Bringing out the worst

It is often said that hard times bring out the best in people, and for many people, that's true.  For some, they bring out the worst.

Because covid-19 happens to have originated in China, a stupid and despicable minority of Americans have chosen to vent their fear and anger about the pandemic in the form of hostility toward people of visibly Asian descent.  Incidents of verbal aggression and even violence against Asian-Americans have been rising sharply.  Such thugs take encouragement, of course, from Trump's insistence on using such terms as "Chinese virus" or "Wuhan virus".

And these hateful names are embraced and amplified by his most fervent supporters -- the bigoted hard-core Christians.  For weeks, they've been used and defended aggressively on LifeSite and Church Militant, though in the last couple of days they seem to have toned this down.  Read Asian Evangelical pastor Eugene Cho's plea to his fellow Christians and Trump to stop calling covid-19 the "Chinese virus" -- then click the blue comments bar at the bottom to read the dismissive, contemptuous, and in some cases practically deranged responses from those fellow Christians.

If nothing else, one can hope that all this will convince Asian-American voters that right-wing ideology, the Trump cult, and the religion which buttresses both are no friends to them, but rather an absolute menace.  More importantly, all Americans need to speak out against such efforts to exploit the pandemic to fuel racism.