Following the news of famed racist President Donald Trump contracting COVID-19, an already polarized America is further divided into two camps: those who think it is moral to wish death upon him, and those who do not.
One of these camps is morally corrupt, and emphatically devoid of fun. The other is correct.
You can guess which camp I reside in. There is a lot more I wish to say on this subject, but the legal regulations guarding this topic are murky.
A man was once charged with a federal felony for saying former President Woodrow Wilson was “a wooden-headed son of a b—–” who belonged in hell.
Interestingly, Wilson also grossly mishandled a pandemic during his presidency — the Spanish flu — and then subsequently caught the disease. Wilson would not publicly acknowledge the gravity of the flu, and his staff hid his symptoms from the press. It is like the tales of both White House occupants are one and the same.
To avoid any more parallels between the two — i.e. my being charged with a federal felony — I will attempt to be more careful about my words here.
While observing the fight around this topic, it is interesting to note how people construct their own moral paradigms. Many believe it is wrong to wish for the president’s death because it is completely immoral to wish for the death of any human being.
Not to sound too morbid here, but why is it bad to wish for someone to die? Why is death in particular — by all accounts, a natural and totally ordinary process — a line we cannot cross?
One answer may be that death is irreversible. By wishing the irreversible demise of someone, you are committing whatever cosmic force your words possess toward an act that cannot be undone.
Many people also believe a good person turns the other cheek, and gracefully welcomes being slapped repeatedly.
Both of these answers entirely ignore context. Trump’s egregious handling of the pandemic, along with his use of the police state to brutalize protestors, undocumented immigrants, Black Americans and more, caused the deaths of thousands of people.
His actions are also irreversible — more irreversible than any fanciful wish.
Moreover, turning the other cheek is simply not a productive way to conduct a revolution. Isn’t it better to stop the slapper from slapping you or anyone else? Isn’t our moral responsibility to acknowledge the harm that has been caused, and work toward it never happening again?
Of course, people wishing for Trump’s death is not a productive act. He is not the final boss of white supremacy — he is merely a byproduct of it, and there will be a lot of work to do even after his presidency, or life.
But joking about his COVID-19 diagnosis does, at the very least, acknowledge the harm he has caused. And when people pretend his infection represents even remotely the same degree of tragedy that hundreds of thousands of regular citizens have experienced, they are promoting more harm than good.
Pretending as if we are all in this pandemic together is completely ridiculous.
Of course, someone could say that none of the above matters, and that it is still morally wrong to joke about or wish for the death of anyone, regardless of their actions. But such blanket statements are no more correct than any other moral code.
Frankly, a lot of the circulating tweets claiming it is immoral to wish death upon the president sound like a plea for good publicity — to sound like a good person.
It’s all about optics here. Okay, fine, you are good-hearted enough to have love in your heart for a genocidal racist. But do you respect the people his policies brutalize enough to acknowledge his diagnosis does not absolve him of his actions? Do you carry that love for his victims?
I’m not here to dictate how anyone should construct their moral code. I understand that some function best when they can pretend to draw lines in the sand and claim anyone who crosses them is automatically bad.
I’ll admit, it is rather harsh to wish death on another human being. But it is also rather harsh, and rather stupid, to pretend context doesn’t matter.
