White People: Wanna Stop Trump, Start by Weaponizing Your Whiteness on Each Other

He’s already let millions of you die. He’s about to do it again. So what are you going to do about it?

Opinion by: Aisha K. Staggers, Editor-At-Large

Donald Trump let over a million Americans die from COVID-19. That’s not hyperbole—it’s historical fact. He downplayed the virus, ignored science, undermined health officials, mocked mask-wearing, and pushed snake oil instead of solutions. But what if I told you the reason he didn’t act wasn’t just incompetence or arrogance—but intent? What if his inaction was deliberate?

In the early days of the pandemic, reports began circulating that more Black and Latino Americans were contracting and dying from COVID-19 compared to other Americans. Instead of treating that as a national emergency, Trump and his inner circle saw an opportunity of political convenience. A data point to justify letting the virus run its course. This reporting was the feature—not a flaw—of the chaos that ensued.

It wasn’t a failure of leadership. It was a practice born of convenience: the perfect circumstance to launch a trial run of Stephen Miller’s eugenics revival. Let the virus burn through vulnerable communities—especially those they’ve always considered expendable. Then, when the bodies started piling up, Trump turned the country’s rage toward China and stoked a wave of anti-Asian hate that still hasn’t fully subsided. We're just not talking about it anymore.

Trump didn’t botch the response. He weaponized it. The cruelty wasn’t accidental—it was a choice rooted in his hatred for anyone non-white.

While everyone was watching that distraction, here’s what went unreported in plain English: of the 1,147,000 Americans who died from COVID, 759,258 were white. That’s the majority. No, it wasn’t Black and brown people driving that death toll. It was white people—specifically white antivaxxers, white antimaskers, and white conspiracy theorists who turned science into politics and personal responsibility into a culture war. They refused masks, vaccines, and common sense—and then turned around and blamed everyone else as they died.