Viewpoints: Governors Lead Slow, Wise Reopening Of States, Economy; Pandemic Is Capitalizing On Problems Of Inequality

Boston Globe: Andrew Cuomo Leads The Rational States Of America 
Hail to the chief of the newly united rational states of America.Andrew Cuomo, by name. Clear-thinking citizens owe New York’s governor and his counterparts a heartfelt thank you. By stealing a Monday march on the country’s titular leader, they have ensured that the reopening of large regions of America will proceed according to the dictates of science and rationality — and not self-interested political considerations.Cuomo led the way by helping forge a bloc of Eastern states, from Delaware to Massachusetts, committed to developing a regional approach to reopening. On the West Coast, California, Oregon, and Washington announced a similar effort. (Scot Lehigh, 4/14)

San Francisco Chronicle: Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Wise Caution On Dropping Coronavirus Controls 
Ever so gradually and ever so strategically. That’s the road map California is taking toward easing strict social controls and reopening its economy after weeks of a near total shutdown to fight the coronavirus. Gov. Gavin Newsom is laying out a half dozen measurements he’ll use in deciding when to lower everyday restrictions adopted to control the outbreak. He’s promising to lift the constraints — but only if the course of fatalities and infections remains headed in the right direction. Everyone wants to know when, he acknowledged. But he wouldn’t commit to a date. “Ask me in two weeks,” he said, when pressed on when a restless state and a staggering economy might get an answer. (4/14)

St. Louis Post Dispatch: With Trump Nursing Grudges And Playing Dictator, It's Up To Governors To Lead.
A president who spent precious weeks failing to provide national leadership as coronavirus cases multiplied is now claiming authority he doesn’t have. President Donald Trump’s unhinged pandemic briefing Monday looked like a parody — peevish, self-centered, dishonest — but it also portends a serious constitutional showdown over how the nation should reopen for business. Trump declared his “authority is total” on that front, which is plainly false and dangerously dictatorial.Bluster isn’t leadership. Trump’s failure to provide the real thing has prompted governors to negotiate among themselves on the pace of their states’ reopening. At this point, that’s the only path. (4/14)

Los Angeles Times: Trump Continues To Flip Flop On Coronavirus Strategy
There is no Trumpism, only Trump. One of the most vexing things for both fans and foes of President Trump is that he has a gift for being neither the hero nor the villain people like to cast him as. In 2016, when Trump refused to answer a question about whether he would accept an election defeat, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said, “The words that you heard from Donald Trump are what you’d expect from a Third World dictator, what you’d expect from a military leader about to attempt a coup in a foreign country, not from an American presidential candidate.” (Jonah Goldberg, 4/14)

The New York Times: Stop Talking About Inequality And Do Something About It
MINNEAPOLIS — The 12-hour drive to Detroit is always a chore, but on the last day of March, the pandemic gave a sinister hue to even the most banal elements of a Midwest road trip. Every time we used a bathroom, grabbed a gas pump or bought a snack was an opportunity to get infected. Making things worse, Detroit was seeing an explosion of coronavirus cases.My grandmother had just died unexpectedly at the age of 82 — raised on a farm in Louisiana, she had always been healthy; to me, she seemed indestructible. Nana raised us — not just my dad and uncles, but nearly the whole family. Skipping her funeral didn’t seem like an option. (Jeremiah Bey Ellison, 4/15)

CNN: What The Surgeon General Gets Wrong About African Americans And Covid-19
"When America catches a cold, black folks catch pneumonia." Growing up in Denmark, South Carolina, my father, Cleveland Sellers Jr., would regularly repeat this notion to offer much-needed perspective in different policy discussions throughout the years. And time and time again, my father's evergreen sentiments have proven to be correct. (Bakari Sellers, 4/14)

Fox News: Trump Right To Stop Funding World Health Organization Over Its Botched Coronavirus Response
President Trump was right to announce Tuesday that he will immediately stop funding the World Health Organization, which was scheduled to get $893 million from the U.S. in the current two-year funding period. (Gordon C. Chang, 4/15)

The New York Times: I Harvest Your Food. Why Isn’t My Health ‘Essential’? 
I am one of the thousands of farmworkers across the country making sure there is still food to put on your tables. Since I came to New York from Guatemala 11 years ago, I have cleaned cabbage in a packing shed, milked cows on dairy farms, trimmed apple trees in orchards and wrapped and pruned tomatoes in a greenhouse. If I get sick with Covid-19, I’m afraid of what it will mean for my children, my compañeros and my community. But unlike many other workers in the United States, my workplace has not shut down. Farmworkers are considered essential, and yet we are left out of government support. (Alma Patty Tzalain, 4/15)

Los Angeles Times: The Shaming Of Dr. Fauci At Trump's News Conference From Hell
One of the first signs that Monday’s White House coronavirus task force briefing was going further off the rails than usual was the early appearance of Anthony Fauci at the microphone. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has been among the few trustworthy voices in that room, taking care, day after day, to stick to the facts. But the doctor is only human, and every once in a while we have gotten brief glimpses of how hard it must be for him to cope with the president’s incessant need to politicize everything. Remember when, a few weeks ago, he rubbed his forehead as President Trump spoke dismissively of the “deep state”? By (Robin Abcarian, 4/14)

The New York Times: Trump Votes By Mail. Why Can’t Everyone? 
In a democracy, no one should be forced to choose between health and the right to vote. Imagine if days before the November election you learn that your polling place has been closed, that your request for an absentee ballot has gone unfulfilled and that you have to risk a grave infection by standing in line — possibly for hours — to claim your stake in our democracy. (Sen. Amy Klobuchar, 4/15)

The Hill: States Blocking 4.4 Million From Gaining Medicaid Coverage
Earlier this month, President Trump proclaimed that it’s not fair 30 million Americans are uninsured, acknowledging this puts them at a disadvantage, especially as COVID-19 spreads. He suggested we should expand health coverage to the uninsured. The majority of Americans agree with the president on this topic. (David Jordan, 4/14)