I heard on Morning Joe that we should have prepared for the pandemic like we prepare for a hurricane. But Trump did the opposite. First, he said the pandemic isn’t going to hit landfall, but dissipate and go out to sea.

Then when it didn’t, he, unlike in a hurricane where a responsible leader throws the full weight of the federal government’s capacity to minimize deaths and destruction, while keeping people informed of the hurricanes path based on scientific models, he continued to minimize the danger and refused to coordinate a national effort to flatten and crush the pandemic’s trajectory. And now, as the pandemic tracks across the country, Trump is telling people to return to work prematurely, which to continue the hurricane metaphor, is akin to instructing people to return to their homes before the eye of the storm has passed.

This is madness. And to make it worse, Republicans, with barely an exception, echo and reinforce this message in their words and legislative actions.

What explains the callousness and indifference that Trump and his cronies display toward the disproportionate loss of Black and Brown lives in this pandemic? Or to the endless plague of cold blooded murders of young African American men at the hands of white vigilantes?

Is it out of ignorance? By no means. The short answer is to be found in the poverty of their moral core and the utterly reactionary, white nationalist politics they embrace and practice.

I became familiar with this song when I was a very young, around 6 or 7 years old, thanks to my mother who would play it on her piano and sing its words. Little did I expect that a few years later this song would give me some comfort and courage when she suddenly died. Now more than six decades later it gives comfort and courage once again, as I, along with the rest of humanity, find ourselves in the middle of a deadly pandemic. “Walk on, Walk on with hope in our heart” will give us a lift in these difficult times.

Years ago it was said that driving while Black was dangerous, but the cold blooded murder of Ahamaud Arbery by two white men in Georgia allows us to tweak that to jogging while Black is deadly. And yet no arrests have been made. The murders, no assassins, are still free, going about their lives as if nothing happened. Gloating, I’m sure, over their “trophy killing” in conversations with their close friends.

Can you imagine a similar response by law enforcement if two Black men murdered a innocent young white man jogging in a neighborhood on a bright sunny day? Once again, racism proves to be deadly, especially for young Black men.

A little alternative thinking: If Hillary were in the White House, the fight against the pandemic and the resulting economic crisis would be on a different footing, that is, science driven, nationally coordinated, unifying, and empathetic. And thus saving lives and protecting livelihoods. Long ago, I reached the conclusion that the concept of “the lesser evil” and its traveling companions, “never trust a liberal” and “vote your conscience” was a crock of sh-t. Nothing has changed to alter that conclusion.