(CNN)On Monday, in an interview with Fox News, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham accused Democrats and the media of trying to politicize the coronavirus.
"This is not the time to politicize something," Grisham scolded critics of how President Donald Trump has handled the issue to date, adding: "It's really disappointing and it shows a complete lack of leadership."
She then tweeted the same idea, saying, "Coronavirus should not be a partisan political issue. It is time for the Dems to support the decisive actions taken by President @realDonaldTrump to ensure the risk to Americans remains low."
Which, well, OK. Grisham is engaging in a bit of selective memory here.
It's been less than a week since Trump held a press conference focused on his administration's reaction to the coronavirus threat, in which he repeatedly praised himself and criticized his, uh, critics.
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"We have, through some very good early decisions, decisions that were ridiculed at the beginning, we closed up our borders to flights coming in from certain areas, areas that were hit by the coronavirus and hit pretty hard," Trump said. "We've had tremendous success -- tremendous success beyond what people would have thought."
It's also been less than a week since Donald Trump Jr., the eldest son of the President, went on Fox News and said this about Democrats and coronavirus:
"Anything that they can use to try to hurt Trump, they will. ... But for them to try to take a pandemic and seemingly hope that it comes here, and kills millions of people so that they could end Donald Trump's streak of winning, is a new level of sickness. You know, I don't know if this is coronavirus or Trump derangement syndrome, but these people are infected badly."
And it's been mere hours since the President tweeted this: "I was criticized by the Democrats when I closed the Country down to China many weeks ahead of what almost everyone recommended. Saved many lives. Dems were working the Impeachment Hoax. They didn't have a clue! Now they are fear mongering."
So on one level, Grisham's appeal for an apolitical response is deeply hypocritical. It's also incredibly unrealistic.
Here's why: Coronavirus is the story, not just in America but across the world. As often happens in moments of crisis like this one, people are worried. They look to their government and particularly the President for reassurance and guidance.
Which means -- breaking news! -- that there are politics in every single situation like this. From blizzards to hurricanes to oil spills to, yes, coronavirus, there are always politics. That doesn't mean that the political calculations are the key consideration in tragedies. It just means that any event that impacts the country -- or at least captivates the country for a day or a month -- have political reverberations.
And in fact, there are times when appeals to being apolitical actually miss the point entirely. Take the ongoing crisis of school shootings. For years, there was a push to never even talk about politics following the use of a gun to commit an act of mass violence. The only focus should be on thoughts and prayers for the victims, said those apolitical forces. But to only do that is to ignore that, of course, the decisions being made around guns by elected officials have a profound impact on these events. Mass shootings are inherently politically events in that they reflect our broader political culture, in which preserving the rights of gun owners has been the primary focus of elected officials for decades.
Ditto the current reaction to the coronavirus outbreak. The reality is that decisions made by our public officials -- whether in funding for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention or in how much or little information about the virus to make public or in the rapidity of providing tests for the virus available -- already have, and will continue to, effect both the spread of the virus and our perceptions about how vulnerable we are to it.
That's why former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg spent millions of dollars on a three-minute TV ad on Sunday night in which he sought to portray himself as the sort of candidate who has the experience and judgment to deal with a challenge like coronavirus -- citing his experience handling the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks as mayor.
And former Vice President Joe Biden used Trump's press conference to score political points too, saying on the campaign trail, "The President of the United States says it's a hoax? It's hard to believe. Even for him it's hard to believe." Which wasn't fair either, considering that Trump didn't call coronavirus a hoax, he said that Democrats were using the fears surrounding it to harm him politically.
But the personal, meaning that which does or might affect our personal lives and those of our families, is always political. In that regard, the coronavirus outbreak -- and its effects -- were bound to become political, too.
"We have, through some very good early decisions, decisions that were ridiculed at the beginning, we closed up our borders to flights coming in from certain areas, areas that were hit by the coronavirus and hit pretty hard," Trump said. "We've had tremendous success -- tremendous success beyond what people would have thought."
It's also been less than a week since Donald Trump Jr., the eldest son of the President, went on Fox News and said this about Democrats and coronavirus:
"Anything that they can use to try to hurt Trump, they will. ... But for them to try to take a pandemic and seemingly hope that it comes here, and kills millions of people so that they could end Donald Trump's streak of winning, is a new level of sickness. You know, I don't know if this is coronavirus or Trump derangement syndrome, but these people are infected badly."
And it's been mere hours since the President tweeted this: "I was criticized by the Democrats when I closed the Country down to China many weeks ahead of what almost everyone recommended. Saved many lives. Dems were working the Impeachment Hoax. They didn't have a clue! Now they are fear mongering."
So on one level, Grisham's appeal for an apolitical response is deeply hypocritical. It's also incredibly unrealistic.
Here's why: Coronavirus is the story, not just in America but across the world. As often happens in moments of crisis like this one, people are worried. They look to their government and particularly the President for reassurance and guidance.
Which means -- breaking news! -- that there are politics in every single situation like this. From blizzards to hurricanes to oil spills to, yes, coronavirus, there are always politics. That doesn't mean that the political calculations are the key consideration in tragedies. It just means that any event that impacts the country -- or at least captivates the country for a day or a month -- have political reverberations.
And in fact, there are times when appeals to being apolitical actually miss the point entirely. Take the ongoing crisis of school shootings. For years, there was a push to never even talk about politics following the use of a gun to commit an act of mass violence. The only focus should be on thoughts and prayers for the victims, said those apolitical forces. But to only do that is to ignore that, of course, the decisions being made around guns by elected officials have a profound impact on these events. Mass shootings are inherently politically events in that they reflect our broader political culture, in which preserving the rights of gun owners has been the primary focus of elected officials for decades.
Ditto the current reaction to the coronavirus outbreak. The reality is that decisions made by our public officials -- whether in funding for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention or in how much or little information about the virus to make public or in the rapidity of providing tests for the virus available -- already have, and will continue to, effect both the spread of the virus and our perceptions about how vulnerable we are to it.
That's why former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg spent millions of dollars on a three-minute TV ad on Sunday night in which he sought to portray himself as the sort of candidate who has the experience and judgment to deal with a challenge like coronavirus -- citing his experience handling the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks as mayor.
And former Vice President Joe Biden used Trump's press conference to score political points too, saying on the campaign trail, "The President of the United States says it's a hoax? It's hard to believe. Even for him it's hard to believe." Which wasn't fair either, considering that Trump didn't call coronavirus a hoax, he said that Democrats were using the fears surrounding it to harm him politically.
But the personal, meaning that which does or might affect our personal lives and those of our families, is always political. In that regard, the coronavirus outbreak -- and its effects -- were bound to become political, too.