, and high-poverty communities; when “normal” means increasing police budgets even as schools, libraries, and public health face catastrophic cuts; when “normal” means corporations receiving trillions in bailout funds as federal commitments to support special education and high-poverty students remain unfulfilled; when “normal” means working families lining up for miles for food banks while US billionaires increased their wealth by over $584 billion — it is clear that going back to normal is not an option. This crisis presents an opportunity to create a new normal."
Has America swung that far to the right? Those demands sound to me pretty rational... How come are they hyper-leftists? What's your definition of left?
I'm not American. Beyond all the "structural racism" junk, shifting all the police funding to education sounds like a pretty hard left suggestion to me, as does abolition of standardised testing i.e. accountability of teachers.
The naked hatred of wealthy people visible in that document is also very left. Really, just read the whole thing. If it doesn't seem hyper leftist to you, that probably just means you're far to the left ;)
That’s what happens when political parties and now the president and his administration are spreading misinformation as long it helps their short term needs. Nobody believes anything anymore. I am already worried about the election. No matter the result, a significant part of the population will most likely not trust the results. I don’t think a country can survive such distrust without significant damage to its institutions.