Entering RNC Week

Over the weekend, a horrifying attempted assassination of Donald Trump at a campaign event in Pennsylvania left one man dead and others injured, drew outrage from across the political aisle, spawned misinformation and conspiracy theories, and ignited dangerous calls for retribution.

It is necessary to categorically denounce this sort of political violence, even if Trump and his allies have cheered on such violence in the past. At the same time, it is important to continue to call out the dire threat that Trump, his rogue MAGA GOP, and Project 2025 continue to pose for democracy as we enter the final months before the 2024 election.

Trump’s downfall should be through the legal system, not violence. As he has been able to evade accountability at seemingly every turn so far, then it must be at the ballot box. But the polls do not give any comfort there. This is the precarious situation with which we enter the week of the Republican National Convention, which is taking place in my hometown of Milwaukee.

Milwaukee is also where I went to medical school during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and witnessed the abject failure of Trump’s federal leadership spill over into our hospital and community in my polarized home state. What I saw and experienced in Milwaukee is the reason I do the writing and advocacy that I do.

While I am horrified by the events over the weekend and find it necessary to pause to reflect on this moment, I maintain it is necessary at this critical juncture to discuss the part of MAGA history, the deadly hijacking of the pandemic by politics and dark money, which has not been discussed thoroughly by mainstream media.

As I’ve been writing about recently, there has been an attempt by the GOP-led House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic — which appears to be following a “Road Map” from the Heritage Foundation, author of Project 2025 and a major sponsor of this week’s RNC — to re-write Trump era pandemic history. Last week, Heritage’s own COVID-19 commission released a report on pandemic damage in the US with recommendations for the White House and Congress to hold China accountable.

While there is agreement throughout the scientific community and across the American political aisle that China has not been transparent or cooperative in investigations into how COVID-19 came to upend global life, that does not make the lab leak origin any more likely and it does not absolve the Trump administration of their leadership failures.

The seriousness with which last week’s Heritage report takes damage done by COVID-19 must be contrasted with Trump’s messaging to downplay the risk the emerging pandemic posed in 2020. Furthermore, Heritage should not be driving the conversation on pandemic accountability given their clear political bias. This is the focus of my latest piece for Science-Based Medicine:

I would also recommend a viewing of the October 2020 documentary “Totally Under Control” as a reminder just how much Trump et al failed the American people in the crucial early days of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak.

This dereliction of leadership duty was deadly and political power player groups like Heritage would very much like you to forget about that. Don’t.

Addendum: Not discussed in my article, but worth noting is the fact that Trump and the GOP’s anti-China messaging appear to tie back to the “Corona Big Book” of talking points publishing on April 17, 2020 by government relations firm O’Donnell & Associates, available here.