While weighing the possibilities of launching more Tomahawks on parts uncivilized, Blowhard has paid scant attention to a threat far more perilous than chemical weapons; even far
more likely than a nuclear attack, but more deadly. That threat is from viruses in our environment that can mutate, spread, and multiply too quickly for us to respond if we are not organized and prepared. Once a virus is on a rampage, the result of unpreparedness could be millions of deaths in just a few weeks... for months on end.
Those viruses may seem to favor squalid and exotic places, but globalization, decay of our cities and towns, and wild changes in our climate make the U.S. a better breeding ground than we would care to admit. Neglect of the environment only increases the chances of a pandemic. Blowhard is not only guilty of such neglect, he is also failing to appoint officials who can prepare us for any outbreaks that do occur - indeed, he is calling for drastic budget cuts to agencies whose job it is to head off pandemics. Then again, this is a president who thinks that any domestic problem can be solved with a travel ban.
The world's most recent brush with widespread pestilence was the
West African Ebola hemorrhagic fever outbreak in 2014. Blowhard was calling for travel bans - in this case, aimed at the medical heroes coming home from the front lines of the fight against Ebola. Any new viral threat would surely elicit executive orders for travel bans. Given Blowhard's craven germophobia, how many responders today would catch a one-way flight to head off that threat? Then, when the disease lands in the U.S. anyway, how many Blowharders would refuse to get their children
vaccinated for fear of making them autistic?
America's retrenchment from globalism, while due, will have many drawbacks that leave us less capable of mustering global responses to problems such as pandemics, climate change, and feeding the hungry. There are
several indicators that we won't be ready to respond effectively when the next virus outbreak occurs. This aspect of the America First doctrine may be tantamount to genocide by negligence.
