In his article in Los Angeles Times, Martelle reports that on Tuesday, May 5, 2020, the US Vice President Mike Pence confirmed that the White House is likely to disband the special coronavirus taskforce. These sentiments arising from the person in charge of the taskforce say much about the possibility of the disbandment. However, such a move can only happen in early June. Martelle’s article “Why Shut Down his Coronavirus Task Force? Trump Wants Someone to Blame if Things get Worse” speculates that Trump’s move is meant to exonerate him from blame shifting it to other circles and win him political mileage in the form of a reelection. The author details two explanations as he omnisciently claims why the President intends to dissolve the taskforce. First is that naturally, the situation will have improved by June. Secondly, the move is Trump’s way of cushioning himself from an unfortunate outcome and getting reelected. Martelle, however, does not dwell much on his first explanation. Martelle alleges that Trump is looking for two things: a scapegoat should the pandemic situation exacerbate, and votes back to the White House.
There are several presenter assumptions that Martelle makes. First, he doubts that the coronavirus pandemic will have died naturally by June as the regime wants Americans to believe. It is almost unlikely that a reader would be convinced that Martelle believes the pandemic will die naturally. Martelle assumes that the ethical principle of non-maleficence appeals to the audience and the subjects of his piece. His emphasis is rather on his second discussion, which he calls a political explanation. The concluding line of his article asks the reader to question what Trump’s move means for the health and security of Americans (Martelle). Martelle subtly argues that Trump’s decision to dissolve the unit violates the principle of non-maleficence. In the concluding submission, Martelle calls the president a dishonest leader who is out to exploit an opportunity to retake the Oval Office for a second term. The author also assumes that Trump was voted for by people who share characters and ideology with him. This is evidenced by his allegation that hardworking and, sometimes, xenophobic Americans voted Trump into office (Martelle). It is not his belief, though, that the work Trump is doing and wants to continue doing for America is making the country great. Rather, he feels like should Trump take advantage of the coronavirus pandemic and get reelected, he will not make or keep it great.
As for the two explanations Martelle gives for the President’s decision to dissolve his brainchild, he calls the government’s support for its position “trend lines”, meaning statistics, which he does not provide. To counter Mike Pence’s and the government’s reasoning, the author quotes two articles from the New York Times whose contents suggest that the pandemic will be worse in June than it is now. In paragraph six, Martelle quotes data indicating that by June, the daily mortality rate will be up to 70 percent to at least 3,000 deaths a day and that the total number of deaths will have doubled to about 135,000 deaths in August. These figures bolster Martelle’s contention that the pandemic will not have lessened as the government purports. In the second explanation, Martelle does not produce anything that would support his assertions. Much of the content in his second explication is intuitive and it follows a directed flow of logical premises and conclusions. Martelle inductively reasons with his audience how Trump wishes to convert the coronavirus-created crisis into a political advantage. The pandemic might cease and the situation may normalize or there may be a rebound in the fall, but Trump’s political ambitions remain unscathed. However, all the reasoning in the second expounding is rather speculative of what Trump’s goals and intentions are.
Objectivity in journalism calls for a balance between the two sides of a polarized argument. Hence, it would have been prudent for Martelle to present facts and evidence from his standpoint and from the opposing side as well. When he reports Mike Pence’s announcement, Martelle does not quote the statistics the government is relying on to predict the severity of the pandemic in June. It would have been fair to present to the reader what the government is relying on as it makes plans to shut down a specially-constituted taskforce. He says that even though states such as California consider to reopen, and to relax the previously instituted anti-coronavirus pandemic measures, the citizenry should remain alert because the pandemic might deteriorate. The justice principle of ethics dictates, in this context, that fairness is presenting the audience with all the evidence, even if it does not support the author’s intended message, and then allowing the readers to read, analyze, assess, and react to the contents of the article without prejudice.
Though one would not say that Martelle’s reasoning is erratic, there is certainly a bias in the way he builds his premises, supports his views, and reaches a conclusion. As said in the previous paragraph, there is omission of proof that supports the government and the president. The only explanation why he gives partial evidence is the journalist’s bias. Moreover, inasmuch as the reasoning is not faulty, it fails to capture all the likely outcomes of President Trump opting to dissolve the taskforce. For instance, it is true that if the unit is disbanded and the pandemic resurges in the fall, Trump will have federal agencies, state governments, and elected representatives to blame. However, just as it is possible to see how Trump will blame others, it is equally probable that the others will accuse Trump of being insincere, selfish, egocentric, and racial. It is not guaranteed that the public will support Trump’s reelection when he shifts the pandemic blame to other officials, departments, and agencies.
After the analysis, there has been a change in my thinking. Elected officials have a moral obligation to safeguard the interests of their electorate. Nonetheless, in highly polarized democracies like the US, leaders confront an obstacle in meeting the electorate’s interests. Even in matters where the nation should remain united and pursue a common objective, politicking and polarization undermine the possibilities of uniting a nation for a common goal. The war on the pandemic is a collective responsibility of everyone. People’s efforts are concerted and the aim is to beat the calamity. The ethical principle of beneficence demands that people bring about goodness with all their actions.
However, the analysis of article showed that the political class, especially those in the legislature and the executive, does not worry about doing good things. To them, every action is supposed to have an implication for their careers. To a politician, even a near death experience can be a chance to win some political mileage. The sad part is that journalists and the fourth estate at times get caught up in the frenzy and they end up either as the puppets of the politicians they support or the critics of those they are not in favor of. In the case above, it is not the author’s concern whether it is necessary to abolish the taskforce or not. The concern for Martelle is the political profit the President is likely to reap from such a move.
Work Cited
Martelle, Scott. “Why Shut Down His Coronavirus Task Force? Trump Wants Someone to Blame if Things Get Worse.” LA Times, 2020.