Commemorating Juneteenth

TOGETHER WE STAND AGAINST RACISM

Free B1 Online Resources

RECURSOS GRATUITOS ONLINE PARA LA PREPARACIÓN DE LA ACREDITACIÓN DE INGLÉS B1

READING COMPREHENSION
http://www.examenglish.com/PET/PET_reading_and_writing.html http://www.flo-joe.co.uk/preliminaryenglish/pet-reading-practice-tests.htm http://www.englishaula.com/en/cambridge-english-test-exam-preparation/cambridge-english-preliminary-pet-b1/reading/exam-parts/exercise- practice-test/3-5-part-exam/
http://www.cambridgeenglish.org/exams/preliminary/preparation/
http://www.englishrevealed.co.uk/pet.php
http://www.cambridge.org/elt/objectivepet/tests.htm
http://learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org/skills/reading-skills-practice
http://www.examenglish.com/B1/B1_reading.htm
http://www.englishexercises.org/makeagame/viewgame.asp? id=2967     
http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/course/lower-intermediate https://www.theguardian.com/education/learn-english-classroom-materials-archive http://eclexam.eu/espanol/sample-tests/
http://www.trinitycollege.com/site/? id=3195
http://www.trinitycollege.com/site/? id=3194
http://www.cambridgeenglish.org/exams/first/preparation/
http://www.clm-granada.com/es/lem/b1-b2-clm/descripcion-ingles/Reading-Listening_sample_Booklet.pdf
http://www.uco.es/idiomas/certacles-b1/
https://www.upo.es/idiomas/certificacion-nivel/muestrasExamenes/index.jsp
https://clenguas.ual.es/index.php/acreditaciones-ual/
http://www10.ujaen.es/conocenos/cealm/examenes-de-convocatorias-anteriores
http://fguma.es/contenidos/general.action? idsupersection=2&idselectedsection=73&selectedsection=CERTACLES&idparentmenu=34112&idpage=31900&idcomission=0&typetable=opcionescentr http://www.uca.es/cslm/portal.do? TR=A&IDR=1&identificador=14436
http://www.uca.es/cslm/portal.do? TR=A&IDR=1&identificador=14437
https://institutodeidiomas.us.es/ingles/pruebas-de-acreditacion
http://culm.unizar.es/certacles
http://fgulem.unileon.es/cimodernos/aclesB1.aspx
http://funge.uva.es/sin-categoria/prueba-de-acreditacion-acles/ http://sci.usal.es/images/stories/examenes_certacles_modelo_tareas_examen_B1_ingles.pdf 
http://www.llengues.urv.cat/ca/acreditacions/angles/model-b1/
http://www.cifalc.cat/certificats-dangles/descripcio-de-lexamen-angles/ http://fgulem.unileon.es/cimodernos/aclesB1.aspx
http://www.upct.es/gestionserv/inter/web_servidiomas_fich/doc_secciones/330examen-acles-para-la-redaudio.pdf

LISTENING COMPREHENSION
http://www.examenglish.com/PET/PET_listening.html http://www.englishaula.com/en/cambridge-english-test-exam-preparation/cambridge-english-preliminary-pet-b1/listening/exam-parts/ exercise-practice-test/3-3-part-exam/
http://www.cambridgeenglish.org/exams/preliminary/preparation/
http://www.cambridge.org/elt/objectivepet/tests.htm
http://www.mansioningles.com/listening00.htm
https://es.lyricstraining.com/
http://hancockmcdonald.com/materials/university-life
https://www.audio-lingua.eu/? lang=es
http://learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org/skills/listening-skills-practice
http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/content
https://www.youtube.com/user/bbclearningenglish/videos
http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/6-minute-english
http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/course/intermediate
http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/course/lower-intermediate
https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=F-EuwVgM2ts&list=PL59GcrPDHI8KRjnxslMF13wbOQ8Uyb5Oh http://eclexam.eu/espanol/sample-tests/
https://learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org/skills/listening-skills-practice
http://www.trinitycollege.com/site/? id=3195
http://www.trinitycollege.com/site/? id=3194
http://www.cambridgeenglish.org/exams/first/preparation/ 
http://www.clm-granada.com/es/lem/b1-b2-clm/descripcion-ingles/Reading-Listening_sample_Booklet.pdf http://www.uco.es/idiomas/certacles-b1/
https://www.upo.es/idiomas/certificacion-nivel/muestrasExamenes/index.jsp
https://clenguas.ual.es/index.php/acreditaciones-ual/
http://www10.ujaen.es/conocenos/cealm/examenes-de-convocatorias-anteriores
http://www.uca.es/cslm/portal.do? TR=A&IDR=1&identificador=14436
http://www.uca.es/cslm/portal.do? TR=A&IDR=1&identificador=14437
https://institutodeidiomas.us.es/ingles/pruebas-de-acreditacion
http://culm.unizar.es/certacles
http://fgulem.unileon.es/cimodernos/aclesB1.aspx
http://funge.uva.es/sin-categoria/prueba-de-acreditacion-acles/ http://sci.usal.es/images/stories/examenes_certacles_modelo_tareas_examen_B1_ingles.pdf 
http://www.llengues.urv.cat/acreditacions/angles/model-b1/ http://www.udl.cat/export/sites/universitat-lleida/ca/serveis/il/.galleries/docs/galeria_doc/1617-Escola-didiomes/mostra-examen-B1-angles.pdf 
http://www.cifalc.cat/certificats-dangles/descripcio-de-lexamen-angles/ http://www.centrodelinguas.gal/es/pag/314/caja-estatica--acreditacion-acles--como-vai-a-ser-o-exame-modelos-de-tarefas/ http://cdl.uvigo.es/acreditacions.php? idioma=es
http://www.um.es/documents/2416403/4337501/EJEMPLO +LISTENING +B1.pdf/91b4f02d-aec2-47dc-9622-cb8f5afe82ce 
http://www.um.es/documents/2416403/4337501/EJEMPLO +LISTENING +B2.pdf/b8429e36-0b48-4921-ac21-7dd5eecb91d3 http://www.upct.es/gestionserv/inter/web_servidiomas_fich/doc_secciones/330examen-acles-para-la-redaudio.pdf 
http://cdl.webs.upv.es/certificaciones-y-pruebas/examenes-oficiales-cdl#modelo-de-examen-inglés-b1 http://cdl.webs.upv.es/certificaciones-y-pruebas/examenes-oficiales-cdl#modelo-de-examen-inglés-b2 http://www.examenglish.com/B1/B1_listening.htm
http://www.elllo.org

WRITTEN EXPRESION
http://www.examenglish.com/PET/PET_reading_and_writing.html
http://www.flo-joe.co.uk/preliminaryenglish/pet-writing-practice-tests.htm http://www.englishaula.com/en/cambridge-english-test-exam-preparation/cambridge-english-preliminary-pet-b1/writing/exam-parts/exercise- practice-test/3-2-part-exam/
http://www.cambridgeenglish.org/exams/preliminary/preparation/
http://www.englishrevealed.co.uk/pet.php
http://www.cambridge.org/elt/objectivepet/tests.htm
https://writeandimprove.com/
http://learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org/skills/writing-skills-practice
https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=VgTqZOZ1UMQ
http://yourenglishstrategies.wikispaces.com/Writing + %28B1%29
http://www.rubenvalero.com/english/content/writing-corner-fce-cae
http://www.autoenglish.org/PET/PETWriting2and3.htm
http://eclexam.eu/espanol/sample-tests/
http://www.trinitycollege.com/site/? id=3195
http://www.trinitycollege.com/site/? id=3194
http://www.cambridgeenglish.org/exams/first/preparation/
http://www.examenglish.com/B1/B1_reading.htm
http://www.clm-granada.com/es/lem/b1-b2-clm/descripcion-ingles/Writing-Sample-Booklet-1.pdf 
http://www.clm-granada.com/es/lem/b1-b2-clm/descripcion-ingles/Writing-Sample-Booklet-2.pdf
http://www.uco.es/idiomas/certacles-b1/
https://www.upo.es/idiomas/certificacion-nivel/muestrasExamenes/index.jsp
https://clenguas.ual.es/index.php/acreditaciones-ual/
http://www10.ujaen.es/conocenos/cealm/examenes-de-convocatorias-anteriores
http://fguma.es/contenidos/general.action? idsupersection=2&idselectedsection=73&selectedsection=CERTACLES&idparentmenu=34112&idpage=31900&idcomission=0&typetable=opcionescentr http://www.uca.es/cslm/portal.do? TR=A&IDR=1&identificador=14436
http://www.uca.es/cslm/portal.do? TR=A&IDR=1&identificador=14437
https://institutodeidiomas.us.es/ingles/pruebas-de-acreditacion
http://culm.unizar.es/certacles
http://fgulem.unileon.es/cimodernos/aclesB1.aspx
http://sci.usal.es/images/stories/examenes_certacles_modelo_tareas_examen_B1_ingles.pdf
http://www.llengues.urv.cat/acreditacions/angles/model-b1/
http://www.centrodelinguas.gal/es/pag/314/caja-estatica--acreditacion-acles--como-vai-a-ser-o-exame-modelos-de-tarefas/ 
http://cdl.uvigo.es/acreditacions.php? idioma=es
http://www.um.es/documents/2416403/4337501/EJEMPLO +WRITING +B1.pdf/13e88f6c-a4bd-4913-8a90-32ce39cb24ea 
http://www.upct.es/gestionserv/inter/web_servidiomas_fich/doc_secciones/330examen-acles-para-la-redaudio.pdf
http://www.upct.es/gestionserv/inter/web_servidiomas_fich/doc_secciones/330examen-acles-para-la-redaudio.pdf http://writefix.com
https://flo-joe.co.uk/
http://examenglish.com
http://englishaula.com http://grammarly.com

ORAL SKILLS
http://www.examenglish.com/PET/PET_speaking.html
http://www.flo-joe.co.uk/preliminaryenglish/pet-speaking-practice-tests.htm http://www.englishaula.com/en/cambridge-english-test-exam-preparation/cambridge-english-preliminary-pet-b1/speaking/exam-parts/ exercise-practice-test/3-4-part-exam/
http://www.cambridge.org/elt/objectivepet/tests.htm http://eurospeak.org.uk/eurospeakblog/2014/07/23/speaking-topics-b1-esol-entry-level-3-exams-part-1-3/ 
http://learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org/exams/speaking-exams/describe-photo-or-picture
http://www.eoiestepa.es/? page_id=819
https://www.elthillside.com/sites/default/files/photocopiable_material/Journeys_B1-TRP-students.pdf 
http://learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org/exams/speaking-exams/talk-about-yourself http://learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org/exams/speaking-exams/discussion
http://www.trinitycollege.com/site/? id=3195
http://www.trinitycollege.com/site/? id=3194
http://www.clm-granada.com/es/lem/b1-b2-clm/descripcion-ingles/prueba_oral_b1_ejemplo.webm 
https://www.upo.es/idiomas/certificacion-nivel/muestrasExamenes/index.jsp
https://clenguas.ual.es/index.php/acreditaciones-ual/
http://www10.ujaen.es/conocenos/cealm/examenes-de-convocatorias-anteriores
http://fguma.es/contenidos/general.action? idsupersection=2&idselectedsection=73&selectedsection=CERTACLES&idparentmenu=34112&idpage=31900&idcomission=0&typetable=opcionescentr https://institutodeidiomas.us.es/ingles/pruebas-de-acreditacion
http://culm.unizar.es/certacles
http://fgulem.unileon.es/cimodernos/aclesB1.aspx
http://sci.usal.es/images/stories/examenes_certacles_modelo_tareas_examen_B1_ingles.pdf
http://www.llengues.urv.cat/acreditacions/angles/model-b1/ http://www.udl.cat/export/sites/universitat-lleida/ca/serveis/il/.galleries/docs/galeria_doc/1617-Escola-didiomes/mostra-examen-B1-angles.pdf 
http://www.cifalc.cat/certificats-dangles/descripcio-de-lexamen-angles/ http://www.centrodelinguas.gal/es/pag/314/caja-estatica--acreditacion-acles--como-vai-a-ser-o-exame-modelos-de-tarefas/ http://www.um.es/documents/2416403/4337501/EJEMPLO +SPEAKING +B1.pdf/2c27754e-df3f-49a9-9881-3fc9af45a211 
http://www.upct.es/gestionserv/inter/web_servidiomas_fich/doc_secciones/330examen-acles-para-la-redaudio.pdf
http://writefix.com
http://www.fluentu.com/english/blog/how-to-improve-spoken-english/? lang=en
http://www.phone-english.net

Source: Universidad de Granada

#BlackLivesMatter

Years and Years_series

An ordinary British family contends with the hopes, anxieties and joys of an uncertain future in this six-part limited series that begins in 2019 and propels the characters 15 years forward into an unstable world. The story begins as members of the Lyons clan converge for the birth of the newest family member, baby Lincoln, and an outspoken celebrity begins her transformation into a political figure whose controversial opinions will divide the nation. As the Britain of this imaginary drama is rocked by political, economic and technological advances, the family experiences everything hoped for in the future, and everything that is feared. 
Years and Years is an HBO, must-see series. As captivating as Black Mirror. Take my word for it.

1985_film

This heart-wrenching film by Yen Tan released in 2018 is already a classic. Unmissable.

+Film review by Elsa Fernández Santos in El País.

Green Kayak

The world has a plastic problem - and it’s floating around in our oceans. Scientists estimate there are 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic debris in the seas. If we don’t do anything, litter particles could outnumber fish by 2050. Not if GreenKayak has anything to do with it, though. This rapidly growing, Danish-run NGO is encouraging people to remove litter from the water – by turning it into a fun activity. 

The idea started by accident back in 2017, when Tobias Weber-Andersen, a keen diver, windsurfer and sailor, had had enough of encountering trash in the water and decided to do something about it. At that time he was the owner of a kayakrental company on Copenhagen harbour, so he designated one of his kayaks a “miljøkajakken” (“environmental kayak”), offering it to people for free, in return for all the litter they could collect. 

“We started at the beginning of the summer season in Denmark and right away it was fully booked,” Weber-Andersen remembers. “Over the first five months we had almost 1,000 people using it and collected more than three tonnes of trash. We saw that and said, ‘Woah! Let’s do this even more.’” 

Two years on, GreenKayak is now his full-time job, and this year the charity expanded outside Denmark for the first time – with “host” schemes in Hamburg, Bergen, Stockholm, Berlin and Dublin. “Last year we had just three kayaks in Denmark,” says Weber-Andersen, “while now there are 38 in five different countries,” saving more than 17 tonnes of waste to date. “It’s really working.”

Wannabe watery eco-warriors simply book the use of a kayak – online at greenkayak.org or directly with one of the hosts – for two free hours of use. As the sit-on-top boats are “very safe and very easy to steer”, even accompanied kids can join in. All tools are provided, “and all the rubbish in the water has been washed clean so people don’t get their hands dirty”.

Participants honour their side of the bargain by picking up litter from the water, and by posting on social media afterwards using #greenkayak – both things people seem very happy to do. “We thought we might have to take a deposit but it wasn’t needed,” says Weber-Anderson, full of praise for the honest and eager response. “Everyone participates. Some people even come back with a full basket and then go get some more.” 

Thanks to the social-media drive, he now has a long list of hosts who want to bring the GreenKayak concept to their own shores. After fielding calls “from the US, Asia, Australia,” his ambition to “make GreenKayak global” is clearly in sight. Better still, he finally feels like he’s doing something to help the natural world by providing others with the tools they need to help, too. 

“It fills me with hope when I see volunteers pulling trash from the water,” he says. “They’re showing the world that tackling environmental pollution is fun and easy to do.” 
Source: n by Norwegian, September 2019

Here and Now_series

A provocative and darkly comic meditation on the disparate forces polarizing present-day American culture, as experienced by the members of a progressive multi-ethnic family — a philosophy professor and his wife, their adopted children from Vietnam, Liberia and Colombia and their sole biological child — and a contemporary Muslim family, headed by a psychiatrist who is treating one of their children. An HBO 10-episode series.

B2 Compound Adjectives

Compound adjectives that express the idea of with or having often end in -ed. For example, a a guy with blue eyes is a blue-eyed guy. These -ed endings are often known as "false participles":

A baby with curly hair is a curly-haired baby.
A cat with one leg is a one-legged cat. (Here notice the pronunciation and spelling of "legged".)
A girl with black hair and green eyes = a black-haired, green-eyed girl.
A robber with one eye = a one-eyed robber.
A model with long legs = a long-legged model.

Compound adjectives with expressions of time, quantity, weight, distance or measurement do not use the plural s in the noun of the compound:

A journey that lasts 12 hours is a 12-hour journey. (Note that "hour" is singular.)
A baby that weighs seven pounds = a seven-pound baby.
A walk of 20 miles = a 20-mile walk.
A holiday that lasts 2 weeks = a 2-week holiday.

Sentence Transformation Exercise:

1. My bag was stolen by a teenager with green hair
A green-...

2. Bruce Springsteen gave a concert that lasted four hours.
Bruce Springsteen gave a four-...

3. A man who was dressed in smart clothes came to see you.
A well-...

4. The competition was won by a model with blue eyes and blonde hair.
A blue-...

5. That job pays well.
That's a well-...

Online Learning Is Best in a Supporting Role

Online Learning Should Return to a Supporting Role

By DAVID DEMING

The New York Times, April 9, 2020

As the coronavirus pandemic forces schools and college campuses to go online, the delivery model of education — largely unchanged for centuries — has suddenly been disrupted.

This may seem like the acceleration of a permanent shift toward online learning, but I have my doubts. In fact, economics tells us that technology will make in-person education more valuable than ever.

At the moment, teachers from kindergarten through graduate school are struggling to take their classes online, and the initial results are, understandably, spotty. But the longer this mass experiment continues, the more familiar remote learning will become. And, has been predicted for many years, online performances by superstars are increasingly likely to replace more pedestrian in-person lectures.

This can go only so far, because other important aspects of education are best done by teachers in more intimate settings. Educators will increasingly be tutors, mentors and role models, and economics also tells us that these features of a great education will not scale up.

Therefore, I worry not about the future of teachers but of students. I fear that on-campus learning will become an increasingly important quality differentiator, a luxury good that only students with means can afford.

Consider that online education has been around a lot longer than Covid-19. According to the latest estimates from the Department of Education, 35 percent of college students took at least one course online before the pandemic, and this share has been growing steadily for more than a decade.

This spring, schools and universities had to move courses online with only a few weeks’ notice, and the results have often been ugly. Students face significant challenges, such as spotty access to the internet or an unstable living environment.

Yet the long-term prospects for online learning are good — up to a point. Many universities already offered high-quality lectures online before this crisis, sometimes through partnerships with organization like edX and Coursera. Khan Academy has offered free courses for younger learners. The increased flexibility of online learning has been especially important when students need to balance burdens like jobs or, right now, to care for themselves or relatives who have fallen ill.

After this crisis ends, online lectures will still be increasingly valuable, because they are known in economics as “nonrival goods,” meaning they are not used up as more and more people view them. For this reason, the very best lecturers can teach everyone at the same time. This could make lesser lecturers obsolete and should, at least to some degree, generate much-needed productivity growth in education.

This seems grim for teachers, but I don’t think it will make us obsolete, for two reasons.

First, demand for education is a moving target, and as people become more prosperous they typically want better education, not worse.

So while cost is important, it’s not everything. Bending the higher-education cost curve through online lectures may seem appealing, but the point isn’t to enable everyone to learn on the cheap. Rather, people will want better education for the money, and online lectures alone won’t do it.

This explains why massive open online courses, known as MOOCs, have largely failed to disrupt traditional education despite the hype. Lectures are part of education, but they are not the best part.

Second, as online lectures become better and cheaper, the other essential components of education will take more time and energy.

Within economics this is known as unbalanced growth: the tendency for resources to shift toward parts of the economy where productivity growth is lowest. It is partly why the bulk of U.S. employment has moved away from manufacturing and into the service sector and, in education, why tuition and salaries keep rising. Precisely because they are personal, services are hard to scale up — few people are interested in mass-produced child care, for example.

The personal services provided by educators include tutoring, individualized feedback and mentoring, and numerous studies, as well as countless individual experiences, show that such services are essential for learning.

Good teachers work with students individually or in small groups to diagnose and remedy specific learning gaps. A survey of nearly 200 educational experiments found that “high dosage” tutoring — defined as groups of no more than six students meeting at least four times per week — was one of the most effective ways to improve learning. High-frequency individual feedback also greatly improves student performance.

Teachers are critically important as mentors and role models as well, the studies show. Students are more likely to complete a college degree when teachers have high expectations of them. A female instructor greatly increases the performance of women in math and science courses and their subsequent interest in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) careers.

Furthermore, racial gaps in course performance are smaller in classes taught by professors from underrepresented groups. Yet the implications of this research extend even beyond race and gender. Mentors matter for everyone, and they can have a powerful impact on students’ life choices and career success. There is simply no technological substitute for these aspects of great teaching.

Because of unbalanced growth, efficiency gains in online instruction will cause educators to shift toward more personal forms of education. Moreover, what economists call “cost disease” tells us that the price of tutoring, mentoring and direct personal intervention will rise, even as lectures are provided more efficiently online.

If these trends continue unchecked, on-campus learning and intensive interaction between teachers and students may eventually become unaffordable for all but the wealthiest institutions and, probably, the wealthiest families.

Two changes are necessary to avoid this tragedy.

First, we must broaden access to institutions that can afford a high-quality on-campus experience. Second, universities under budgetary pressure should resist the temptation to think of online learning technology only as a means of cost reduction.

It is wonderful that technology has enabled millions of students to keep learning even when direct contact is impossible. But once this crisis ends, we will be better off if technology frees up precious class time so that educators and students can engage deeply with each other and build personal connections that will last a lifetime.

David Deming is the director of the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Video calls could be draining your energy in lockdown

Are you finding video calling exhausting in lockdown? According to the World Economic Forum, this is why:

Experts say that chatting online requires more concentrations than meeting face-to-face. (Source: BBC)

Poor-quality video can make it tricky to read facial expressions.

Framing means it is harder to read body language, a key part to communication. And eye contact, which is normally a strong facial cue, can be uncomfortable online. (Source: Gianpiero Petriglieri)

Then there is the added social pressure of being on camera. Many say they find it nerve-wracking and stressful. (Souce: Dr Linda Hill, Edge Hill University)

Delays caused by slow internet speed can cause anxiety, while silence creates a natural rhythm in real-life conversation. A study in Germany found 1.2-second silence makes the responder seem less friendly. (Source Science Direct)

Video chats in large groups can be less productive because the focus is on the person speaking, ignoring responses from the rest of the team.

(Source: Behrens, F., Kret, ME, Journal of Nonverbal Behaviour)

Multi-person screens challenge our central vision forcing our brains to multitask. Psychologists call it “continuous partial attention.”

(Source: National Geographic)

And suggest sometimes switching off your camera in group chats, placing your screen off to one side, which could help concentration, or making a voice call instead.

(Source: Harvard Business Review)

I am Syd Stone_short film

Hollywood heartthrob, Syd Stone, returns home to attend his 10-year high school reunion. The only person granted access to his grandiose hotel suite is Brent, the other half of Syd's closeted high school relationship. From the moment they reconnect, the past comes back to throw them into an emotional tailspin. (Canada, 2014) 10 min.

STOP USING PALM OIL

Great again? Or the FALL of the USA?

By Fintan O'Toole

The Irish Times, Saturday 25 April, 2020

US president Donald Trump has claimed he was being sarcastic and testing the media when he raised the idea that injecting disinfectant or irradiating the body with ultraviolet light might kill coronavirus.

Over more than two centuries, the United States has stirred a very wide range of feelings in the rest of the world: love and hatred, fear and hope, envy and contempt, awe and anger. But there is one emotion that has never been directed towards the US until now: pity.

However bad things are for most other rich democracies, it is hard not to feel sorry for Americans. Most of them did not vote for Donald Trump in 2016. Yet they are locked down with a malignant narcissist who, instead of protecting his people from Covid-19, has amplified its lethality. The country Trump promised to make great again has never in its history seemed so pitiful.

Will American prestige ever recover from this shameful episode?

The US went into the coronavirus crisis with immense advantages: precious weeks of warning about what was coming, the world’s best concentration of medical and scientific expertise, effectively limitless financial resources, a military complex with stunning logistical capacity and most of the world’s leading technology corporations. Yet it managed to make itself the global epicentre of the pandemic.

As the American writer George Packer puts it in the current edition of the Atlantic, “The United States reacted ... like Pakistan or Belarus – like a country with shoddy infrastructure and a dysfunctional government whose leaders were too corrupt or stupid to head off mass suffering.”

It is one thing to be powerless in the face of a natural disaster, quite another to watch vast power being squandered in real time – wilfully, malevolently, vindictively. It is one thing for governments to fail (as, in one degree or another, most governments did), quite another to watch a ruler and his supporters actively spread a deadly virus. Trump, his party and Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News became vectors of the pestilence.

The grotesque spectacle of the president openly inciting people (some of them armed) to take to the streets to oppose the restrictions that save lives is the manifestation of a political death wish. What are supposed to be daily briefings on the crisis, demonstrative of national unity in the face of a shared challenge, have been used by Trump merely to sow confusion and division.

They provide a recurring horror show in which all the neuroses that haunt the American psyche dance naked on live TV. If the plague is a test, its ruling political nexus ensured that the US would fail it at a terrible cost in human lives. In the process, the idea of the US as the world’s leading nation – an idea that has shaped the past century – has all but evaporated. Who, other than the Trump impersonator Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, is now looking to the US as the exemplar of anything other than what not to do? 

How many people in Düsseldorf or Dublin are wishing they lived in Detroit or Dallas?

It is hard to remember now but, even in 2017, when Trump took office, the conventional wisdom in the US was that the Republican Party and the broader framework of US political institutions would prevent him from doing too much damage. This was always a delusion, but the pandemic has exposed it in the most savage ways.

Abject surrender

What used to be called mainstream conservatism has not absorbed Trump – he has absorbed it. Almost the entire right-wing half of American politics has surrendered abjectly to him. It has sacrificed on the altar of wanton stupidity the most basic ideas of responsibility, care and even safety.

Thus, even at the very end of March, 15 Republican governors had failed to order people to stay at home or to close non-essential businesses. In Alabama, for example, it was not until April 3rd that governor Kay Ivey finally issued a stay-at-home order.

In Florida, the state with the highest concentration of elderly people with underlying conditions, governor Ron DeSantis, a Trump mini-me, kept the beach resorts open to students travelling from all over the US for spring break parties. Even on April 1st, when he issued restrictions, DeSantis exempted religious services and “recreational activities”.

There is, as the demonstrations in US cities show, plenty of political mileage in denying the reality of the pandemic

Georgia governor Brian Kemp, when he finally issued a stay-at-home order on April 1st, explained: “We didn’t know that [the virus can be spread by people without symptoms] until the last 24 hours.”

This is not mere ignorance – it is deliberate and homicidal stupidity. There is, as the demonstrations this week in US cities have shown, plenty of political mileage in denying the reality of the pandemic. It is fuelled by Fox News and far-right internet sites, and it reaps for these politicians millions of dollars in donations, mostly (in an ugly irony) from older people who are most vulnerable to the coronavirus.

It draws on a concoction of conspiracy theories, hatred of science, paranoia about the “deep state” and religious providentialism (God will protect the good folks) that is now very deeply infused in the mindset of the American right.

Trump embodies and enacts this mindset, but he did not invent it. The US response to the coronavirus crisis has been paralysed by a contradiction that the Republicans have inserted into the heart of US democracy. On the one hand, they want to control all the levers of governmental power. On the other they have created a popular base by playing on the notion that government is innately evil and must not be trusted.

The contradiction was made manifest in two of Trump’s statements on the pandemic: on the one hand that he has “total authority”, and on the other that “I don’t take responsibility at all”. Caught between authoritarian and anarchic impulses, he is incapable of coherence.

Fertile ground

But this is not just Donald Trump. The crisis has shown definitively that Trump’s presidency is not an aberration. It has grown on soil long prepared to receive it. The monstrous blossoming of misrule has structure and purpose and strategy behind it.

There are very powerful interests who demand “freedom” in order to do as they like with the environment, society and the economy. They have infused a very large part of American culture with the belief that “freedom” is literally more important than life. My freedom to own assault weapons trumps your right not to get shot at school. Now, my freedom to go to the barber (“I Need a Haircut” read one banner this week in St Paul, Minnesota) trumps your need to avoid infection.

Usually when this kind of outlandish idiocy is displaying itself, there is the comforting thought that, if things were really serious, it would all stop. People would sober up. Instead, a large part of the US has hit the bottle even harder.

And the president, his party and their media allies keep supplying the drinks. There has been no moment of truth, no shock of realisation that the antics have to end. No one of any substance on the US right has stepped in to say: get a grip, people are dying here.

If he is re-elected, toxicity will have become the lifeblood of American politics. That is the mark of how deep the trouble is for the US – it is not just that Trump has treated the crisis merely as a way to feed tribal hatreds but that this behaviour has become normalised. When the freak show is live on TV every evening, and the star is boasting about his ratings, it is not really a freak show any more. For a very large and solid bloc of Americans, it is reality.

And this will get worse before it gets better. Trump has at least eight more months in power. In his inaugural address in 2017, he evoked “American carnage” and promised to make it stop. But now that the real carnage has arrived, he is revelling in it. He is in his element.

As things get worse, he will pump more hatred and falsehood, more death-wish defiance of reason and decency, into the groundwater. If a new administration succeeds him in 2021, it will have to clean up the toxic dump he leaves behind. If he is re-elected, toxicity will have become the lifeblood of American politics.

Either way, it will be a long time before the rest of the world can imagine America being great again.