vox--2020-10-29--Cars too dangerous and dirty for rich countries are being sold to poor ones

A new report shows that the European Union , Japan , and the United States are selling millions of used cars to developing countries that come nowhere close to meeting minimum safety and environmental standards .
In other words , rich countries are dumping high-polluting cars on poorer ones — which could have disastrous and unjust climate effects .
The report , released by the UN Environment Program this month , found that developing countries received 14 million used cars from the EU , Japan , and the US between 2015 and 2018 .
70 percent of this total ended @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than half sent to African countries .
Many of those nations don ’ t require strict inspection rules or safety standards , which is how richer countries are still able to export their junk cars .
What ’ s more , those cars rarely adhere to modern-day environmental standards , meaning they pollute more than newer cars .
This is a major problem .
The World Health Organization estimates about 90 percent of road accidents occur in low- to middle-income countries , with death rates from such accidents highest in Africa .
As @ @ @ @ @ @ @ especially in Africa , the roads are likely to become even more dangerous .
Depressingly , that ’ s only the short-term concern .
The longer-term worry is these dangerous vehicles will imperil us all — by potentially exacerbating the effects of climate change .
How to curb the deadly spread of “ dirty cars ” The cars rich countries are sending to poorer ones release more harmful emissions and consume greater amounts of energy than newer models .
That ’ s especially troubling since two of the exporters , the EU and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ carbon-neutral by 2050 .
They might reach their goals , but sending problematic vehicles to poorer countries won ’ t improve dire environmental conditions there .
Indeed , less-developed nations already suffer the worst consequences of the climate emergency — like food insecurity — despite contributing the least to global warming .
Sending crappy cars , then , only adds insult to injury .
The UN report ’ s authors propose a solution to all this .
Mainly , they say regulations should be tightened in the next few years , and low- @ @ @ @ @ @ @ richer countries , not cars adhering to fewer environmental and safety standards .
Exporting and importing counties have a shared responsibility to regulate the quality of used vehicles and mitigate any negative impacts on the environment .
Strong implementation and enforcement mechanisms , like new , enforceable global treaties or conventions could add teeth to regulations and compel countries to comply with them .
Such changes require greater international collaboration between the countries that send cars and those that receive them to monitor and regulate the sale of used vehicles and end the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ I think the onus is not only on the exporting country , it ’ s really a joint responsibility , ” Rob de Jong , one of the report ’ s authors who is Head of Mobility at the UN , told the BBC on October 26 .
The goal should be to ensure that all used vehicles sent to poorer nations are secure and clean while remaining affordable .
If that goal isn ’ t met soon , the dual problems of unsafe roads and worsening climate change will continue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Millions turn to Vox each month to understand what ’ s happening in the news , from the coronavirus crisis to a racial reckoning to what is , quite possibly , the most consequential presidential election of our lifetimes .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
But our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources .
Even when the economy and the news advertising market recovers , your support will be a critical part of sustaining our resource-intensive work @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thank you .
If you haven ’ t , please consider helping everyone make sense of an increasingly chaotic world : Contribute today from as little as $ 3 .

A new report shows that the European Union, Japan, and the United States are selling millions of used cars to developing countries that come nowhere close to meeting minimum safety and environmental standards.
In other words, rich countries are dumping high-polluting cars on poorer ones — which could have disastrous and unjust climate effects.
The report, released by the UN Environment Program this month, found that developing countries received 14 million used cars from the EU, Japan, and the US between 2015 and 2018. 70 percent of this total ended up in developing countries, with more than half sent to African countries.
Many of those nations don’t require strict inspection rules or safety standards, which is how richer countries are still able to export their junk cars. What’s more, those cars rarely adhere to modern-day environmental standards, meaning they pollute more than newer cars.
This is a major problem. The World Health Organization estimates about 90 percent of road accidents occur in low- to middle-income countries, with death rates from such accidents highest in Africa. As lower-quality cars flood into those nations, especially in Africa, the roads are likely to become even more dangerous.
Depressingly, that’s only the short-term concern. The longer-term worry is these dangerous vehicles will imperil us all — by potentially exacerbating the effects of climate change.
How to curb the deadly spread of “dirty cars”
The cars rich countries are sending to poorer ones release more harmful emissions and consume greater amounts of energy than newer models.
That’s especially troubling since two of the exporters, the EU and Japan, have made commitments to become carbon-neutral by 2050. They might reach their goals, but sending problematic vehicles to poorer countries won’t improve dire environmental conditions there. Indeed, less-developed nations already suffer the worst consequences of the climate emergency — like food insecurity — despite contributing the least to global warming.
Sending crappy cars, then, only adds insult to injury.
The UN report’s authors propose a solution to all this. Mainly, they say regulations should be tightened in the next few years, and low- to zero-emission vehicles should be exported by richer countries, not cars adhering to fewer environmental and safety standards.
Exporting and importing counties have a shared responsibility to regulate the quality of used vehicles and mitigate any negative impacts on the environment. Strong implementation and enforcement mechanisms, like new, enforceable global treaties or conventions could add teeth to regulations and compel countries to comply with them.
Such changes require greater international collaboration between the countries that send cars and those that receive them to monitor and regulate the sale of used vehicles and end the practice of “dirty car” exports.
“I think the onus is not only on the exporting country, it’s really a joint responsibility,” Rob de Jong, one of the report’s authors who is Head of Mobility at the UN, told the BBC on October 26.
The goal should be to ensure that all used vehicles sent to poorer nations are secure and clean while remaining affordable. If that goal isn’t met soon, the dual problems of unsafe roads and worsening climate change will continue.


vox--2020-10-30--Money Talks: The father and son running a coffeehouse together

Welcome to Money Talks , a series in which we interview people about their relationship with money , their relationship with each other , and how those relationships inform one another .
Henry Kalebjian , 79 , is the owner of Henry ’ s House of Coffee .
His son Hrag , 43 , joined as co-owner in 2013 — and although the father-son collaboration required a little more understanding and empathy than either Henry or Hrag had been expecting , business has more than tripled since Hrag came on board .
Today , the 55-year-old coffeehouse makes between $ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ revenue , provides jobs to one full-time manager and 12 part-time employees , and sells both traditional and Armenian coffee to customers in San Francisco and online coffee-lovers around the world .
Henry is Armenian , but his family was one of the many families displaced in the early 1900s during the Armenian Genocide .
His grandparents went to Lebanon and Syria , where they lived as refugees .
Henry was born and grew up in Lebanon before immigrating to the United States .
His experience as an immigrant building a small business @ @ @ @ @ @ @ experience as a financial expert taking co-ownership of a thriving coffeehouse — which is just one of the factors that father and son discuss in the following conversation .
Henry : As I was young , I was helping my father back home .
He used to roast coffee — small volume , not a big one .
It was a hobby .
When I came to the United States , I went to school and became a mechanical designer .
We got laid off after 10 years working , and I had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ store , a small Middle Eastern store , and the owner wanted to sell because he wanted to retire .
When I went in , I saw a small roaster in the corner and thought “ This is interesting.
” I bought the business , and little by little I increased the volume and became a good solid roasting company .
At that time , coffee roasting was a very simple thing .
The quality was different , everything was different .
Now it ’ s very fancy .
I started attending lectures @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and I followed the change .
Hrag : I hated the business when I was a kid .
For me , it was like doing a chore .
I didn ’ t look forward to helping my dad , especially on the weekends when I wanted to watch cartoons instead of working in the shop .
I wanted to be upfront with the customers , but my dad wouldn ’ t let me — which makes sense , you don ’ t want a 10-year-old taking your coffee order , it ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had me in the back , scooping coffee beans into five-pound bags .
There ’ s no music , it ’ s cold , I ’ ve got a scoop , and it was super-boring .
That was what I was tasked to do , and I reluctantly did it .
When I went to college , the last thing on my mind was taking over the business .
I was involved in finance , and I did corporate finance for roughly 10 years .
The corporate grind is great , but sometimes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I felt like I was giving a lot and not getting as much back , and I started looking into other avenues .
One of those avenues was my father ’ s business .
Being in finance , you ’ re crunching numbers all the time — and as I dug into my father ’ s business I thought , “ Wow , this is a really strong and healthy business .
I wonder if this is something that I can take to the next level ?
” [ When you ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in is what you get out .
If you put in 5 percent , your business is going to suffer .
You put your heart and soul in it , and every tiny little sale is a result of your work .
That ’ s much more satisfying than sitting in front of your boss , having your quarterly review , and hearing “ Good job , here ’ s a 3 percent increase in pay.
” It ’ s like , two worlds apart .
Right now , I ’ m digitally @ @ @ @ @ @ @ focus is our online channel , and so all of the business development , marketing , all of that is me .
I spend a lot of my time in front of the computer , thinking of ways to tell our story and get new customers .
Henry : When Hrag took over , he changed everything !
I was so mad at him , but I couldn ’ t express that I was getting angry .
One day he comes , and he tells me that we ’ re going to do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or Facebook or something — and we ’ re going to spend $ 7,000 .
I said , “ What ?
Seven thousand dollars ?
I used to spend one thousand !
Don ’ t do it !
Stop it !
” He said , “ No , Dad , we have to do it.
” Finally , I talked to myself a little bit .
I said , “ Listen , Henry .
This is your son .
This is not a stranger .
Let him do it .
If he fails @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to learn , and it ’ s going to cost $ 7,000 .
By losing $ 7,000 , you ’ re not going to go bankrupt .
This is your son .
This is how he ’ s going to learn.
” So I let him do it .
Man , am I glad he did !
We tripled our income .
That $ 7,000 became so many more .
Hrag : When I started working at the coffee shop , for the first six months I didn ’ t do anything — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the nuances of how the business worked .
I noticed that every once in a while , my dad would run off to Safeway to get some milk , because we were running out of milk .
I thought , “ We ’ re a coffee shop , we make lattes and cappuccinos , they ’ re 75 percent of our sales , why the hell are we running out of milk ?
” When I dug into it I realized , typical mom and pop shop , there are no procedures @ @ @ @ @ @ @ person who does the milk ordering is sick , someone else takes a stab at it and doesn ’ t know how to do it , so we would be short of milk .
I thought to myself “ Here ’ s a good opportunity .
I can create a milk order form for the staff.
” Tell them , “ Here ’ s how much milk we should have , we need 100 bottles of 2 percent milk , count what we have in the refrigerator , subtract the two , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to order.
” Super simple .
This was six months in , and I sat down with my mom and dad and I was explaining this thing , and being a mama ’ s boy , my mom was all “ This is so smart , I love it , it ’ s great , ” and I ’ m talking to them about how we ’ re going to implement it — because that ’ s the other aspect of running a business , not only having the strategy but also implementing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t saying much .
I turned to him and said , “ Dad , what do you think ?
” He looks at me , and he says , in Armenian , “ I feel like everything is being taken from me.
” That wasn ’ t what I was expecting .
I was expecting a lot of kudos and congratulations , and here ’ s this guy telling me that a simple milk order form is as if everything is being taken from him .
If changing the way we order milk @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is crumbling in on him , how ’ s he going to react when I tell him that we have to get rid of a lot of the coffee he ’ s selling ?
Or that we have to do a $ 300,000 remodel ?
Or that we have to spend $ 50,000 on a website ?
How is he going to react to that ?
Henry : I saw that my son is very smart , just like his mother .
He is good with numbers , so when he did the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ completely correct .
So I let it go .
Whatever he wants to do , he can do it , and I have no objections .
Sometimes I put a brake on it , but other than that I let it go .
I say “ He knows what he ’ s doing , so let him do it.
” That ’ s what he does now .
He ’ s free , he does the changes , he does everything , and I am very , very pleased .
He has taken @ @ @ @ @ @ @ increased the volume three or four times what I used to do .
Hrag : I love what I ’ m doing right now , and I want my children to do what they love when they ’ re older .
I don ’ t want them to feel like [ the coffeehouse ] was forced upon them .
The challenge for me is that I also want them to know what Dad does , and I want them to be proud of that .
If it ’ s not something they ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ absolutely fine .
But I want it to come from them as opposed to me .
So I wanted to take aspects of the business that I thought my children would like , and not have it feel forced .
One of my sons really loves culture , he loves language , he ’ s interested in history , and so my conversation with him when it comes to the business is more around where our coffees are from , why that ’ s important , different styles of coffee that are grown @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
He was so excited when I told him that Ethiopia has a lot of regions , and they have cities and states that are very different from what the United States has .
I asked him if he could teach me a little bit more about that , and his eyes opened up .
He went and researched Ethiopia , and so it really came from him .
I just planted the seed .
Never at any point was I talking about him working in the business or taking over .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s a lot healthier , especially with kids nowadays , where they know what they like .
If you ’ re forcing them into a situation , it has drawbacks — when they grow up , they ’ re like “ no , I had bad experiences , I never want to have anything to do with it , ” instead of having fond memories when they ’ re older .
The other big thing is , when my father immigrated to the United States in the 1970s , he had nothing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ provide for his family , he worked his ass off — and I didn ’ t see my dad .
He worked Saturdays .
If I wanted to spend time with my dad , I had to go to work .
I ’ m a little more spoiled .
My dad has given me all of this , and because of his hard work , I don ’ t go in to work on the weekends .
Henry : The father has to give in , in the sense of “ Let it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
He might take a step , and he might not succeed .
That ’ s okay .
That ’ s how he ’ s going to learn .
Next time , he ’ s not going to do that mistake.
” The father has to give the son the opportunity to try on his own , whatever he thinks he ’ s doing , and he will succeed eventually .
That ’ s how I did .
If you have a compelling story about how money comes into play in one of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a friend , a sibling , a coworker — we want to hear about it !
Email alanna.okun @ vox.com and karen.turner @ vox.com with a little about yourself .
Help keep Vox free for all Millions turn to Vox each month to understand what ’ s happening in the news , from the coronavirus crisis to a racial reckoning to what is , quite possibly , the most consequential presidential election of our lifetimes .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower @ @ @ @ @ @ @ brand of explanatory journalism takes resources .
Even when the economy and the news advertising market recovers , your support will be a critical part of sustaining our resource-intensive work .
If you have already contributed , thank you .
If you haven ’ t , please consider helping everyone make sense of an increasingly chaotic world : Contribute today from as little as $ 3 .

Welcome to Money Talks, a series in which we interview people about their relationship with money, their relationship with each other, and how those relationships inform one another.
Henry Kalebjian, 79, is the owner of Henry’s House of Coffee. His son Hrag, 43, joined as co-owner in 2013 — and although the father-son collaboration required a little more understanding and empathy than either Henry or Hrag had been expecting, business has more than tripled since Hrag came on board.
Today, the 55-year-old coffeehouse makes between $1.5 and $2 million in annual revenue, provides jobs to one full-time manager and 12 part-time employees, and sells both traditional and Armenian coffee to customers in San Francisco and online coffee-lovers around the world.
Henry is Armenian, but his family was one of the many families displaced in the early 1900s during the Armenian Genocide. His grandparents went to Lebanon and Syria, where they lived as refugees. Henry was born and grew up in Lebanon before immigrating to the United States.
His experience as an immigrant building a small business was very different from Hrag’s experience as a financial expert taking co-ownership of a thriving coffeehouse — which is just one of the factors that father and son discuss in the following conversation.
Henry: As I was young, I was helping my father back home. He used to roast coffee — small volume, not a big one. It was a hobby. When I came to the United States, I went to school and became a mechanical designer. We got laid off after 10 years working, and I had to do something. I saw this store, a small Middle Eastern store, and the owner wanted to sell because he wanted to retire. When I went in, I saw a small roaster in the corner and thought “This is interesting.” I bought the business, and little by little I increased the volume and became a good solid roasting company.
At that time, coffee roasting was a very simple thing. The quality was different, everything was different. Now it’s very fancy. I started attending lectures and conventions, I noticed the change, and I followed the change.
Hrag: I hated the business when I was a kid. For me, it was like doing a chore. I didn’t look forward to helping my dad, especially on the weekends when I wanted to watch cartoons instead of working in the shop. I wanted to be upfront with the customers, but my dad wouldn’t let me — which makes sense, you don’t want a 10-year-old taking your coffee order, it’s weird. So my dad always had me in the back, scooping coffee beans into five-pound bags. There’s no music, it’s cold, I’ve got a scoop, and it was super-boring. That was what I was tasked to do, and I reluctantly did it.
When I went to college, the last thing on my mind was taking over the business. I was involved in finance, and I did corporate finance for roughly 10 years. The corporate grind is great, but sometimes there’s lack of recognition. I felt like I was giving a lot and not getting as much back, and I started looking into other avenues. One of those avenues was my father’s business.
Being in finance, you’re crunching numbers all the time — and as I dug into my father’s business I thought, “Wow, this is a really strong and healthy business. I wonder if this is something that I can take to the next level?”
[When you’re an entrepreneur], whatever you put in is what you get out. If you put in 5 percent, your business is going to suffer. You put your heart and soul in it, and every tiny little sale is a result of your work. That’s much more satisfying than sitting in front of your boss, having your quarterly review, and hearing “Good job, here’s a 3 percent increase in pay.” It’s like, two worlds apart.
Right now, I’m digitally in front of the customers. My focus is our online channel, and so all of the business development, marketing, all of that is me. I spend a lot of my time in front of the computer, thinking of ways to tell our story and get new customers.
Henry: When Hrag took over, he changed everything! I was so mad at him, but I couldn’t express that I was getting angry. One day he comes, and he tells me that we’re going to do advertisements — I think it was Google or Facebook or something — and we’re going to spend $7,000. I said, “What? Seven thousand dollars? I used to spend one thousand! Don’t do it! Stop it!” He said, “No, Dad, we have to do it.”
Finally, I talked to myself a little bit. I said, “Listen, Henry. This is your son. This is not a stranger. Let him do it. If he fails, imagine that he’s going to learn, and it’s going to cost $7,000. By losing $7,000, you’re not going to go bankrupt. This is your son. This is how he’s going to learn.”
So I let him do it. Man, am I glad he did! We tripled our income. That $7,000 became so many more.
Hrag: When I started working at the coffee shop, for the first six months I didn’t do anything — I was observing how the business functioned and the nuances of how the business worked. I noticed that every once in a while, my dad would run off to Safeway to get some milk, because we were running out of milk.
I thought, “We’re a coffee shop, we make lattes and cappuccinos, they’re 75 percent of our sales, why the hell are we running out of milk?” When I dug into it I realized, typical mom and pop shop, there are no procedures. Nothing written down. If the person who does the milk ordering is sick, someone else takes a stab at it and doesn’t know how to do it, so we would be short of milk.
I thought to myself “Here’s a good opportunity. I can create a milk order form for the staff.” Tell them, “Here’s how much milk we should have, we need 100 bottles of 2 percent milk, count what we have in the refrigerator, subtract the two, and that’s how much you need to order.” Super simple.
This was six months in, and I sat down with my mom and dad and I was explaining this thing, and being a mama’s boy, my mom was all “This is so smart, I love it, it’s great,” and I’m talking to them about how we’re going to implement it — because that’s the other aspect of running a business, not only having the strategy but also implementing it — and my dad wasn’t saying much. I turned to him and said, “Dad, what do you think?” He looks at me, and he says, in Armenian, “I feel like everything is being taken from me.”
That wasn’t what I was expecting. I was expecting a lot of kudos and congratulations, and here’s this guy telling me that a simple milk order form is as if everything is being taken from him. If changing the way we order milk makes him feel like the whole world is crumbling in on him, how’s he going to react when I tell him that we have to get rid of a lot of the coffee he’s selling? Or that we have to do a $300,000 remodel? Or that we have to spend $50,000 on a website? How is he going to react to that?
Henry: I saw that my son is very smart, just like his mother. He is good with numbers, so when he did the calculations, I saw that he was completely correct. So I let it go. Whatever he wants to do, he can do it, and I have no objections. Sometimes I put a brake on it, but other than that I let it go. I say “He knows what he’s doing, so let him do it.”
That’s what he does now. He’s free, he does the changes, he does everything, and I am very, very pleased. He has taken my store over, and he has increased the volume three or four times what I used to do.
Hrag: I love what I’m doing right now, and I want my children to do what they love when they’re older. I don’t want them to feel like [the coffeehouse] was forced upon them. The challenge for me is that I also want them to know what Dad does, and I want them to be proud of that. If it’s not something they’re interested in, that’s absolutely fine. But I want it to come from them as opposed to me.
So I wanted to take aspects of the business that I thought my children would like, and not have it feel forced. One of my sons really loves culture, he loves language, he’s interested in history, and so my conversation with him when it comes to the business is more around where our coffees are from, why that’s important, different styles of coffee that are grown in Ethiopia as opposed to South America.
He was so excited when I told him that Ethiopia has a lot of regions, and they have cities and states that are very different from what the United States has. I asked him if he could teach me a little bit more about that, and his eyes opened up. He went and researched Ethiopia, and so it really came from him. I just planted the seed. Never at any point was I talking about him working in the business or taking over. It was just conversational.
I think that’s a lot healthier, especially with kids nowadays, where they know what they like. If you’re forcing them into a situation, it has drawbacks — when they grow up, they’re like “no, I had bad experiences, I never want to have anything to do with it,” instead of having fond memories when they’re older.
The other big thing is, when my father immigrated to the United States in the 1970s, he had nothing. For him to be able to provide for his family, he worked his ass off — and I didn’t see my dad. He worked Saturdays. If I wanted to spend time with my dad, I had to go to work.
I’m a little more spoiled. My dad has given me all of this, and because of his hard work, I don’t go in to work on the weekends.
Henry: The father has to give in, in the sense of “Let it go. The son is taking over. He might take a step, and he might not succeed. That’s okay. That’s how he’s going to learn. Next time, he’s not going to do that mistake.” The father has to give the son the opportunity to try on his own, whatever he thinks he’s doing, and he will succeed eventually. That’s how I did.
If you have a compelling story about how money comes into play in one of your relationships — whether with a partner, a friend, a sibling, a coworker — we want to hear about it! Email alanna.okun@vox.com and karen.turner@vox.com with a little about yourself.


vox--2020-10-30--Support for Trump is tearing apart Vietnamese American families

When Tram Nguyen , a Democratic state representative from Massachusetts , posted a Facebook video declaring support for the Black Lives Matter movement , she thought the message to her constituents was relatively uncontroversial .
Millions of Americans were taking to the streets to protest police brutality .
And as an elected official , she had to take a stand against systemic racism and express her commitment to “ fight for equality for all.
” The video , however , enraged a vocal group of conservative Vietnamese Americans outside her district who flocked to Nguyen ’ s page , accusing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with “ domestic terrorists.
” The comments on her video branded her as a traitor , a dishonor to her family .
“ I respect the right for people to disagree with me , ” she told me in July in an interview for the Interpreter , a volunteer-run site that translates English-language news into Vietnamese .
“ I represent a purple district … but I ’ ve never had this sort of attack thrown against me before.
” Nguyen was not the only victim of an online Vietnamese American mob this summer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ agent in Houston , used his savings to fund a “ Black Lives Matter ” billboard with the phrase “ Stop Racism ” in Vietnamese and English .
He intended for it to be a statement of solidarity , but ended up receiving messages that called for his lynching and boycotts of his business from the pro-Trump Vietnamese community in Houston .
In the months after my conversation with Nguyen ( no relation ) , I began lurking around the online spaces that directed personal attacks against her , scouring Vietnamese-language local Facebook @ @ @ @ @ @ @ YouTube channels .
I kept coming across a disturbing trend : Many Vietnamese Americans — particularly first-generation , older immigrants with low English proficiency — had become more radically conservative , or were exposed to and sympathetic with these pro-Trump views .
From my reporting on immigrant Asian communities , I found that some Vietnamese immigrants who might not understand the nuances of racism in America felt threatened by the social unrest and looting in cities .
A few even became counterprotesters at local Black Lives Matter rallies .
This occurred in tandem @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spurred on by Covid-19 , which was branded as the “ China virus ” by President Trump .
All of this might feel counterintuitive for a minority group .
But out of the six ethnic groups in the 2020 Asian American Voter Survey conducted this summer , Vietnamese Americans were the only enclave to express more support for Trump ( 46 percent ) than Biden ( 36 percent ) .
They were also more likely to vote Republican for House and Senate candidates , while overall support among Asian Americans trends more Democratic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” is itself a vague descriptor ; it cobbles together a wide variety of ethnic groups who happen to hail from the same region but hold varying economic and political histories . )
But many first-generation Vietnamese were already conservative to begin with .
Having left behind a communist-led country , they may be averse to liberal politics , deeply religious , and invested in the idea of the American dream .
Guided by a tide of Vietnamese- and English-language misinformation , however , these radical right-wing views are now quietly held by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ left to younger , more progressive family members to challenge and dismantle .
In 2016 , Trump won 32 percent of the Vietnamese American vote , according to exit polling by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund .
This was a sharp drop , compared to support for Romney ( 54 percent ) and McCain ( 67 percent ) in years past , but even in 2016 , more Vietnamese American voters favored Trump than any other Asian ethnic group — and it has only risen since .
Vietnamese support for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ taken on a zealous , nearly fanatical edge in the lead-up to the 2020 election .
Vietnamese Americans have staged events in states like Virginia , Texas , California , and Florida , where there are already established cultural hubs .
For example , a Houston-based choir published a YouTube video dedicating a song for Trump ’ s reelection , featuring middle-aged Vietnamese singers dressed in MAGA gear .
During Amy Coney Barrett ’ s confirmation hearings , “ Vietnamese for Trump ” organizers from different cities came together for a rally outside @ @ @ @ @ @ @ áo dài ( traditional Vietnamese garb ) with sewed-on patterns of the American and South Vietnamese flags .
In early October , hundreds of Vietnamese Republicans in Orange County — some wearing South Vietnamese military outfits — participated in a drive-by demonstration , flying Trump 2020 flags .
This Trump mania is certainly not reflective of every Vietnamese voter .
Some longtime Republicans who dislike Trump are siding with Biden for the election , and young liberals are ramping up Democratic efforts through the Vietnamese Americans for Biden campaign .
But the jump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ For Democrats perplexed by Vietnamese loyalty to the GOP , it ’ s easy to infantilize them or to think they ’ ve been led astray solely by online misinformation .
One could even consider Vietnamese Americans as simply a political aberration from other Asian American voters and discount them entirely from national electoral politics since they only number about 2 million .
But while the Vietnamese diaspora ’ s working-class , immigrant background might seem on paper to be at odds with Trump ’ s nationalist messaging , to anyone familiar with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rooted in the refugee Vietnamese identity , it makes sense .
Some Vietnamese Americans don ’ t align themselves entirely with other immigrants .
Many are wartime refugees who fought against the communist North Vietnamese army alongside American soldiers , my mom explained .
They had no choice but to leave their home country .
The way she sees it , Vietnamese people deserve to be here , but America shouldn ’ t just accept anyone .
“ A country is like a home , ” she told me in Vietnamese .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ inside your home.
” But this line of thinking — that they are “ good ” or “ special ” immigrants — fails to recognize how Trump ’ s immigration policy actually hurts some Vietnamese families , especially newer arrivals who are navigating the green card process .
Those who fled Vietnam after the Fall of Saigon tend to remain strongly opposed to big government policies , are suspicious of any socialist-sympathizing politicians , and are blatantly anti-China , haunted by China ’ s imperialist agenda in Vietnam and the South China Sea @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from patriarchal households where the male breadwinner makes all the important family decisions .
“ The issue of anti-communism or anti-China weighs heavily on the minds of the first generation , ” said Linda Vo , a professor of Asian American studies at UC Irvine .
“ Many became politically engaged when there were Republican presidents , which is what interested them in politics .
They see the GOP as socially conservative and anti-communist , which aligns more with their values .
But still , for a lot of foreign-born Vietnamese , it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ become engaged in the political process.
” “ The issue of anti-communism or anti-China weighs heavily on the minds of the first generation ” Long before I became politically conscious , I was aware that political beliefs were central to the Vietnamese community I grew up in .
I was raised by staunchly Republican Catholic parents close to the heart of Orange County ’ s Little Saigon , a California suburb where the first members of the Viet diaspora settled in the 1970s .
At the dinner table , my father spoke admirably @ @ @ @ @ @ @ policies , and his militaristic stance against China when it came to Taiwan .
Many men like my father — some of whom are former South Vietnamese veterans — supported these hawkish policies against China .
And no one talks as tough on China as Trump ( without delivering results ) .
My uncle , who I call Bác Huy , believes that Trump will stand toe-to-toe with China .
“ I would say over 50 percent of my decision to vote for him is related to China , ” he said over @ @ @ @ @ @ @ We like Trump because he connects with us over the issue of China.
” While most American-born Asians have been horrified by Trump ’ s racist coronavirus rhetoric , some older Vietnamese Americans are enthused by it .
Online , they parrot the phrase “ Chinese virus ” or “ kung flu ” uncritically , despite how Trump ’ s attitude seemingly foments anti-Asian sentiments .
Many view the president as their only hope against China ’ s territorial encroachment toward Vietnam , in light of China ’ s crackdown in Hong Kong @ @ @ @ @ @ @ both Trump and Biden are similarly vulnerable when it comes to negotiating with China ; Vietnamese supporters point to Trump ’ s tough talk and business acumen as evidence that he ’ s fit for the job .
“ There is a big myth that Trump is very anti-China and that he ’ s the only hope for Vietnam to have protection from China territorially , ” said Anh Thu Bui , a member of the Progressive Vietnamese American Organization ( PIVOT ) .
“ There ’ s a belief that Biden is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the Democratic Party is susceptible to communist ideas because of certain stances on socialized medicine.
” It ’ s challenging to explain Vietnam ’ s geopolitical complexities , Bui added , even to second- and third-generation Vietnamese Americans .
It ’ s a unique sort of identity politics , since “ part of the Vietnamese identity is to be anti-China , ” she told me .
“ China is an existential threat to the Vietnamese .
It ’ s historical and woven into our culture after 1,000 years of Chinese domination .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ so long ago , when China tried to invade Vietnam.
” The language barrier has made immigrants especially susceptible to misinformation or news that feeds into their confirmation bias .
Meanwhile , the concept of news literacy is only vaguely understood .
“ Many heritage speakers get their news through radio , TV , or social media , ” Vo , the UC Irvine professor , told me .
“ There ’ s a lot of potential for misinformation to occur in these ethnic enclaves , just like how it affects regular Americans.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ common for some Vietnamese users to echo talking points from Fox and Breitbart News : that the mainstream media perpetuates “ fake news , ” that the Democrats are weak or in cahoots with China , that American universities ( with money from China ) are brainwashing their children .
In progressive online forums , young Vietnamese Americans have commiserated over their parents ’ viewership of Fox News , conservative Vietnamese YouTube personalities , and biased Vietnamese-language news programs .
While PIVOT and the news aggregator site the Interpreter ( where I volunteer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ provide factual and accurate information , it ’ s uncertain whether that can radically alter the community ’ s perception of Trump — or if they ’ re even capable of comprehending criticisms of the president .
My uncle is a consistent listener of Rush Limbaugh and conservative AM talk radio , while my mother relies on Facebook and Vietnamese-language sites , like BBC Vietnam and Voice of America Tiếng Việt , to get her news .
My mother believes that Trump is a patriot .
She used the phrase “ yêu nước @ @ @ @ @ @ @ translates to “ love for country , ” and said she worried over the Biden family ’ s business ties in China .
( Biden has not earned any income from his son ’ s business ventures , which are not illegal , and Trump also has pursued business deals with China . )
But when I asked my mom if she could tell me what Trump and the Republican Party stood for , she briefly hesitated , uncertain whether she and my father were registered Republicans or Democrats .
Exasperated , I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Republican .
This scenario , Bui told me , is familiar among Vietnamese immigrants who struggle to grasp how politics is different in the US than it is back home .
“ I ’ ve heard stories from community organizers who help people register , who say they don ’ t know who the Republicans or Democrats are , ” she said .
“ They ’ ve only heard of Trump and since they recognize his name , they want to sign up for his party .
There aren ’ t any linguistic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” There also might be some linguistic similarities between the Republic of Vietnam ( Việt Nam Cộng Hòa , or South Vietnam ) and the Republican Party , which translates to Đảng Cộng Hòa , Bui theorized .
“ They ’ ve only heard of Trump and since they recognize his name , they want to sign up for his party ” I ’ ve always known that my parents were moderate conservatives who appear publicly apolitical to avoid conflict or , in their words , hard conversations .
Many children , though @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over the stakes of the 2020 election ; some have tried to sway their parents toward the Democratic Party by delving into the platform , explaining how it benefits working-class voters .
For others , it ’ s a breaking point in family relations , in light of the nationwide protests against racism and police brutality .
I ’ ve heard anecdotally , online , and from my own family members that they are worried about “ anarchy ” and wish for “ law and order ” to be restored .
Misinformation on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ playing into anti-Black tropes .
Some children have moved out or stopped talking to their parents entirely .
“ My frustration toward the older generation of Vietnamese Americans being entitled , hypocritical , racist , homophobic , transphobic , misogynistic , and every other kind of bigotry under the sun , has more or less boiled over into nothing short of pure disdain , ” one user wrote in the Facebook group Asian Americans with Republican Parents Support Group .
“ It ’ s gotten to the point where I flat out don @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of me or say to me.
” Comments responding to the post agreed , with another user writing , “ I ’ ve given up trying to educate them on the matters .
… They ’ re so far up Trump ’ s ass , it feels impossible to take them out.
” A common joke among young Viet progressives is that you ’ re bound to be called a communist , or cộng sản , once you openly express any left-leaning political views .
And yet , I find that there is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ among a war-torn generation and their children , that beyond the language and cultural barriers that already alienate older Vietnamese Americans , there is now a stark political wedge rooted in hate , misunderstanding , and trauma .
During a recent phone call , my mom said , unprompted , that people have the freedom to vote for whoever they want in America .
I told her I agreed , and that I hoped whoever she supports preserves rather than encroaches upon our freedom .
Perhaps that ’ s all we can do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hope it doesn ’ t tear us apart .
Will you help keep Vox free for all ?
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When Tram Nguyen, a Democratic state representative from Massachusetts, posted a Facebook video declaring support for the Black Lives Matter movement, she thought the message to her constituents was relatively uncontroversial. Millions of Americans were taking to the streets to protest police brutality. And as an elected official, she had to take a stand against systemic racism and express her commitment to “fight for equality for all.”
The video, however, enraged a vocal group of conservative Vietnamese Americans outside her district who flocked to Nguyen’s page, accusing her of having communist sympathies and aligning with “domestic terrorists.” The comments on her video branded her as a traitor, a dishonor to her family.
“I respect the right for people to disagree with me,” she told me in July in an interview for the Interpreter, a volunteer-run site that translates English-language news into Vietnamese. “I represent a purple district … but I’ve never had this sort of attack thrown against me before.”
Nguyen was not the only victim of an online Vietnamese American mob this summer. Lê Hoàng Nguyên, an insurance agent in Houston, used his savings to fund a “Black Lives Matter” billboard with the phrase “Stop Racism” in Vietnamese and English. He intended for it to be a statement of solidarity, but ended up receiving messages that called for his lynching and boycotts of his business from the pro-Trump Vietnamese community in Houston.
In the months after my conversation with Nguyen (no relation), I began lurking around the online spaces that directed personal attacks against her, scouring Vietnamese-language local Facebook groups, political news pages, and YouTube channels. I kept coming across a disturbing trend: Many Vietnamese Americans — particularly first-generation, older immigrants with low English proficiency — had become more radically conservative, or were exposed to and sympathetic with these pro-Trump views.
From my reporting on immigrant Asian communities, I found that some Vietnamese immigrants who might not understand the nuances of racism in America felt threatened by the social unrest and looting in cities. A few even became counterprotesters at local Black Lives Matter rallies. This occurred in tandem with the rise of anti-Asian hate crimes spurred on by Covid-19, which was branded as the “China virus” by President Trump.
All of this might feel counterintuitive for a minority group. But out of the six ethnic groups in the 2020 Asian American Voter Survey conducted this summer, Vietnamese Americans were the only enclave to express more support for Trump (48 percent) than Biden (36 percent). They were also more likely to vote Republican for House and Senate candidates, while overall support among Asian Americans trends more Democratic. (The phrase “Asian American” is itself a vague descriptor; it cobbles together a wide variety of ethnic groups who happen to hail from the same region but hold varying economic and political histories.)
But many first-generation Vietnamese were already conservative to begin with. Having left behind a communist-led country, they may be averse to liberal politics, deeply religious, and invested in the idea of the American dream. Guided by a tide of Vietnamese- and English-language misinformation, however, these radical right-wing views are now quietly held by a not-so-insignificant minority — and are often left to younger, more progressive family members to challenge and dismantle.
In 2016, Trump won 32 percent of the Vietnamese American vote, according to exit polling by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund. This was a sharp drop, compared to support for Romney (54 percent) and McCain (67 percent) in years past, but even in 2016, more Vietnamese American voters favored Trump than any other Asian ethnic group — and it has only risen since.
Vietnamese support for Donald Trump and the Republican Party has taken on a zealous, nearly fanatical edge in the lead-up to the 2020 election. Vietnamese Americans have staged events in states like Virginia, Texas, California, and Florida, where there are already established cultural hubs.
For example, a Houston-based choir published a YouTube video dedicating a song for Trump’s reelection, featuring middle-aged Vietnamese singers dressed in MAGA gear. During Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearings, “Vietnamese for Trump” organizers from different cities came together for a rally outside the Supreme Court, where attendees donned áo dài (traditional Vietnamese garb) with sewed-on patterns of the American and South Vietnamese flags. In early October, hundreds of Vietnamese Republicans in Orange County — some wearing South Vietnamese military outfits — participated in a drive-by demonstration, flying Trump 2020 flags.
This Trump mania is certainly not reflective of every Vietnamese voter. Some longtime Republicans who dislike Trump are siding with Biden for the election, and young liberals are ramping up Democratic efforts through the Vietnamese Americans for Biden campaign. But the jump in support from 2016 is notable.
For Democrats perplexed by Vietnamese loyalty to the GOP, it’s easy to infantilize them or to think they’ve been led astray solely by online misinformation. One could even consider Vietnamese Americans as simply a political aberration from other Asian American voters and discount them entirely from national electoral politics since they only number about 2 million.
But while the Vietnamese diaspora’s working-class, immigrant background might seem on paper to be at odds with Trump’s nationalist messaging, to anyone familiar with the strain of cultural and historical conservatism rooted in the refugee Vietnamese identity, it makes sense.
Some Vietnamese Americans don’t align themselves entirely with other immigrants. Many are wartime refugees who fought against the communist North Vietnamese army alongside American soldiers, my mom explained. They had no choice but to leave their home country.
The way she sees it, Vietnamese people deserve to be here, but America shouldn’t just accept anyone. “A country is like a home,” she told me in Vietnamese. “You can’t just let anyone inside your home.”
But this line of thinking — that they are “good” or “special” immigrants — fails to recognize how Trump’s immigration policy actually hurts some Vietnamese families, especially newer arrivals who are navigating the green card process.
Those who fled Vietnam after the Fall of Saigon tend to remain strongly opposed to big government policies, are suspicious of any socialist-sympathizing politicians, and are blatantly anti-China, haunted by China’s imperialist agenda in Vietnam and the South China Sea. Many are religious, and hail from patriarchal households where the male breadwinner makes all the important family decisions.
“The issue of anti-communism or anti-China weighs heavily on the minds of the first generation,” said Linda Vo, a professor of Asian American studies at UC Irvine. “Many became politically engaged when there were Republican presidents, which is what interested them in politics. They see the GOP as socially conservative and anti-communist, which aligns more with their values. But still, for a lot of foreign-born Vietnamese, it’s taken time for them to become engaged in the political process.”
“The issue of anti-communism or anti-China weighs heavily on the minds of the first generation”
Long before I became politically conscious, I was aware that political beliefs were central to the Vietnamese community I grew up in. I was raised by staunchly Republican Catholic parents close to the heart of Orange County’s Little Saigon, a California suburb where the first members of the Viet diaspora settled in the 1970s. At the dinner table, my father spoke admirably of George W. Bush, his post-9/11 policies, and his militaristic stance against China when it came to Taiwan.
Many men like my father — some of whom are former South Vietnamese veterans — supported these hawkish policies against China. And no one talks as tough on China as Trump (without delivering results). My uncle, who I call Bác Huy, believes that Trump will stand toe-to-toe with China.
“I would say over 50 percent of my decision to vote for him is related to China,” he said over a phone call last week. “We like Trump because he connects with us over the issue of China.”
While most American-born Asians have been horrified by Trump’s racist coronavirus rhetoric, some older Vietnamese Americans are enthused by it. Online, they parrot the phrase “Chinese virus” or “kung flu” uncritically, despite how Trump’s attitude seemingly foments anti-Asian sentiments. Many view the president as their only hope against China’s territorial encroachment toward Vietnam, in light of China’s crackdown in Hong Kong. It doesn’t matter that both Trump and Biden are similarly vulnerable when it comes to negotiating with China; Vietnamese supporters point to Trump’s tough talk and business acumen as evidence that he’s fit for the job.
“There is a big myth that Trump is very anti-China and that he’s the only hope for Vietnam to have protection from China territorially,” said Anh Thu Bui, a member of the Progressive Vietnamese American Organization (PIVOT). “There’s a belief that Biden is soft on China by comparison, and that the Democratic Party is susceptible to communist ideas because of certain stances on socialized medicine.”
It’s challenging to explain Vietnam’s geopolitical complexities, Bui added, even to second- and third-generation Vietnamese Americans. It’s a unique sort of identity politics, since “part of the Vietnamese identity is to be anti-China,” she told me. “China is an existential threat to the Vietnamese. It’s historical and woven into our culture after 1,000 years of Chinese domination. And the 1979 border conflict was not so long ago, when China tried to invade Vietnam.”
The language barrier has made immigrants especially susceptible to misinformation or news that feeds into their confirmation bias. Meanwhile, the concept of news literacy is only vaguely understood. “Many heritage speakers get their news through radio, TV, or social media,” Vo, the UC Irvine professor, told me. “There’s a lot of potential for misinformation to occur in these ethnic enclaves, just like how it affects regular Americans.”
On Facebook, it was surprisingly common for some Vietnamese users to echo talking points from Fox and Breitbart News: that the mainstream media perpetuates “fake news,” that the Democrats are weak or in cahoots with China, that American universities (with money from China) are brainwashing their children.
In progressive online forums, young Vietnamese Americans have commiserated over their parents’ viewership of Fox News, conservative Vietnamese YouTube personalities, and biased Vietnamese-language news programs. While PIVOT and the news aggregator site the Interpreter (where I volunteer as a translator) have sought to provide factual and accurate information, it’s uncertain whether that can radically alter the community’s perception of Trump — or if they’re even capable of comprehending criticisms of the president.
My uncle is a consistent listener of Rush Limbaugh and conservative AM talk radio, while my mother relies on Facebook and Vietnamese-language sites, like BBC Vietnam and Voice of America Tiếng Việt, to get her news.
My mother believes that Trump is a patriot. She used the phrase “yêu nước” to describe the president, which translates to “love for country,” and said she worried over the Biden family’s business ties in China. (Biden has not earned any income from his son’s business ventures, which are not illegal, and Trump also has pursued business deals with China.)
But when I asked my mom if she could tell me what Trump and the Republican Party stood for, she briefly hesitated, uncertain whether she and my father were registered Republicans or Democrats. Exasperated, I clarified for her that they always vote Republican.
This scenario, Bui told me, is familiar among Vietnamese immigrants who struggle to grasp how politics is different in the US than it is back home. “I’ve heard stories from community organizers who help people register, who say they don’t know who the Republicans or Democrats are,” she said. “They’ve only heard of Trump and since they recognize his name, they want to sign up for his party. There aren’t any linguistic or cultural explanations for the two-party system.”
There also might be some linguistic similarities between the Republic of Vietnam (Việt Nam Cộng Hòa, or South Vietnam) and the Republican Party, which translates to Đảng Cộng Hòa, Bui theorized.
“They’ve only heard of Trump and since they recognize his name, they want to sign up for his party”
I’ve always known that my parents were moderate conservatives who appear publicly apolitical to avoid conflict or, in their words, hard conversations. Many children, though, are actively feuding with their parents over the stakes of the 2020 election; some have tried to sway their parents toward the Democratic Party by delving into the platform, explaining how it benefits working-class voters.
For others, it’s a breaking point in family relations, in light of the nationwide protests against racism and police brutality. I’ve heard anecdotally, online, and from my own family members that they are worried about “anarchy” and wish for “law and order” to be restored. Misinformation on social media fuels these fears, often playing into anti-Black tropes. Some children have moved out or stopped talking to their parents entirely.
“My frustration toward the older generation of Vietnamese Americans being entitled, hypocritical, racist, homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic, and every other kind of bigotry under the sun, has more or less boiled over into nothing short of pure disdain,” one user wrote in the Facebook group Asian Americans with Republican Parents Support Group. “It’s gotten to the point where I flat out don’t care about what they think of me or say to me.”
Comments responding to the post agreed, with another user writing, “I’ve given up trying to educate them on the matters. … They’re so far up Trump’s ass, it feels impossible to take them out.”
A common joke among young Viet progressives is that you’re bound to be called a communist, or cộng sản, once you openly express any left-leaning political views. And yet, I find that there is something uniquely cruel about this political divide among a war-torn generation and their children, that beyond the language and cultural barriers that already alienate older Vietnamese Americans, there is now a stark political wedge rooted in hate, misunderstanding, and trauma.
During a recent phone call, my mom said, unprompted, that people have the freedom to vote for whoever they want in America. I told her I agreed, and that I hoped whoever she supports preserves rather than encroaches upon our freedom. Perhaps that’s all we can do now. Agree to disagree, and hope it doesn’t tear us apart.


vox--2020-10-30--Europe’s second wave of Covid-19 doesn’t excuse Trump’s failures

Europe suffered a big Covid-19 outbreak in the spring , then subsequently suppressed the virus while the United States continued to struggle .
But now cases in Europe are surging once again : France is bringing back a lockdown , the UK is escalating restrictions , and even Germany , widely seen as a coronavirus success story , is again imposing closures , trying to avoid the overwhelming wave of cases that its neighbors are now dealing with .
President Donald Trump has cited Europe ’ s spike to argue his administration ’ s handling of Covid-19 wasn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a worldwide pandemic , ” Trump said at the final presidential debate .
“ It ’ s all over the world .
You see the spikes in Europe and many other places right now.
” If Europe couldn ’ t contain it , the argument goes , then maybe everything that ’ s happened in the US isn ’ t so bad , or unique , after all .
The causes of the European spike are part of a familiar story , with experts blaming a mix of pandemic fatigue , complacency , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ended its lockdown , its capital , Prague , held a massive public dinner party to celebrate the supposed victory — but the celebration was premature , and the country now has among the highest rate of daily new coronavirus cases in the world .
But Europe ’ s failure , experts say , doesn ’ t let the US — or Trump — off the hook .
For one , the US ’ s coronavirus cases are now surging too , though not as much as in Europe .
America reported an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cases in one day this week .
Some states , like the Dakotas , have levels of Covid-19 cases that match those in the hardest-hit European countries , like Belgium and the Czech Republic .
The US ’ s most recent surge started later than Europe ’ s , but it ’ s well on its way up .
The US is also still faring worse than most of its developed peers .
It reports more daily new coronavirus cases per capita than the majority of developed countries .
Canada , after controlling @ @ @ @ @ @ @ daily new Covid-19 cases as the US , and both New Zealand and Australia report less than 1 percent of the cases as America .
The US also reports more deaths , after adjusting for population , than most of its developed peers ( although deaths tend to lag behind cases , so Europe ’ s death toll will likely get worse soon ) .
Trump “ is absolutely right this is a global pandemic , ” Ashish Jha , dean of the Brown University School of Public Health , told me .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ about is that somehow it ’ s uncontrollable .
The truth is there ’ s lots of countries that have controlled it.
” To that end , the US “ remains a singularly poor performer , ” even as some countries mismanage the virus and see surges , too .
Experts have put this largely on Trump .
The evidence supports several measures to combat the coronavirus : social distancing , aggressive testing and tracing , and widespread masking .
Trump has effectively rejected all of these over the past several months .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ open up quickly and early , fueling new and continuing Covid-19 outbreaks across the country .
Rather than having the federal government take charge on testing and tracing , he ’ s punted the issue down to the states and private sector — and even pushed his public health agencies to recommend less testing .
He ’ s mocked masks and questioned if they ’ re even effective , even as the evidence increasingly shows they are .
“ What this outbreak gives you is the same problem for every country around the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ global health policy expert at the London School of Economics and Political Science , told me .
“ So you can really see the impact of different policies that were launched.
” The US ’ s performance “ is a testament to failures of the Trump administration.
” A remaining contrast is how seriously Europe is taking its Covid-19 surge compared to the US .
Some European countries are bringing back lockdowns .
Others are enacting curfews , more targeted closures , and mask mandates .
European leaders have warned that they will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t stop rising .
Meanwhile , the US has continued to resist action even as the country sees a third surge of Covid-19 .
Most of the country has reopened , with risky spaces like bars and restaurants now regularly serving customers nationwide .
Seventeen states still don ’ t have mask mandates .
Suffering the worst outbreaks in the US today , North and South Dakota have rejected government mandates for social distancing or masking , and Wisconsin ’ s Republicans have hamstrung the Democratic governor from taking more aggressive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the current global surge could play out as a repeat of the first several months of the pandemic : The US and Europe both see new outbreaks , and Europe reacts with serious action while the US doesn ’ t .
The US ’ s failure on Covid-19 still looms large Regardless of what Europe is currently going through , it ’ s clear that the US has failed to contain the coronavirus .
The US is in the top four , out of the world ’ s 36 developed countries ( most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Covid-19 deaths per million people .
America has roughly six times the death rate as the median developed country .
If the US had the same Covid-19 death rate as Canada , nearly 140,000 more Americans would be alive today , out of more than 225,000 total deaths .
If it had the same death rate as Germany , more than 187,000 more Americans would be alive today .
If it was like Australia , almost 216,000 more Americans would be alive today .
The US faced unique challenges , given its large @ @ @ @ @ @ @ libertarian streak .
The public health system was already underfunded and underprepared for a major disease outbreak before Trump .
But similar problems also applied to other countries .
Australia , Canada , and Germany have federalist systems of government , individualistic societies , or both , and underfunded public health systems .
Yet they ’ ve all fared much better ( though cases are now rising rapidly in Germany ) .
Unlike these other countries , though , the US didn ’ t take stronger action early and sustain it .
America @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with states reopening far before they truly suppressed cases , unlike almost all other developed nations in the spring and summer .
It took months to really build up testing capacity — and based on positivity rates , it ’ s still far behind the likes of Australia .
It never developed a national contact tracing system , as South Korea did .
It never embraced universal masking , as Japan did .
The clearest evidence was America ’ s large wave of Covid-19 cases in the summer — a surge that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ including Europe as a whole , avoided .
Unlike much of Europe , the US has never actually suppressed its Covid-19 cases down to zero or more manageable levels — to the point that some experts question if the US is truly seeing a “ third wave ” right now or if the country is still seeing a continuation of its first wave .
Europe , by contrast , is generally understood to be in the middle of a “ second wave.
” Without that summer surge , the US could be much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ US began April at around the middle of the pack among developed countries for confirmed Covid-19 deaths .
But the country steadily climbed up the ranks through the rest of spring and then the summer .
“ We never really got it under control , ” Jha said .
“ We never brought case numbers down the way most of the Europeans did — partly because we didn ’ t shut down hard enough , and we didn ’ t stay shut down long enough.
” There ’ s no reason it should @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the coronavirus pandemic , a 2019 ranking of countries ’ disease outbreak preparedness from the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and Nuclear Threat Initiative had the US at the top of the list .
Although the report warned that “ no country is fully prepared for epidemics or pandemics , ” it at the very least suggested that the US should have done better than most other countries .
And America very clearly hasn ’ t .
Again , the failures largely lie with Trump .
Even as coronavirus cases have surged @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to downplay Covid-19 — telling journalist Bob Woodward , “ I wanted to always play it down.
” The goal for Trump is to perpetuate a false sense of normalcy that he believes could help him win reelection .
He ’ s continued that even after he got sick himself with Covid-19 — tweeting as he got out of the hospital , “ Don ’ t be afraid of Covid .
Don ’ t let it dominate your life.
” By never taking the coronavirus seriously , though , Trump has ensured that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dominated and will continue to dominate American life until a vaccine is developed and widely distributed .
Much of Europe made the same mistake as the US Just as some states in the US are doing better , some countries in Europe are too .
Germany , for example , has fared better than much of the continent , although it recently brought back some “ lockdown lite ” restrictions as coronavirus cases increased .
Still , it ’ s true that Europe is suffering a massive surge of Covid-19 now .
Experts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ continent is repeating many of the same mistakes the US made over the past several months .
The constant lesson of Covid-19 outbreaks in the US — whether New York , Florida , or the Dakotas — is that not taking aggressive action quickly enough and sustaining it will leave a place very vulnerable to the coronavirus .
Once that happens , cases can very quickly grow , forcing drastic measures over weeks or months to bring things down .
The virus has proven , across different states from the spring to now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
One lesson is that “ lockdowns do not eradicate the disease , ” Kalipso Chalkidou , director of global health policy at the Center for Global Development , told me .
They slow it down — which still saves lives — but suppressing cases with a lockdown doesn ’ t mean a country is cured , the virus is gone forever , and everything can return to normal with no precautions .
Over time , however , countries around the globe have eased up , opening themselves to an outbreak .
Experts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as people get tired of dealing with the virus , as well as complacency and denial , as people grow accustomed to the virus or believe that they ’ ve managed to completely suppress it .
That leads to places opening back up , the public going out more , and then outbreaks .
Europe is no different in this regard .
After the continent as a whole truly suppressed the virus over the spring and summer , places started to loosen their restrictions .
They ended mask mandates .
They allowed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ eased up on testing and tracing .
The public started to get comfortable , assuming that the virus was gone and things could get back to normal .
“ The numbers [ in Europe ] got low — much lower than the US , ” Wenham said .
“ So people did become more confident.
” The story of Prague , in the Czech Republic , provides an extreme example .
When the country ended its lockdown after crushing its Covid-19 curve , the city built a 1,600-foot table for a public dinner @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as a celebration of “ the end of the coronavirus crisis.
” Now , the Czech Republic leads all but one other nation , Andorra , in coronavirus cases per capita .
The country this month entered a second lockdown — a move that Czech leaders previously claimed wouldn ’ t be necessary — to avoid overwhelming its health care system .
“ I apologize even for the fact that I ruled out this option in the past because I was not able to imagine it might happen , ” Czech Prime Minister @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it has happened and now , above all , we have to protect the lives of our citizens.
” In that sense , one of the US ’ s biggest mistakes isn ’ t completely unique : Other countries have also at times developed a false sense of normalcy around Covid-19 .
What makes the US different is how often it has repeated this mistake in the face of outbreak after outbreak .
As Jha has told me , “ I , at this point , feel like I clearly no longer understand @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its lessons and why we keep repeating the same mistakes.
” With winter coming , Europe is reacting , but America isn ’ t Another difference may be emerging between Europe and the US : While European countries are now taking big steps to contain their new Covid-19 surge — including lockdowns — the US appears content with not really doing more than it ’ s been doing .
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows acknowledged as much .
In an appearance on CNN , Meadows said , “ We are not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are going to control the fact that we get vaccines , therapeutics , and other mitigation areas.
” Asked why it won ’ t be contained , Meadows responded , “ Because it is a contagious virus , just like the flu.
” ( The coronavirus is much worse than the flu . )
In the absence of federal leadership , the policy response has been largely left to the states .
That ’ s led to disparities : While some states have mask mandates and restrictions on indoor dining and large gatherings @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all .
North and South Dakota , for example , don ’ t have mask mandates or any restrictions for businesses , at best providing recommendations that the public and businesses don ’ t have to follow .
That ’ s continued as the Dakotas have dealt with the two worst ongoing outbreaks in the US .
Elsewhere , the vast majority of states have reopened , with at best limits on capacity in businesses and the size of gatherings , along with weakly enforced guidelines for social distancing .
That ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as Covid-19 cases have surged .
Most states have mask mandates , but they ’ re enforced to varying degrees .
Contact tracing doesn ’ t exist at any effective level in all but a few states .
Europe , in comparison , is taking much stronger actions , including lockdowns , curfews , limits on how large gatherings can be , and restrictions on different households interacting with each other .
Mask mandates are also widespread .
Several countries are trying to scale up contact tracing .
Some European countries have tried @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wenham said , “ no one wants to go into a full lockdown again.
” It remains to be seen , given the scale of some of the continent ’ s outbreaks , if these milder measures will work .
Some experts say many places are past the point where weaker actions are enough , so more lockdowns are likely in the future .
Still , at least European countries are collectively trying something .
That can ’ t be said for the US as a whole .
Time may be running out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ several factors will likely hasten the coronavirus ’ s spread : Schools will continue to reopen ; the cold will push people into indoor spaces in which ventilation is worse and the virus spreads more easily ; the holidays will bring friends and family together in potentially large gatherings ; and another flu season could strain health care systems .
If a place is suffering a high baseline of coronavirus cases as all of that happens , outbreaks could spin further out of control .
With the clock ticking on those issues , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ much more action , the country may once again splinter from Europe and produce yet another unique failure in its response to the coronavirus .
“ The countries that remain vigilant and focused have performed the best , ” Jeremy Konyndyk , a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development , told me .
“ These surges in cases are not inevitable — they result from the choices we make.
” Help keep Vox free for all Millions turn to Vox each month to understand what ’ s happening in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a racial reckoning to what is , quite possibly , the most consequential presidential election of our lifetimes .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
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Europe suffered a big Covid-19 outbreak in the spring, then subsequently suppressed the virus while the United States continued to struggle. But now cases in Europe are surging once again: France is bringing back a lockdown, the UK is escalating restrictions, and even Germany, widely seen as a coronavirus success story, is again imposing closures, trying to avoid the overwhelming wave of cases that its neighbors are now dealing with.
President Donald Trump has cited Europe’s spike to argue his administration’s handling of Covid-19 wasn’t so bad. “It’s a worldwide pandemic,” Trump said at the final presidential debate. “It’s all over the world. You see the spikes in Europe and many other places right now.”
If Europe couldn’t contain it, the argument goes, then maybe everything that’s happened in the US isn’t so bad, or unique, after all.
The causes of the European spike are part of a familiar story, with experts blaming a mix of pandemic fatigue, complacency, and denial. When the Czech Republic ended its lockdown, its capital, Prague, held a massive public dinner party to celebrate the supposed victory — but the celebration was premature, and the country now has among the highest rate of daily new coronavirus cases in the world.
But Europe’s failure, experts say, doesn’t let the US — or Trump — off the hook.
For one, the US’s coronavirus cases are now surging too, though not as much as in Europe. America reported an all-time record of more than 90,000 coronavirus cases in one day this week (partly but not entirely due to more testing). Some states, like the Dakotas, have levels of Covid-19 cases that match those in the hardest-hit European countries, like Belgium and the Czech Republic. The US’s most recent surge started later than Europe’s, but it’s well on its way up.
The US is also still faring worse than most of its developed peers. It reports more daily new coronavirus cases per capita than the majority of developed countries. Canada, after controlling for population, reports a third of daily new Covid-19 cases as the US, and both New Zealand and Australia report less than 1 percent of the cases as America. The US also reports more deaths, after adjusting for population, than most of its developed peers (although deaths tend to lag behind cases, so Europe’s death toll will likely get worse soon).
Trump “is absolutely right this is a global pandemic,” Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, told me. “What he’s not right about is that somehow it’s uncontrollable. The truth is there’s lots of countries that have controlled it.” To that end, the US “remains a singularly poor performer,” even as some countries mismanage the virus and see surges, too.
Experts have put this largely on Trump. The evidence supports several measures to combat the coronavirus: social distancing, aggressive testing and tracing, and widespread masking.
Trump has effectively rejected all of these over the past several months. He’s pushed for states to open up quickly and early, fueling new and continuing Covid-19 outbreaks across the country. Rather than having the federal government take charge on testing and tracing, he’s punted the issue down to the states and private sector — and even pushed his public health agencies to recommend less testing. He’s mocked masks and questioned if they’re even effective, even as the evidence increasingly shows they are.
“What this outbreak gives you is the same problem for every country around the world,” Clare Wenham, a global health policy expert at the London School of Economics and Political Science, told me. “So you can really see the impact of different policies that were launched.” The US’s performance “is a testament to failures of the Trump administration.”
A remaining contrast is how seriously Europe is taking its Covid-19 surge compared to the US. Some European countries are bringing back lockdowns. Others are enacting curfews, more targeted closures, and mask mandates. European leaders have warned that they will take even more aggressive actions if cases don’t stop rising.
Meanwhile, the US has continued to resist action even as the country sees a third surge of Covid-19. Most of the country has reopened, with risky spaces like bars and restaurants now regularly serving customers nationwide. Seventeen states still don’t have mask mandates. Suffering the worst outbreaks in the US today, North and South Dakota have rejected government mandates for social distancing or masking, and Wisconsin’s Republicans have hamstrung the Democratic governor from taking more aggressive actions to slow the virus.
So the current global surge could play out as a repeat of the first several months of the pandemic: The US and Europe both see new outbreaks, and Europe reacts with serious action while the US doesn’t.
The US’s failure on Covid-19 still looms large
Regardless of what Europe is currently going through, it’s clear that the US has failed to contain the coronavirus.
The US is in the top four, out of the world’s 36 developed countries (most of which are European), for Covid-19 deaths per million people. America has roughly six times the death rate as the median developed country.
If the US had the same Covid-19 death rate as Canada, nearly 140,000 more Americans would be alive today, out of more than 225,000 total deaths. If it had the same death rate as Germany, more than 187,000 more Americans would be alive today. If it was like Australia, almost 216,000 more Americans would be alive today.
The US faced unique challenges, given its large size, fragmented federalist system, and libertarian streak. The public health system was already underfunded and underprepared for a major disease outbreak before Trump.
But similar problems also applied to other countries. Australia, Canada, and Germany have federalist systems of government, individualistic societies, or both, and underfunded public health systems. Yet they’ve all fared much better (though cases are now rising rapidly in Germany).
Unlike these other countries, though, the US didn’t take stronger action early and sustain it. America never took social distancing very seriously, with states reopening far before they truly suppressed cases, unlike almost all other developed nations in the spring and summer. It took months to really build up testing capacity — and based on positivity rates, it’s still far behind the likes of Australia. It never developed a national contact tracing system, as South Korea did. It never embraced universal masking, as Japan did.
The clearest evidence was America’s large wave of Covid-19 cases in the summer — a surge that the vast majority of other developed countries, including Europe as a whole, avoided. Unlike much of Europe, the US has never actually suppressed its Covid-19 cases down to zero or more manageable levels — to the point that some experts question if the US is truly seeing a “third wave” right now or if the country is still seeing a continuation of its first wave. Europe, by contrast, is generally understood to be in the middle of a “second wave.”
Without that summer surge, the US could be much closer to its European peers. The US began April at around the middle of the pack among developed countries for confirmed Covid-19 deaths. But the country steadily climbed up the ranks through the rest of spring and then the summer.
“We never really got it under control,” Jha said. “We never brought case numbers down the way most of the Europeans did — partly because we didn’t shut down hard enough, and we didn’t stay shut down long enough.”
There’s no reason it should have played out this way. Before the coronavirus pandemic, a 2019 ranking of countries’ disease outbreak preparedness from the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and Nuclear Threat Initiative had the US at the top of the list. Although the report warned that “no country is fully prepared for epidemics or pandemics,” it at the very least suggested that the US should have done better than most other countries. And America very clearly hasn’t.
Again, the failures largely lie with Trump. Even as coronavirus cases have surged again and again, Trump has continued to downplay Covid-19 — telling journalist Bob Woodward, “I wanted to always play it down.” The goal for Trump is to perpetuate a false sense of normalcy that he believes could help him win reelection. He’s continued that even after he got sick himself with Covid-19 — tweeting as he got out of the hospital, “Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life.”
By never taking the coronavirus seriously, though, Trump has ensured that a massive, ongoing Covid-19 epidemic has dominated and will continue to dominate American life until a vaccine is developed and widely distributed.
Much of Europe made the same mistake as the US
Just as some states in the US are doing better, some countries in Europe are too. Germany, for example, has fared better than much of the continent, although it recently brought back some “lockdown lite” restrictions as coronavirus cases increased.
Still, it’s true that Europe is suffering a massive surge of Covid-19 now. Experts say that’s largely because the continent is repeating many of the same mistakes the US made over the past several months.
The constant lesson of Covid-19 outbreaks in the US — whether New York, Florida, or the Dakotas — is that not taking aggressive action quickly enough and sustaining it will leave a place very vulnerable to the coronavirus. Once that happens, cases can very quickly grow, forcing drastic measures over weeks or months to bring things down. The virus has proven, across different states from the spring to now, that it will pierce these vulnerabilities.
One lesson is that “lockdowns do not eradicate the disease,” Kalipso Chalkidou, director of global health policy at the Center for Global Development, told me. They slow it down — which still saves lives — but suppressing cases with a lockdown doesn’t mean a country is cured, the virus is gone forever, and everything can return to normal with no precautions.
Over time, however, countries around the globe have eased up, opening themselves to an outbreak. Experts pin this on a mix of fatigue, as people get tired of dealing with the virus, as well as complacency and denial, as people grow accustomed to the virus or believe that they’ve managed to completely suppress it. That leads to places opening back up, the public going out more, and then outbreaks.
Europe is no different in this regard. After the continent as a whole truly suppressed the virus over the spring and summer, places started to loosen their restrictions. They ended mask mandates. They allowed bars and indoor dining again. They eased up on testing and tracing. The public started to get comfortable, assuming that the virus was gone and things could get back to normal.
“The numbers [in Europe] got low — much lower than the US,” Wenham said. “So people did become more confident.”
The story of Prague, in the Czech Republic, provides an extreme example. When the country ended its lockdown after crushing its Covid-19 curve, the city built a 1,600-foot table for a public dinner party, which organizers described to reporters as a celebration of “the end of the coronavirus crisis.”
Now, the Czech Republic leads all but one other nation, Andorra, in coronavirus cases per capita. The country this month entered a second lockdown — a move that Czech leaders previously claimed wouldn’t be necessary — to avoid overwhelming its health care system.
“I apologize even for the fact that I ruled out this option in the past because I was not able to imagine it might happen,” Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said. “Unfortunately, it has happened and now, above all, we have to protect the lives of our citizens.”
In that sense, one of the US’s biggest mistakes isn’t completely unique: Other countries have also at times developed a false sense of normalcy around Covid-19.
What makes the US different is how often it has repeated this mistake in the face of outbreak after outbreak. As Jha has told me, “I, at this point, feel like I clearly no longer understand why our country can’t learn its lessons and why we keep repeating the same mistakes.”
With winter coming, Europe is reacting, but America isn’t
Another difference may be emerging between Europe and the US: While European countries are now taking big steps to contain their new Covid-19 surge — including lockdowns — the US appears content with not really doing more than it’s been doing.
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows acknowledged as much. In an appearance on CNN, Meadows said, “We are not going to control the pandemic. We are going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics, and other mitigation areas.” Asked why it won’t be contained, Meadows responded, “Because it is a contagious virus, just like the flu.” (The coronavirus is much worse than the flu.)
In the absence of federal leadership, the policy response has been largely left to the states. That’s led to disparities: While some states have mask mandates and restrictions on indoor dining and large gatherings, others have no statewide rules at all.
North and South Dakota, for example, don’t have mask mandates or any restrictions for businesses, at best providing recommendations that the public and businesses don’t have to follow. That’s continued as the Dakotas have dealt with the two worst ongoing outbreaks in the US.
Elsewhere, the vast majority of states have reopened, with at best limits on capacity in businesses and the size of gatherings, along with weakly enforced guidelines for social distancing. That’s remained true, so far, even as Covid-19 cases have surged.
Most states have mask mandates, but they’re enforced to varying degrees. Contact tracing doesn’t exist at any effective level in all but a few states.
Europe, in comparison, is taking much stronger actions, including lockdowns, curfews, limits on how large gatherings can be, and restrictions on different households interacting with each other. Mask mandates are also widespread. Several countries are trying to scale up contact tracing.
Some European countries have tried less restrictive measures first because, as Wenham said, “no one wants to go into a full lockdown again.” It remains to be seen, given the scale of some of the continent’s outbreaks, if these milder measures will work. Some experts say many places are past the point where weaker actions are enough, so more lockdowns are likely in the future.
Still, at least European countries are collectively trying something. That can’t be said for the US as a whole.
Time may be running out. Throughout the fall and winter, several factors will likely hasten the coronavirus’s spread: Schools will continue to reopen; the cold will push people into indoor spaces in which ventilation is worse and the virus spreads more easily; the holidays will bring friends and family together in potentially large gatherings; and another flu season could strain health care systems. If a place is suffering a high baseline of coronavirus cases as all of that happens, outbreaks could spin further out of control.
With the clock ticking on those issues, and the US not moving to take much more action, the country may once again splinter from Europe and produce yet another unique failure in its response to the coronavirus.
“The countries that remain vigilant and focused have performed the best,” Jeremy Konyndyk, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development, told me. “These surges in cases are not inevitable — they result from the choices we make.”