Joe Biden vs. Covid-19: Week One

Joe Biden vs. Covid-19: Week One

Gregg Gonsalves on the pandemic, plus John Nichols on Biden’s first week.

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The national death toll from Covid-19 will reach half a million next month, and new strains of the virus are threatening. Joe Biden has called for what he calls “a full-scale wartime effort,” including $350 million in direct funding, and now he’s aiming for 150 million vaccine doses in his first 100 days. Gregg Gonsalves comments on what Biden and Congress need to do now.

Also: Faced by the pandemic and economic collapse, Biden knows he has to work harder and faster than any president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He doesn’t have a hundred days to launch his initiatives—he’s got to set the tone in ten. John Nichols comments on what Biden has accomplished in his first week—and what his next priorities ought to be. Also: the necessity of impeaching Trump for incitement of insurrection.

 

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The chaos and cruelty of the Trump administration reaches new lows each week.

Trump’s catastrophic “Liberation Day” has wreaked havoc on the world economy and set up yet another constitutional crisis at home. Plainclothes officers continue to abduct university students off the streets. So-called “enemy aliens” are flown abroad to a mega prison against the orders of the courts. And Signalgate promises to be the first of many incompetence scandals that expose the brutal violence at the core of the American empire.

At a time when elite universities, powerful law firms, and influential media outlets are capitulating to Trump’s intimidation, The Nation is more determined than ever before to hold the powerful to account.

In just the last month, we’ve published reporting on how Trump outsources his mass deportation agenda to other countries, exposed the administration’s appeal to obscure laws to carry out its repressive agenda, and amplified the voices of brave student activists targeted by universities.

We also continue to tell the stories of those who fight back against Trump and Musk, whether on the streets in growing protest movements, in town halls across the country, or in critical state elections—like Wisconsin’s recent state Supreme Court race—that provide a model for resisting Trumpism and prove that Musk can’t buy our democracy.

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