Hi ,

Yesterday morning, most of us woke to the news that the president is COVID-19 positive. We wish Mr. Trump and the First Lady the best and hope for a speedy recovery - as we do with the millions of others around the world who have been infected with COVID.

For Donald Trump this diagnosis means canceling campaign rallies during the crucial leadup to the election, it means leaving the next debate up in the air and it means placing in doubt his abilities to conduct daily duties -- Mike Pence is standing by. But mostly, of course, it means being not just politically but personally confronted with the months of vehemently denying the existence and extent of the pandemic while more than 200,000 Americans were struck down by the virus, while he had the power and responsibility to do much more.  

Donald Trump joins the more than 7 million Americans and more than 34 million people around the world who have contracted this murdering virus. With more than a million deaths so far, we do not care to see anyone else sicken or die from COVID-19, no matter what their party affiliation, where they live or any other irrelevant details. No more deaths.

Our campaign and the work of the Green Party has never been to isolate or target one politician. Behind Donald Trump is an army of Republicans who are cheering him on at every turn. Behind the Republicans is an army of Democrats who agree with the same policies and systems that have led to the catastrophic impact our country is facing. Environmental destruction, economic injustice and pervasive racism are often more than acceptable byproducts of the policies of both major parties. 

Climate change increases the spread of many infectious diseases. Air pollution increases virus transmission. Many of the root causes of the climate crisis such as deforestation and massive livestock farming increase the risk of pandemics. NASA is studying how environmental degradation is helping to spread COVID-19.

But even our schoolchildren know this, so how can things ever be different when our elected leadership have all of the knowledge and all of the resources to act, but still keep failing us?

It is only through systemic change that we will turn the tide on the pandemic, its economic fallout that is unsurprisingly hurting poor, black, Latinx, Asian and indigenous people disproportionately, and the healthcare systems rendered woefully inadequate to care for people who are sickened.

It’s a vicious cycle: (1) the pandemic, if not caused by Democrat and Republican-led assaults to our ecosystem, was certainly exacerbated by a government infrastructure built by two parties who are more beholden to corporate donors and Big Industry than to the welfare of the American people. (2) The economic fallout from the pandemic devastates huge layers of workers and their families who were already struggling to survive. (3) Unequal access to housing, medical care, good jobs and social safety nets because of racist systems pushes communities of color even further into despair and makes them more susceptible to COVID-19.

Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos, supporter of both major parties but mostly a Democrat donor, made more than a million dollars in the time it took you to read this message, while thousands and thousands of his vulnerable workers are getting sick with COVID.

Our system is unquestionably broken and we cannot spend one more second scrambling to patch it back up so it limps on to hurt more of us. No more pretending that we don’t need a government that is eco-socialist and truly democratic, or that it isn’t possible to create something better, where neither presidents nor meatpackers are hurt by a preventable virus, where contact tracing and uniform distancing measures are in place and all Americans have accessibility to tests as they do in most other countries.

We deserve better. Our families deserve better. Our communities and the world need better. 

The way to make that demand for what we need and deserve is via a vote for Hawkins/Walker 2020.

In solidarity,

Team Howie

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