Monkeypox & The GOP Attack on Public Health

In a bid to undermine federal government legitimacy & to, eventually, topple it, the Confederacy attacks the public health system as an opportunity to destroy the protective powers of the Union

Joint Composition | Charles Ellison & Dr. G.S. Potter

It, of course, slipped passed most of the nation and the mainstream media, but the Confederacy declared victory on April 29, 2022.  They still have more work to do to completely reshape the nation into its white Christian nationalist and states’ rights dreamscape, but they effectively dealt a deathblow to the Union and it’s authority over the Confederacy on April 29th.   

On that day, Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, a Trump appointed US District Court judge, struck down mask mandates on airplanes.  During a global pandemic that had already claimed the lives of millions worldwide and just weeks before the US hit the million deaths mark, Mizelle ruled that while the Administration potentially had the authority to issue a national mask mandate under the Administrative Procedure Act, it did not prove that to “show enough reason to invoke the [good cause] exemption.”   

Normally, there would be a review of such a mandate for 30 days.  This review would include public comment and debate of the rule.  In order to bypass it, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (“CDC”) would need to provide enough evidence that asserting the measure was necessary.  Mizelle, instead, argued that – as the onset of a global pandemic that was tearing through nations around the world and killing and disabling people in unpredictable patterns despite lockdowns – there wasn’t a good enough reason to issue a mask mandate.  In other words, if the federal government wanted to protect the American people from a lethal threat, it would not have the authority to do so if that protection was challenged in court.  

The balance of powers between the state and federal governments was supposed to be settled with the Civil War.  Despite the violent fury of the Confederacy, there were cases where the federal government had the authority to override the power of the states.  Protecting the rights of people on American soil was one of those cases.   

Yet, in a bid to undermine the federal government’s legitimacy and to, eventually, topple it, the Confederacy saw an opportunity to destroy the protective powers of the Union and reassert states’ rights and it lept. Red states wanted the power to deny the federal government the ability to protect people. They saw the battle against mask mandates as a way to shift the balance of authority back to the states and they used a MAGA appointed judge to achieve this goal.  

Now enters monkeypox.

Monkeypox is not only signifying the return of a highly infectious and debilitating-to-deadly viral agent. It’s also signifying the collapse of the nation’s public health system, a first line of defense against not only destructive diseases and ailments, but also an effective barrier against total societal collapse. Political enemies of the federal state, along with disinformation agents, were very successful in politicizing and polarizing pandemic response in such a way that it has dramatically slowed down COVID-vaccine uptake. This is why it’s critical to frame today’s discourse and debates over the pandemic and this latest global health emergency within a political context. A strong public health system is also designed to encourage and cement public stability. Without it, there is none.

Enemies of the federal state realized this, using the pandemic as an opportunity for destablization through the spread of anti-vaxxing, anti-masking and disinformation campaigns. Those aligned with interests hostile to a cohesive national public health response system were also responsible for the start of the pandemic since the Trump administration happily discouraged communication and coordination with the Chinese government as initial outbreaks of COVID were being reported in Wuhan province. High level coordination between the researchers, epidemiologists, medical professionals and other government officials between nation states is absolutely essential when an outbreak occurs so that viral epidemics are contained. Reaching a pandemic, essentially, represents a complete failure in government.

Perhaps that was the point for certain interests.

There are those that are criticizing the federal government for not doing more to contain the spread of the moneypox virus, which is now spreading across the nation and around the world. While it is not a lethal disease, it is still extremely problematic for the public health system – and for the political landscape.   

Monkeypox can be spread to anyone, but it has most dramatically affected men that have had sex with other men.  The Biden Administration is requesting funds to try to contain the spread, but Republicans are already criticizing these efforts.  Again: it’s important to look at that resistance through a political prism. Representative Burr, for example, has said that he will block any efforts to secure more public health funding until all of the funding for the coronavirus has been spent.  And so once again, we have Democrats in Congress and the White House attempting to protect the people from another public health calamity, and we have Republicans - representing Confederate interests - who are standing in the way.  

We should expect that if Democrats are able to make any progress, the Republicans will challenge that progress in court. They will use courts with judges who are appointed by Trump, or even appointed by previous Republican presidents who are at least supportive of the Trump administration.  And they will likely succeed in asserting states’ rights over federal authority in the same way they were successful with mask mandates.   

Public health responses during a major outbreak must be unified in their approach across states and other provincial boundaries. Unified public health apdUntil we are able to contain the Confederacy, we will not be able to contain the coronavirus, money pox, the zombie apocalypse or any other public health crisis that comes our way. That then opens the door to weakening federal government response to a wide range of crisis. Until we reassert the federal authority to protect the people in the face of state level efforts to harm them, our nation has little - if any - defense against any natural or man-made biological threat.