Republicans like Texan Ron Wright must face responsibility for coronavirus failures
Whether it is a deadly pandemic triggering massive job losses or mass protests across U.S. cities big and small, 2020 has been a year like no other in my memory. Rep. Ron Wright, who I am running against in Congressional District 6, recently wrote in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that “our lives today bear little resemblance to the lives we led mere months ago.”
That is at least one thing we can agree on.
Watching the Republican convention, I thought, it’s funny how there’s little mention of the past few months or any comparison to where we were four years ago, when Donald Trump was elected. Instead, the president seems to project how unfair things have been for him and suggests that he deserves a do-over.
Seeing Republicans lament that the economy was doing so well before COVID-19 hit makes me think they are trying to avoid the reality of who really fumbled the ball.
As a small business owner, I understand the economic fallout from this failure of leadership. Whether it was pushing local governments to open up too early, ignoring the advice of medical experts, making mask-wearing a political statement or forcing top-down guidelines that slow down testing, extreme partisanship by politicians such as Wright has only made things worse. Wright downplayed the pandemic and urged a crackdown on local policies that only served to keep the public safe.
More than 180,000 Americans have died in the pandemic, and Trump and his supporters only talk about how good things once were, promising that continued leadership will lead to economic prosperity. 180,000 Americans. Wright had ample space to acknowledge these tragic deaths in his recent article and failed to mention a single life lost, instead devoting ink to praising stock market outcomes.
The compassionate conservatism of George W. Bush has been replaced by Donald Trump’s shameless zero-accountability mantra, with Trump going so far as to say “I don’t take responsibility at all” for the pandemic.
It is time for Wright to stop pretending that the last six months did not happen under his watch. It’s time to stop dodging hard questions, avoiding debates (I have publicly challenged him to debate multiple times), and ignoring the sober reality of the pandemic.
Wright failed to support measures that contained small business relief, better protection for front-line health workers, an economic stimulus to many out-of-work Texans and help with child care. Perhaps that is why he has not accepted my challenge — he cannot defend a voting record that puts politics over the needs of our fellow Texans.
He also needs to be accountable for repeatedly voting against healthcare for Texans. He voted against reducing the price of prescription drugs and supports a health care plan that would let insurance companies charge people with pre-existing conditions whatever they want.
We have the most uninsured residents in the nation, and that number has only increased during the pandemic. We need to protect Texans with pre-existing conditions, including COVID-19.
We need new leadership in Washington that embraces bipartisan common sense solutions. If elected, I will work and think independently. I promise to work with anyone with good ideas, regardless of party lines, to deliver results for my fellow Texans.
This story was originally published September 1, 2020 at 7:02 AM.