Finding a Scapegoat for Pandemics: Black Death to Trump Virus

Ever since Donald Trump stopped calling Covid-19/coronavirus a hoax, he has been engaged in an age-old response to disease epidemics and pandemics: finding a scapegoat. Rather than accept his own incompetent response to the pandemic (impossible), he has engaged in blaming a host of nefarious villains. 

Trump's scapegoats have included everyone who "failed to warn him" or "created the virus." The list is long and grows longer by the day: Democrats, immigrants, the "Lamestream" Media, the Chinese, Obama, Hilary, and the World Health Organization (WHO), and Dr. Fauci. Trump, of course, is not alone in scapegoating. Some of his supporters blame all of the above, plus Bill Gates, libruls, commies, gays, single sex marriage, and Jews.

The word "scapegoat" derives from a practice described in the Bible (Leviticus 16). The original scapegoats were actual goats. A rabbi would symbolically load up a goat with all the sins of the community and send it into the wilderness. Goodbye sins.

In more modern times, a scapegoat is usually a person or group of persons blamed for a disaster. The disaster might be a famine, an earthquake, floods, or as in the current case, a deadly disease. Throughout history, people have tended to blame "others" for mysterious deaths, especially on a large scale. The scapegoats have included people of different religions and cultures, minorities, "witches," heretics, women, and the poor.

European Christians often blamed Jews for epidemics, notably during the Black Death of the 14th century. Then and in later outbreaks, Christians claimed the Jews had poisoned the wells. Mobs killed thousands of Jews. Yet the plague was never called the Jewish Disease. 

Nor was it called the Chinese Disease. The plague probably originated in China, but few Europeans were aware of that in the 14th century. In more recent times, Westerners have accused the Chinese (and Asians more generally) for epidemics and pandemics. The 1890s cartoon below, from a San Francisco newspaper, condemns the city's Chinatown and Chinese immigrants as the source of malaria, smallpox, and leprosy. 

  
In 1900, whites in Honolulu and San Francisco blamed the Chinese community for an outbreak of plague in their cities, the first ever in the United States. The entire Chinese population of the two cities was quarantined and demonized. In Honolulu, an attempt to use fires to purify the air and burn out the plague resulted in wildfires and the destruction of 7000 homes in Chinatown. (Below: Quarantine line around Chinatown, Honolulu and fire there, Jan. 1, 1900)

In the USA, many people blamed Jews for the 1892 cholera epidemic, which coincided with the arrival of a large Jewish migration from Russia. Americans also blamed Irish immigrants arriving in the 1830s and 1840s for cholera and other diseases.

In the 1980s, many people blamed gays for the AIDS epidemic. The original name for the disease, GRID (Gay Related Immune Deficiency) did not help. Later, many Americans accused Haitians as the source.

The disease for which blame has been most shared is syphilis, which first broke out in Europe around 1500. The Spanish, who appear to have been the first to experience it, blamed Native Americans, and that remains a common view. Tahitians called it the British disease after Captain Cook's visit in 1769.

The English called it the French Disease, the French called it the Italian Disease, and the Italians reciprocated. The Dutch called it the Spanish Disease, For the Russians, syphilis was the Polish Disease.Turks called it the Christian Disease, the Japanese the Portuguese Disease. 

After the Civil War and emancipation of the enslaved, many Americans viewed syphilis as a black disease. Nearly everybody blamed "loose women" but rarely did anyone blame loose men. Everybody knew that most human troubles originated with Eve and Pandora.

Scientists (especially the mad kind) are another favorite scapegoat for diseases. They have often been accused of producing killer microbes in their labs, then releasing them on the world either intentionally or from absent-minded carelessness. Americans accused Chinese scientists of cooking up the Covid-19 virus. The Chinese government accused American scientists of the same thing. 

A popular explanation among conspiracy theorists, mainly in the US, is that the Chinese 5G network is the culprit. Another is that Bill Gates created it.

Trump Virus or Kung Flu? Naming Pandemics in History

Last year, Chinese officials and many others accused Donald Trump of racism because he referred to Covid-19, or coronavirus, the "Chinese virus." At his Tulsa rally, he called it "Kung Flu."  "Trump Virus" may be the most accurate name, because he has done more than anyone on the planet to spread it. His rhetoric has also contributed to an upsurge on attacks on Asian Americans. 

Racist or not, and it often is, naming pandemic diseases after their alleged place of origin is an old practice. In 1957 and 1968, two deadly flu pandemics were named the "Asian Flu" and the "Hong Kong Flu." A pandemic flu first reported in St. Petersburg in 1889 was denoted the "Russian Flu." It was later called "Asiatic Flu," although St. Petersburg is a long way from Asia.

When pandemic cholera first made its way from India to the UK in the early 19th century, people called it the "Indian Cholera," as in the broadsheet below from 1831. One reason for adding the adjective "Indian" was to distinguish this new, mysterious disease from an old, familiar one: "cholera infantum," a type of childhood diarrhea. but the name led to Indians being blamed for the disease.

In the cartoon below, also from 1832, the cholera is dressed in Indian garb, trying to enter England, but caught by stout John Bull. The reality was far different for England and the world. A series of cholera pandemics during the 19th and early 20th century killed millions in Asia, Africa, Europe and North America, more than 30 million in India alone.

Later in the 19th century, cholera was often referred to as "Asiatic Cholera."

In 1918-1919, a virulent form of influenza became pandemic, and ultimately killed 50-100 million people worldwide. It quickly became known as the "Spanish Flu," although it probably originated in the USA. But the USA was engaged in World War I and sending thousands of troops to Europe. The press was instructed not to report about the epidemic, lest it lead to demands to stop troop shipments -- the overcrowded ships were excellent incubators for such a disease. 

Most European countries involved in the war similarly kept quiet at first, to avoid hurting morale. Spain, however, was neutral, and its press reported on the outbreak. Spain's reward was to have one of the worst pandemics in history named after it. 

It was also called "Flanders Grippe" in Britain, "Bolshevik Disease" in Poland, "Too much inside sickness" in Hong Kong.

Today, it is usually called the "Great Influenza." Perhaps it should be called the "American Flu."

Interestingly, the greatest and most famous pandemic in world history was not named for a place or nation. That was the pandemic of plague that ravaged Eurasia during the 1340s, killing between 75 and 200 million, It wiped out perhaps as much as 60 percent of the European population. It probably originated in Central or East Asia and traveled west along the Silk Road to the Middle East, Europe, and North Africa. 

The 14th century pandemic is best known today as the Black Death, but that name was not applied to it at the time. Other names for it include, Plague, Great Plague, Black Plague, and Pestilence (La Peste). Before the pandemic, plague and pestilence simply meant a deadly epidemic disease. (Below: The Dance of Death, or Danse Macabre, late medieval, Nuremberg Chronicles).

Syphilis, which struck Europe in pandemic form after 1500, was generally named after other, often disliked, countries. The English called it the French Disease. The French called it the Italian Disease. The Italians returned the compliment. The Dutch called it the Spanish Disease. Russians called it the Polish Disease. Turks called it the Christian Disease. The Japanese called it the Portuguese Disease because Portuguese traders brought it from Europe.