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Sunday, April 19, 2020

Srop The Politics

The anti-Trump crazies are out in force with a new argument.  Now, these folks are pushing to keep the country closed with ever more stringent regulation because Trump has made clear he wants to reopen.  For this group, if Trump is for something, they have to oppose it no matter what make sense.

Here's a good example:  A large group of New York City councilmen just demanded that the New York subway be shut down for a week or two.  These geniuses want the state to provide "alternative transportation" for critical workers while the Transit Authority uses the shutdown to do a "deep cleaning" of the subways.  I'm no making this up.  Here are a few facts which these councilmen want to ignore:

1.  While the ridership on the subways is down more than 80%, the system is still used by hundreds of thousands of riders each day for essential travel.  Police, doctors, nurses, EMT's, firefighters, grocery store workers, and other types of essential workers don't all live within walking distance of their jobs. 

2.  There is no possible alternative to mass transit in New York City.  Unlike in the rest of the country, the large majority of New York residents don't have cars, so they don't have them for ride-sharing.

3.  The number of cases in New York City is dropping quite quickly over the last week.  If there ever were a good time to shut the subway (and there wasn't), it would have been three weeks ago when the virus was spreading rather than now when it is dying out.

4.  Cleaning the subway would have no effect.  The cars are already disinfected at least daily.  Anyone catching the virus on the subway is getting it from other passengers not from infections welling up from the tracks.

In other words, there is no benefit to closing down the subway, but a major cost and increased danger from doing so.  Nevertheless, these idiots are pushing for a shutdown because Trump wants to reopen, so it must be bad.

People across the country have been taught in the last two months to be afraid of the virus.  It's understandable.  It's a really bad idea and a potentially terrible blow to our country, however, if the anti-Trump crowd decide to play on that fear to try to keep the country closed.  We should be trying for the best balanced outcome for the USA.  It's not a political issue. 

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