Bernie Sanders Is the Only Candidate Focused on How Coronavirus Will Ravage the Most Vulnerable

[Donkees]

Link to tweet

BY GABRIELLA PAIELLA

March 17, 2020

Excerpt:

On March 12th, in his first public address on the pandemic, the Vermont senator spoke directly and with a poignant urgency. “I worry very much about elderly people in this country today, many of whom are isolated, many of whom do not have a lot of money,” he said. “We need to worry about those who are already sick. We need to worry about working families with children, people with disabilities, the homeless, and all those who are vulnerable.”

He called for an immediate nationwide moratorium on evictions, foreclosures, and utility shutoffs, as well as the construction of emergency shelters for the homeless and domestic violence survivors. While Trump paraded healthcare CEOs in the White House Rose Garden, Sanders directed his audience’s attention to those forgotten in the shadows: “those confined immigration detention centers, those who are currently incarcerated and in jails, and all people regardless of their immigration status.”

Like his lone support of allowing prisoners to vote, there is nothing politically expedient about speaking up on behalf of incarcerated people. But Sanders insisted on it. Experts already fear that this pandemic is going to be particularly devastating in prisons due to overcrowding and existing abysmal conditions, while the alcohol content in the hand sanitizer we’re all being urged to use means the product is contraband and banned from most facilities across the country. Sanders also joined several Democratic senators, including Elizabeth Warren and other former opponents, in sending a letter to the Federal Bureau of Prisons and large private prison operators demanding to know how they would be handling the coronavirus. Biden did not.

As for the half a million homeless people Sanders pointed to—again, not a voting bloc he has to win over—The Washington Post reports that the current administration has not deployed any emergency funding, nor were homeless people addressed directly in Congress’s bipartisan coronavirus aid package. This is all while advocates fear that the outbreak will decimate encampments and shelters.

It’s no surprise, then, that in his general public response, Sanders has acknowledged the broader emotional toll of the coronavirus crisis with a singular empathy and connectedness: speaking to the loneliness of being isolated, or the anxiety of having a spouse stricken by the virus and being unable to afford mental healthcare. “As people work from home and are directed to quarantine, it will be easy to feel like we are in this alone. That is a very dangerous mistake,” he warned, not unkindly. “First and foremost, we must remember that we are in this together. Now is the time for solidarity. Now is the time to come together with love and compassion for all.” Sanders has spent a lifetime preaching about the necessity of acting collectively. In a situation like this, when America’s streak of rugged individualism spells out a death sentence, calling for togetherness is not only comforting, it’s the best option we have for survival.

https://www.gq.com/story/bernie-sanders-coronavirus