-- The U.S. politicians are good at finding a scapegoat for their own failures or incompetence in handling challenges, so they can remain in power without making real efforts.
-- Throughout U.S. history, blaming foreigners or minorities for epidemics is not a rarity, but conventional manipulation.
-- U.S. politicians have also been obsessed with passing the buck to their domestic political rivals.
-- Passing the buck will only serve the interests of the greedy and selfish politicians, and make ordinary Americans suffer more.
BEIJING, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- Whenever there is some responsibility for the U.S. politicians to shoulder, they habitually shift it onto others. Such a practice can be described as passing the buck, a selfish political tradition that is well illustrated by the U.S. politicians' deeds amid the pandemic.
From slandering China over the virus origins to baselessly blaming others for the economic woes afflicting Americans, the U.S. politicians are good at finding a scapegoat for their own failures or incompetence in handling challenges, so they can remain in power without making real efforts.
SCAPEGOATING FOREIGN COUNTRIES
After the pandemic outbreak, the U.S. politicians have been manipulating the COVID-19 origin-tracing efforts by distorting facts and hyping up such ill-founded cliches as the so-called "Wuhan lab leak" theory.
Refrigerated trailers are seen at a temporary morgue in Brooklyn of New York, the United States, Sept. 6, 2021. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)
The ulterior political motive behind the malicious U.S. acts is clear. On the one hand, the U.S. politicians attempt to assign blame to China and stir up anti-China sentiment in America, in hopes of chasing votes and distracting the public from their own failures in epidemic response; on the other, by scapegoating and demonizing China, they believe they can contain China's development and secure America's global hegemony.
Actually, throughout U.S. history, blaming foreigners or minorities for epidemics is not a rarity, but conventional manipulation.
For example, blacks were targeted due to the spread of yellow fever; Chinese were associated with smallpox; Haitian immigrants were labeled as "high-risk groups" for AIDS.
Passing the buck is highly efficient in helping U.S. politicians survive political crises, and they have applied the tactic to shape nearly every aspect of U.S. policies.
During the Great Depression of the 1930s, many U.S. media criticized the government as indifferent to people's sufferings and incompetent in dealing with economic problems.
To get out of the unfavorable situation, U.S. politicians back then incited American society to blame the Jews for the economic downturn. Rumors such as "the Jews control American banks" were widespread, leading to rampant violence against the group.
In the face of global expectations that the United States should take the lead in tackling climate change, U.S. politicians have played the same trick: ignoring the United States' responsibility as the world's most developed country, while smearing other countries as environment polluters.
PASSING THE BUCK AT HOME
U.S. politicians have not only indulged in shifting responsibility to foreign countries or minority groups, but have also been obsessed with passing the buck to their domestic political rivals.
Former U.S. President Harry S. Truman once put the sign "The Buck Stops Here" on the desk in his White House office. He would have been disappointed to see that decades later, the tradition of passing the buck is still alive and well in the United States.
Democrats and Republicans try to pass the buck to each other; the current administration tries to pass the buck to its predecessors; the three branches of the U.S. political system try to pass the buck from one to another.
Earlier, a blame game among U.S. politicians was sparked by the chaotic U.S. exit from Afghanistan. The core of the quarrel is about who, if anyone, would be held responsible.
A Taliban member walks past damaged vehicles at the Kabul airport in Kabul, capital of Afghanistan, Sept. 20, 2021. (Photo by Saifurahman Safi/Xinhua)
"When the State Department is here and we asked them a question they say, 'Well, you have to ask the Defense Department that," Senator Roger Wicker said at a hearing, according to The Hill, a U.S. political website.
"And now today, again, Defense Department people are before us. And the question was asked and the answer ... was, 'Well, you'll have to ask the State Department that," Wicker was quoted by the website as saying.
Photo released by the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue shows a partially collapsed residential building in Miami-Dade County, Florida, the United States, on June 24, 2021. (Miami-Dade Fire Rescue/Handout via Xinhua)
In June, a residential building collapsed in Surfside, in the southeastern U.S. state of Florida. The rescue work dragged on for several weeks because of the federal and local governments' bureaucratic inefficiency and buck-passing.
When questioned by the angry public, the federal government said it could not provide help unless Florida declared a state of emergency. On July 26, the last victim of the incident was identified, bringing the death toll from the tragedy to 98.
Photo released by the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue on July 10, 2021 shows task force members working at the residential building collapse site in Miami-Dade County, Florida, the United States. (Miami-Dade Fire Rescue/Handout via Xinhua)
SHARP CRITICS
A major reason for U.S. politicians' eagerness to pass the buck is that shifting the blame can help them conceal their own incompetence, with their political gains intact.
Passing the buck is also a weapon frequently used by the United States to suppress anyone it considers as a "threat" to maintain the U.S. hegemonic position.
In an article published in The Washington Post, Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, has criticized the U.S. politicians' buck-passing over the origins of the pandemic.
Americans have always linked pandemics to those they deemed outsiders, said Zimmerman. "They provide a convenient scapegoat, absolving the rest of us from responsibility for the disease and death in our midst."
White flags to honor the lives lost to COVID-19 are seen on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the United States, on Sept. 16, 2021. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)
That is exactly what Republican politicians have been saying since the coronavirus pandemic began: The virus is being brought here by foreigners and immigrants, said the professor.
"It speaks to an old theme in American history: When an epidemic arrives, we blame non-Americans," said Zimmerman.
"The White House's official narrative about the pandemic is contradicted by the facts, and creates new obstacles to stopping the virus," said a recent article titled "Trump scapegoats China and WHO -- and Americans will suffer," which was published by Foreign Policy magazine.
Health workers wheel a patient on a stretcher at the Maimonides Medical Center in New York, the United States, Jan. 5, 2021. (Photo by Michael Nagle/Xinhua)
As Francis Fukuyama, a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, pointed out, the long-term sources of American weakness and decline are more domestic than international.
Passing the buck will never cure these "diseases" of the United States. It will only serve the interests of the greedy and selfish politicians, and make ordinary Americans suffer more. (Video editors: Zhang Qiru, Mu Xuyao)
