Coronavirus Criminals and Pandemic Profiteers: Accountability for Those Who Caused the Crisis

A furious denunciation of America's coronavirus criminals

Hundreds of thousands of deaths were caused not by the vicissitudes of nature but by the callous and opportunistic decisions of powerful people, as revealed here by John Nichols.

On March 10, 2020, president Donald Trump told a nation worried about a novel coronavirus, "We're prepared, and we're doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away." It has since been estimated that had Trump simply taken the same steps as other G7 countries, 40 percent fewer Americans would have died.

And it was not just the president. His inner circle, including Mike Pence and Jared Kushner, downplayed the crisis and mishandled the response. Cabinet members such as Betsy DeVos and Mike Pompeo undermined public safety at home and abroad to advance their agendas. Senators Ron Johnson and Mitch McConnell, governors Kristi Noem and Andrew Cuomo, judges such as Wisconsin Supreme Court justice Rebecca Bradley all promulgated public policies that led to suffering and death. Meanwhile, profiteer Pfizer (and anti-government propagandists such as Grover Norquist) fed at the public trough, while the billionaire Jeff Bezos added pandemic profits to a grotesquely bloated fortune.

John Nichols closes with a call for a version of the Pecora Commission, which took aim at what Franklin Delano Roosevelt called the "speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, and profiteering" that stoked the Depression. There must be accountability.

Author: John Nichols
Publisher: Verso
Published: 01/25/2022
Pages: 336
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.90lbs
Size: 8.30h x 5.60w x 1.10d
ISBN13: 9781839763779
ISBN10: 1839763779
BISAC Categories:
- Political Science | Corruption & Misconduct
- Political Science | Commentary & Opinion
- Political Science | Public Policy | Social Services & Welfare

About the Author
John Nichols is the Washington correspondent for The Nation magazine, a contributing writer for the Progressive and In These Times, and the associate editor of Madison, Wisconsin's Capital Times. He is the author of several books, including TThe Fight for the Soul of the Democratic Party, The Genius of Impeachment, and The S Word.