Even as the coronavirus slowly begins to loosen its hold on American life, the culture wars seem to be speeding up.
Author and journalist, Bill O’Reilly, joined The Cats Roundtable to discuss this moment in history and why the disease seems to be dividing Americans when it should be uniting them.
Though the sinister nature of the virus has put a fear in people around the globe, O’Reilly explains this fear is exacerbated by a tone of gloom that permeates the mainstream coverage of the disease.
“The disease is further dividing us,” he reflected, noting that partisans are using the disease as a tactic to “destroy Donald Trump.”
He criticized the cynicism prevalent in the mainstream media for being responsible for “building a wall of doom” around the crisis, calling the jump to politicize the virus “distressing.”
“I would like to see a country come together to fight this thing, than do it so divided,” he said.
Even as overtures begin that we may soon see a decline of cases, O’Reilly is concerned many primary sources of information are assigning blame for the disease onto President Trump, while ignoring the fact that the economy will start again, and many countries are successfully combating the virus.
He cited the incessant focus on the fear of the pandemic and not on the stories of countries getting a handle on the crisis as an example of a wider bias, such as Austria planning to open businesses and schools this month, as well as hard-hit Spain weighing whether it should begin to allow non-essential factory workers back to the job as soon as next week.
O’Reilly believes these stories that show “we can get through this thing a little bit quicker” don’t fit into the media’s narrative, which ultimately is to “hurt Donald Trump.”
Ultimately, O’Reilly echoes medical experts that the key “turning point in America” and the world will be the discovery of a treatment.
“Once that happens, you’ll see people resume normal activity,” he said, predicting the economy is going to “roar back” as Americans reemerge in the following months and markets regain their losses.
O’Reilly told The Cats Roundtable he believes the pandemic will shift the world’s stage, and in particular, shift the world away from China.
“China is the country that’s going to be harmed the most by this pandemic,” he said, noting that Chinese leaders “put the whole world at risk” when they suppressed information at the initial outset of the virus outbreak in early December of 2019. He also criticized the WHO, which has faced mounting criticism for its praise of China and it’s own early downplaying of the pandemic when it tweeted the virus could not be spread by human-to-human contact.
“I think this pandemic changes the world order,” O’Reilly reflected, adding the trust China has built across the world as an alternative to the U.S. is now cast in doubt.
O’Reilly told The Cats Roundtable that right now, it’s every American’s duty to remain strong.
“This is a war,” he explained. “We all have our part—our part is to keep ourselves and our families safe.”
But he also implored Americans to look out for the most vulnerable, including the elderly and senior citizens, insisting those who can, should be helping those most at risk.
“You are part of the solution,” O’Reilly said. “Don’t buy into the propaganda.”
