Thread by @gregggonsalves

I sent an email to the @WhiteHouse just now, a message into the void. 1/

Dear Mr. Klain and colleagues--
I’ve been a Democrat all my life. I’ve traveled to other states to work on get out the vote for the party and I come from a Republican family. 2/

And yes, I even volunteered for the President’s transition team for a few weeks at the end of 2020 as some of you will know. 3/

Nothing, nothing has made me more disgusted by our party than what the President said on 60 Minutes last night about the COVID-19 pandemic being over. 3/

You all in your bubble think it’s just politics, particularly the old-timers, and for some who are new to government service you see no way of objecting or for the deeply ambitious among you will say anything to get ahead. 4/

But what the President said, what you have all consented to, is deeply craven, cynical, dishonors our 1M+ dead, those who have fought to keep people alive and safe. 5/

500 people are dying per day in the US. COVID, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation was the 2nd leading cause of death in the week of September 9th. 6/

We lead in overall COVID mortality and excess deaths among the G7. Life expectancy in the US is down and has not rebounded. Hundreds of thousands of Americans are likely to suffer from long COVID. And we’re grossly under-vaccinated and under-boosted as a country. 7/

These are the facts. 8/

You choose to ignore them out of political expediency, seeing no “win” for the mid-terms or 2024 in any real response from the White House on this disease. You’re counting votes. Many of us are just counting bodies. 9/

Please don’t comfort yourselves by saying you are doing all you can do, the country is “tired” and you cannot do more. 10/

At least call it what it is: capitulation. It’s akin to President Bush’s Mission Accomplished moment from 2003 and will be remembered as such, but perhaps with more scorn in history as the carnage is here at home, not in Iraq. 11/

Saying the pandemic is over gets no one vaccinated, no one boosted. Saying the pandemic is over, gets no one access to care and treatment if they have no insurance. 12/

Saying the pandemic is over, does not refurbish the ventilation in a single school building. 13/

Saying the pandemic is over, puts no food on the table of someone who is out of work from long COVID or from simply a bout of the disease that sidelines them for a week from a job that pays only if you show up. 14/

Saying the pandemic is over gets you nothing but brings suffering and death to too many. 15/

I cheered on Election night. I cheered when you made your initial appoints in public health, medicine and science. I cheered when I read your initial plan to combat the pandemic. 16/

Now? How has it all gone so badly? More dead under your watch than under President Trump’s. 17/

Clearly those of us in public health who still see unfinished business in a pandemic that is taking a devastating toll on this country will have to do this alone. 18/

But we will also bear witness. 19/

To a story of people who once devoted themselves to public service, to the health and happiness of all Americans, but who put their own political interests and career prospects first—there is no other way to explain it. 20/

I’ve heard the excuses from some of you directly, the I’m-doing-all-I-can-do-you-just-can’t-see-it self-justifications. But I’m over it. This is what happens when some Americans become disposable people. I saw it with HIV/AIDS, I see it now. 21/

You may say, there is no use in speaking up, doing more if we don’t win elections and you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet.22/

But many of us see you for what you are. People who lost their way on the way up. 23/

History will not be kind to you. 24/

Best regards,
Gregg Gonsalves