Donald Trump is now among the Justinians in pandemic history
Maine Writer opinion- Donald Trump's incompetent pandemic response will be documented in history as a pivotal point in time when America collapsed as a result of incompetent leaders.
Pandemics have one thing in common - they change the trajectory of history, as summarized in an opinion echo published in The Week:
In the years leading up to A.D. 542, the Eastern Roman Empire- known by many today as the Byzantine Empire- was on a winning streak.
(Known as the "emporer who never slept!) The Byzantine Emporer Justinian (a reign marked by ambition!) had crushed the barbarians who occupied much of the western part of the old Roman Empire and had secured a peace deal with the Persians to the east. Then, the bubonic plague arrived in Constantinople. The historian Procopius wrote that four four months, the pestilence killed up to 10,000 people a day in the capital. Corposes were so plentiful they had to be tossed into pits or the sea, or crammed into towers that were then sealed off. By the time the plague fizzled out, in A.D. 750, the adherents of a new religion, Islam, had seized a large share of Byzantium's eastern terrirtories and the Franks had conquered vast swaths of Western Europe. Pandemics would violently change the course of history again and again in the coming centuries. Smallpox, brought to the New World by Spanish conquistadors in 1492, killled up to 20 million indigenous Americans and annihilated the Aztecs, allowing Europeans to colonize the ravaged areas. And, in the 19th century, merciless crackdowns by the czarist regime on Russians who rioted against the strict cholera quaranines would fuel resentments that later exploded into revolution.
Although it's too early to tell how COVID19, will alter the modern world, so far, the response by Donald Trump has been abjectly and, to the ultimate mazimum degree, obvious incompetence.
Nevertheless, the anger over Beijing's cover-up of the Wuhan outbreak might make countries and corporations pull back from China, slowing the superpower's rise.
Or, perhaps, China will fill the vacuum left by the U.S.'s retreat from the international bodies such as the humanitarian World Health Organization (WHO).
Populist movements in the West might collapse as citizens rally around experts and scientists who understand how to keep them safe.
Or, perhaps aspiring authoritarians will grow stronger, by exploiting our fears of germ-bearing outsiders and grabbing power during lockdowns. The only thing that's certain is that the world will look very different when this pandemic eventually passes.
By Theunis Bates, an Editor's letter published in The Week.
Pandemics have one thing in common - they change the trajectory of history, as summarized in an opinion echo published in The Week:
In the years leading up to A.D. 542, the Eastern Roman Empire- known by many today as the Byzantine Empire- was on a winning streak.
(Known as the "emporer who never slept!) The Byzantine Emporer Justinian (a reign marked by ambition!) had crushed the barbarians who occupied much of the western part of the old Roman Empire and had secured a peace deal with the Persians to the east. Then, the bubonic plague arrived in Constantinople. The historian Procopius wrote that four four months, the pestilence killed up to 10,000 people a day in the capital. Corposes were so plentiful they had to be tossed into pits or the sea, or crammed into towers that were then sealed off. By the time the plague fizzled out, in A.D. 750, the adherents of a new religion, Islam, had seized a large share of Byzantium's eastern terrirtories and the Franks had conquered vast swaths of Western Europe. Pandemics would violently change the course of history again and again in the coming centuries. Smallpox, brought to the New World by Spanish conquistadors in 1492, killled up to 20 million indigenous Americans and annihilated the Aztecs, allowing Europeans to colonize the ravaged areas. And, in the 19th century, merciless crackdowns by the czarist regime on Russians who rioted against the strict cholera quaranines would fuel resentments that later exploded into revolution.
Although it's too early to tell how COVID19, will alter the modern world, so far, the response by Donald Trump has been abjectly and, to the ultimate mazimum degree, obvious incompetence.
Nevertheless, the anger over Beijing's cover-up of the Wuhan outbreak might make countries and corporations pull back from China, slowing the superpower's rise.
Or, perhaps, China will fill the vacuum left by the U.S.'s retreat from the international bodies such as the humanitarian World Health Organization (WHO).
Populist movements in the West might collapse as citizens rally around experts and scientists who understand how to keep them safe.
Or, perhaps aspiring authoritarians will grow stronger, by exploiting our fears of germ-bearing outsiders and grabbing power during lockdowns. The only thing that's certain is that the world will look very different when this pandemic eventually passes.
By Theunis Bates, an Editor's letter published in The Week.
Labels: Justinian, The Week, Theunis Bates
posted by Juliana L'Heureux | 6:21 AM
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