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From metaphor to militarized From

metaphor to
response: the social implications of militarized
response
“we are at war with COVID-19” –
crisis, disasters, and pandemics 1107
yet to come Received 5 May 2020
Revised 24 August 2020
3 October 2020
Connor M. Chapman Accepted 5 October 2020
Sociology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, and
DeMond Shondell Miller
Sociology and Anthropology/Disaster Science and Emergency Management,
Rowan University, Glassboro, New Jersey, USA

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the framing of the emergency response to the novel
coronavirus (coronavirus disease 2019 [COVID-19]; severe acute respiratory syndrome-like coronavirus
[SARS-CoV-2]) in 2020 with wartime combat language. Metaphors have been used throughout American
politics and society to frame perceived social problems, to both mobilize support and demobilize opposition. By
simplifying and dichotomizing social problems, latent negative consequences frequently emerge, which tend to
have a disproportionate impact on minority communities.
Design/methodology/approach – This paper used a case study and applied text from presidential press
conferences and policy speeches from multiple sources on the War on Poverty, the War on Drugs and the War
on COVID-19. The work identified common themes, actions and policies that can lead to other stakeholders
adapting the “war” rhetoric.
Findings – An apparent cycle emerged – from disdain to metaphorical “war,” to policy, to law, to consequences
and back to disdain – that fueled the American political system and, by extension, systematic oppression. The
COVID-19 pandemic appears to be another crucible for this cycle to repeat itself. The series of examples
illustrate how public leaders use the “war metaphor” as an all-out victory approach to galvanize policy
responses to social issues, crises and natural disasters. By local, national and international stakeholders.
Research limitations/implications – Limitations of this study are the limited use of the metaphor and the
time of completing this manuscript. The paper only views the presidential use and interpretation of the war
metaphor. The COVID-19 pandemic disaster is persisting and the race for a vaccine is underway. While the
authors present the immediate policy impacts, it is too early to understand the long-term policy impacts
typically measured over decades.
Practical implications – This paper contributes to the literature by employing three case studies: the War on
Poverty, the War on Drugs and the War on COVID-19 pandemic to draw comparisons between wartime
rhetoric, social policies and the sociopolitical implications of those policies, as well as how these policies have
the potential to disproportionately affect socially vulnerable populations.
Originality/value – This paper builds on research regarding the use of metaphor, this analysis bridges a
knowledge gap by employing the COVID-19 case to the historical use of the war metaphor.
Keywords War metaphors, Framing, COVID-19, War on Drugs, War on Poverty
Paper type Research paper

“Our world faces a common enemy. We are at war with a virus,”

United Nations Secretary – General Ant
onio Guterres

International Journal of Sociology

Introduction and Social Policy
In January 2020, reports of a novel strain of coronavirus (severe acute respiratory Vol. 40 No. 9/10, 2020
pp. 1107-1124
syndrome-like coronavirus [SARS-CoV-2]) reached the global media. As the phrase, “We are © Emerald Publishing Limited
0144-333X
at war!” rang out from world leaders in capital cities far and wide, the American president DOI 10.1108/IJSSP-05-2020-0163
IJSSP followed suit and proclaimed to be a “war-time president.” In the months since, due to the
40,9/10 virus’s high rate of transmission and globalized pathways, the virus has spread worldwide –
earning the “pandemic” label from the World Health Organization (WHO). The virus’s global
scale and rapid rate of transmission besieged global communities, which prompted various
national governments to take drastic measures to combat the virus’s spread. The USA
decisively framed its emergency response with wartime combat language, using martial
metaphors to both mobilize support and demobilize opposition.
1108 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a product of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, originated in
the Chinese city of Wuhan, in Hubei province, which was reported as a cluster of pneumonia
cases on 31 December 2019. In a matter of 30 days, the WHO declared a global health
emergency in response to the rapidly changing situation. COVID-19 cases began emerging
sporadically across the globe, almost simultaneously. By mid-February, Iran and Italy
became hotspots for the disease outside of the East Asian region and uncertainty gripped the
global economy. As the effects of the virus manifested, cultural events were canceled and
countries around the world implemented travel restrictions and declared national
emergencies (Muccari and Chow, 2020; Taylor, 2020). Cases in the USA surged in early-to-
mid March, making the USA, the global leader in confirmed COVID-19 cases by the end of the
month. Meanwhile, individual states began issuing stay-at-home directives, which closed
most of the country as the federal government attempted to stimulate the stagnating
economy (McNeil, 2020; Cochrane and Stolberg, 2020; Merovish et al., 2020).
As the political response to the virus intensified, so did the political rhetoric surrounding the
virus, producing a clear “wartime” narrative within the national discourse. COVID-19 emerged
as a clear and present, yet invisible, “enemy.” Following the national declaration of emergency,
President Donald Trump dubbed himself a “wartime president,” as he echoed calls for sacrifice
“for the good of the nation” (Oprysko and Luthi, 2020). Wartime metaphors were frequently
invoked when describing the USA’s federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some called
for the deployment of US military assets to aid in the “defense” (Milburn, 2020; Pickrell, 2020;
Garcia, 2020; Henn, 2020; Potter, 2020). Martial rhetoric and war metaphors are not new to the
national discourse. They have grown increasingly salient following the Second World War,
especially since the 1960s. The USA has declared “war” on numerous social problems, among
the most prolific in recent memory were the War on Poverty and the War on Drugs. The
consequences of these “wars” have had systematic implications that have differed by a social
group, but they have largely been detrimental to vulnerable populations (Gustavsson, 1991).
For instance, the War on Poverty helped create the institutional justification for the
brutalization and mass incarceration of communities of color as carried out by the War on
Drugs. The language used, particularly the metaphors invoked, has significantly impacted the
social policies that emerged from these “wars.” By examining the rhetoric, policy and
implications that emerged from the War on Poverty and the War on Drugs and comparing
them to the rapidly developing COVID-19 pandemic, this paper contends that the COVID-19
crisis could serve as the impetus for another “war,” in which wartime metaphor is utilized to
justify policies that could harm vulnerable populations. However, this paper is not designed to
analyze any specific policy under the War on Poverty, the War of Drugs or the War on
COVID-19; rather, it aims to provide a broad overview of the power of war metaphor and help
readers understand how the use of the war metaphor has consequences for the vulnerable
groups in society. The paper contributes to the literature by helping to contextualize the use of
the war metaphor and its enduring impacts on specific communities and society.

The social function and consequences of metaphor

The nuanced linguistic style and shades of meaning offer metaphors a complex series of
shades of meaning. Metaphor, as defined by Lakoff (1993), is “a cross-domain mapping in the
conceptual system.” In other words, it is a means of communication that transfers knowledge From
from one domain to another; metaphors help convey meaning by comparing a “target metaphor to
domain” to a “source domain” (p. 207). Metaphors’ critical role in everyday and academic
discourse – as well as the connection between the two – cannot be understated. Maasen and
militarized
Weingart (1995) argued that the metaphor is the central unit in the transference of academic response
knowledge. The ever-increasing complexity and interdisciplinarity of academic ideas,
concepts, processes and disciplines have created a “barrier” to scientific literacy. It is simply
impossible to meaningfully convey the vast intricacies of scientific knowledge (Proctor and 1109
Larson, 2005), but metaphors serve as a means of transgressing this barrier (Massen and
Weingart, 1995, p. 21), albeit with lost complexity and nuance. Although necessary for
communication, this lost meaning could have disastrous consequences from a policy
perspective. By highlighting certain aspects and hiding others, metaphors often serve as a
means of maintaining or even exacerbating unjust power relations within a society.
War metaphors are attractive in their simplicity and clarity – an enemy is clearly defined,
and it is easy to mobilize against the said enemy using fear as a primary mechanism. Yet, war
metaphors also have added complexity. Contemporary warfare is not simply group A versus
group B; rather, modern warfare requires strategies and tactics, leaders and soldiers, the
home front and the front line. Modern war is total war; everyone is mobilized, which adds a
crucial all-inclusive notion to the metaphor. The direct language of the war metaphors
emphasizes that everyone must do their part as one metaphor begets more metaphor to
perpetuate and sustain the war effort. For instance, the War on Drugs (Just Say “No”) and the
unfolding “war” against COVID-19 (“Stay at Home”/“Flatten the Curve”) both have a
collective call to arms. The language of metaphors provides us with a shorthand rallying cry,
justifies our actions and aligns political agendas around a national war effort.
Because warfare is inherently political, war metaphors place a political frame on the target
domain (Flusberg et al., 2018; Chiang and Duann, 2007). In doing so, metaphors, in general,
have been noted to influence political opinion (Landau et al., 2009). However, this
politicization is fundamentally dehumanizing and ultimately reductive. In medicine,
framing diseases as an invasive enemy reduces people to battlefields (Flusberg et al., 2018;
Mongoven, 2006; Sontag, 1989). In framing poverty as the enemy, poor people are targets. In
framing drugs as the enemy, inner-city neighborhoods are war zones. Not only do war words
allow the president to employ a shorthand, thus making the complex social issues easy to
comprehend by the public but it also allows for the creation of discrete categories such as
“winner,” “loser,” “the attacked,” “victims,” “fault,” “blame,” and “enemy,” all of which have
implicit meanings associated with power discrepancies and blame attribution.
Wartime metaphors have been noted to foster authoritarian sentiment (Larson et al., 2005,
p. 244). The “crisis” calls for a utilitarian acceptance that drastic measures (i.e. “Sacrifice”)
must be taken for the “greater good.” As Musu (2020) noted, “politicians call for obedience
rather than awareness and appeal to our patriotism, not our solidarity” (para. 12).
Metaphorical wars are often top-down initiatives that reflect the hierarchical chain-of-
command structure of military organizations. The military hierarchy transposes onto
existing systems of social stratification; as such, these initiatives often lack voices from
underserved or vulnerable populations. Effective war metaphor’s ability to mobilize has had
a significant impact on the United States’ public policy. When prompted, the rapid
organization of political systems on a single goal tends to result in a massive institutional
response. In effect, the simplification of social problems through metaphor tends to lead to the
construction of complex bureaucratic systems that have lasting effects on the social and
political landscape.
In her book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, Naomi Klein argued that
capitalist interests exploit both real and perceived disasters to “shock” populations into
accepting new forms of neoliberal policies. When corporations move to fill the void left by
IJSSP disaster, Klein contended that the result is cultural erasure, repression and persecution under
40,9/10 new privatized systems with little or no accountability (Klein, 2007). When a metaphor is
viewed from Klein’s shock doctrine perspective, it serves as a means in which societies
become shocked or disoriented. In the half–century since President Lyndon Johnson’s
“unconditional war on poverty,” the USA has been in a perpetual state of “social war” – from
the aforementioned War on Poverty to Nixon’s War on Crime, to Reagan’s War on Drugs and
to the contemporary War on Terror. In an extension of Klein’s analysis, these “social wars”
1110 serve as perpetual shocks to the American system by introducing new forms of neoliberal
policies and government–industry partnerships are designed to address the shocks created
by the government, which often underserved or disproportionately impacted minority
communities. One such example is the need for the rapid rise of mass-incarceration industries
in the form of the prison–industrial complex to meet the perceived need for mass
incarceration in the War on Drugs. Disaster capitalists can profit from the actual and
perceived shocks of wars – stoked by fears conveyed in the form of metaphor. The metaphor
is a powerful tool in the form of convincing the general public that external industrial
interests, fused with government, can solve problems. The ultimate existential crisis,
declaration of social “warfare” serves to motivate societies to “fight” for their survival, to
accept new policies to preserve the system. War metaphors are the mechanism by which the
infusion of state neoliberal policies and capitalism can accomplish a broader role of political,
economic and corporate dominance in society in the form of disaster capitalism.
By employing three case studies – the War on Poverty, the War on Drugs and the COVID-
19 pandemic – this paper draws comparisons between wartime rhetoric, social policies and
the sociopolitical implications of those policies, as well as how these policies have the
potential to disproportionately affect socially vulnerable populations. These cases were
selected because they resulted in a fundamental shift in the balance of power, resulted in the
mobilization of the United States’ military–industrial complex and resulted in enduring
sociocultural implications. The evidence, text from press conferences and text of laws
promulgated/social policies enacted are considered robust and reliable primary sources. The
data are collected from multiple sources, a strategy that also enhances data credibility
(Patton, 1990; Yin, 2003) and facilitates reaching a holistic understanding of the phenomenon
is also being studied (Baxter and Jack, 2008; Miller, 2016). This study uses a qualitative
research design to gain insight into the use of metaphor during crises and disasters such as
the War on Poverty, the War on Drugs and the War on COVID-19. The work identifies
common themes, actions and policies that can lead to other stakeholders adapting the war
rhetoric. During times of civil unrest and tumult, the metaphor analogy helps establish the
“us” versus “them.” By employing the techniques that simplify complex events, social
contests and phenomena to introduce highly technical and complex social public policies that
are used to advance social, cultural, economic and political agendas in the prosecution of the
decades, long metaphorical wars are designed not only to “help” society but also have
iatrogenic impacts that ultimately stigmatize and marginalize vulnerable groups. This paper
argues that effective war metaphors, while easy to deploy, often result in massive policy
initiatives, along with the infusion of corporate interests that have detrimental, long-term
ramifications for vulnerable populations.

Framing a war on (cultural?) poverty

This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America. I urge
this Congress and all Americans to join with me in that effort. It will not be a short or easy struggle,
no single weapon or strategy will suffice, but we shall not rest until that war is won. . . Our aim is not
only to relieve the symptom of poverty, but to cure it and, above all, to prevent it.
 President Lyndon Johnson, in his 1964 State of the Union Address From
The 1960s were a tumultuous and transformative era in the USA’s social history. Various metaphor to
social movements from the famous civil rights struggle to the anti-war movement reached the militarized
height of their popularity over the decade. All three presidential administrations of the decade response
– from Kennedy’s “Attack on Delinquency,” to Johnson’s “War on Poverty” and Nixon’s “War
on Crime” – utilized war metaphors to enact their policy agendas to address growing social
and economic inequalities. These inequalities manifested as a consequence of demographic 1111
shifts and as a repercussion of exclusionary New Deal era policies. Although Johnson’s War
on Poverty sought to correct these injustices by “attacking” the perceived roots of social
inequality – an economic disadvantage. Through a “coordinated attack” using diverse
resources – such as community programs and federal initiatives – the Johnson administration
hoped to address the nation’s growing economic inequality across the country (Ackley, 1964,
p. 77). Although there are mixed results as to whether the War on Poverty was successful in
the long term, a far more significant outcome of the War on Poverty was how it pathologized
those it intended to help.
In the early 20th century, a notable shift in the country’s demographics stemmed from a
mass exodus of African Americans from the rural south to the country’s northern
metropolises. In what would be called the Great Migration (1916–1970), the influx of African
American populations to urban centers fundamentally altered cities’ social landscape,
resulting in “a dramatic geographic redistribution of the African American population”
(Tolnay, 2003, p. 210). As African American populations grew in cities across the country,
White populations struggled to maintain racialized de facto segregation. In response,
New-Deal-era policies notably discriminated against African Americans, particularly those
residing in urban centers. Redlining – the process by which the Federal Housing
Administration (FHA) denied access to federally subsidized mortgages – in effect
concentrated African American populations in city centers as White populations fled to
the suburbs (see Rothstein, 2017 for a comprehensive review of redlining). Although these
policies sought to elevate poorer populations, they notably denied their benefits to people of
color; thus, Whites were afforded ample opportunity to advance, while those opportunities
were denied to African Americans.
By the 1960s, the growing disparities in economic outcomes between White and
African American populations became difficult to ignore, particularly in America’s cities.
Racial tensions began to mount as the civil rights movement asserted itself to the forefront of
American political discourse. Johnson’s War on Poverty came amid the publication of an
influential book, The Other America, by Michael Harrington, wherein he chronicled poverty
and exposed the prevalence of poverty in America (Matthews, 2014). Johnson framed the fight
against poverty and not the systemic institutional practices that relegated minorities, namely,
African Americans to positions of lower status. The war was intended to address the
historical injustices and inequalities produced by African Americans from the welfare state
by circumventing exclusionary New Deal policies (Quadango, 1994, p. 8). However, Johnson’s
war acted as a distraction from the real issues of social, political and racial discrimination
pervasive in American society. In keeping with the American liberal traditions, the Johnson
administration individualized the root causes of poverty. They believed that some aspect of
poor peoples’ lives was deficient – whether it was education, job opportunity or community
programs – and that these deficiencies could be addressed with social programs. As
evidenced by the 1964 Economic Report of the President, the Johnson administration claimed
that “[t]he chief reason for low rates of pay is low productivity, which in turn can reflect lack
of education or training, physical or mental disability, or poor motivation.” The authors
continue, “Other reasons include low bargaining power, exclusion from minimum wage
coverage, or lack of mobility resulting from inadequate knowledge of other opportunities,
IJSSP or unwillingness or inability to move away from familiar surroundings” (Ackley, 1964, p. 66).
40,9/10 Although some systemic social problems are raised, the primary factors addressed by this
report lie in individuals’ agency.
Assessments on the outcomes of the War on Poverty are decidedly mixed. Almond et al.
(2011) claimed that the Johnson administration’s expansion of the Food Stamp Program
helped improve birth outcomes among both White and African American mothers. They
showed that the Food Stamp Program improved “mean birth weight for both whites and
1112 blacks, with larger impacts estimated at the bottom of the birth weight distribution” (p. 402).
In other words, an expanded Food Stamp Program helped produce more equitable birth
outcomes. Other scholars emphasized the importance of community action in the War on
Poverty. Fox et al. (2015) argued that measurements of poverty have not been consistent in
the half-century since the War on Poverty was declared. Using a standardized measurement,
the authors conclude that the War on Poverty has made a substantial impact in reducing
poverty, more so than was previously believed (p. 589). Bauman (2007) argued that
community programs in Los Angles – established as a part of the War on Poverty – helped
foster community solidarity among communities of color. However, this outcome was not
uniform across the country. In Memphis, Tennessee, Murray (2015) highlighted the attacks
that local anti-poverty programs faced, particularly from local politicians in southern cities
because “urban antipoverty measures transgressed class and race boundaries and brought
empowerment to some African Americans” (p. 85). Although these cases highlight some of
the anti-poverty programs’ successes, the casus belli of the War on Poverty was
fundamentally flawed.
Backed by a dominant paradigm in psychiatric theory, the “deprivation hypothesis” is
ultimately harmful because it fails to address the root causes of systemic inequalities (Raz,
2013). Importantly, by adopting this framework, the Johnson administration helped
normalize the notion that something was fundamentally wrong with poor people. This
stigmatization of the poor, which is disproportionally represented by people of color, has had
long-standing consequences in how American society views economic disadvantage: first, by
associating poverty with individuals’ failure and second, by associating poverty with people
of color. As Hinton (2016) noted, “Social and welfare agencies increasingly referred to cultural
deficiencies in low-income black communities, rather than employment figures or other
economic indicators, in order to generate support for the [Johnson] administration’s self-help
programs” (Hinton, 2016, p. 78). Because Johnson framed his policy initiative as a “war” and
because the deprivation hypothesis was the central framework behind these initiatives, the
War on Poverty ultimately served to normalize the stigmatization of the urban poor. Along
with providing programs that attempted to cater to individuals’ perceived deficiencies, the
expansion of law enforcement was another important aspect of Johnson’s policy agenda. The
1960s also saw a notable increase in urban unrest. In the wake of this unrest, President
Johnson called for an end to the unrest by signing the Law Enforcement Assistance Act of
1965 into law. Johnson believed in a fundamental link between poverty and crime. In a 1966
statement, President Johnson said, as reported by the Los Angeles Times, “Strike poverty
down and much of crime will fall with it.” Johnson then linked these problems to the inner city,
“If we wish to rid of this country of crime, if we wish to stop hacking at its branches only, we
must cut its roots and drain its swampy breeding ground, the slum” (Averill, 1966, p. 3; as
cited in Hinton, 2016, p. 80). By linking crime and poverty with the minority neighborhoods in
the inner city, Johnson effectively weaponized his War on Poverty against minority
populations. Through the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA), federal
funds to local and state police departments steadily increased, especially under the Nixon
administration (Hinton, 2016, p. 94). The effectiveness of this deterrence-based approach –
increasing police presence to deter crime – has been disputed by criminologists (Kleck et al.,
2005; Kleck and Barnes, 2014).
 The Johnson administration’s War on Poverty was foundational in its use of metaphorical From
war to mobilize the population. In a time of social transformation, the War on Poverty metaphor to
attempted to address social inequalities presented by historical injustices – most notably, the
exclusion of people of color from accessing the benefits of government programs and
militarized
resources. However, the Johnson administration’s neoliberal approach placed significant response
weight upon the agency of individual actors and largely ignored systemic factors in the
implementation of its programs, opting to invest heavily in vocational and educational
opportunities, as well as expanding some welfare options. Although these efforts have had 1113
some positive effects in minority communities, the outcomes varied significantly by locality.
The War on Poverty marked a significant cultural shift insofar that it legitimized deprivation
theory and the culture of poverty argument, both of which serve as substantial cultural
barriers in implementing welfare reforms. In effect, the War on Poverty further weaponized
American culture against the poor. In conjunction, as the War on Poverty progressed greater
emphasis on criminality and delinquency. This focus on “law and order” following the
significant civil unrest of the late 1960s laid the groundwork for the Nixon administration’s
War on Crime, which eventually evolved into Nixon’s infamous War on Drugs.

From metaphor to all-out war in the War on Drugs

Amid the 1960s and early 1970s, one of the most geopolitically unstable and racially divisive
periods in modern history with the civil rights movement, global human rights protests,
voting rights, the sexual revolution, the Vietnam War and protests and assassinations of civic
leaders. It is within this context of cultural, political and social milieu, President Nixon
identified drug abuse as “public enemy number one in the United States” and issued a
declaration of a War on Drugs. This declaration in early 1971 prompted United States’ law
enforcement officials and the military to expand their authority to engage in the eradication of
illicit drugs. President Nixon invoked this imagery in a 1971 press conference, in which he
labeled drug abuse as “public enemy number one.” In that same speech, President Nixon
called on Congress to provide an additional $155 m in funds to “wage a new, all-out offensive”
on drug use (Barber, 2016). Following this speech, the Nixon administration established the
institutional framework to carry out the War on Drugs: the Office of Drug Abuse Law
Enforcement (ODALE) in 1972, the primary mechanism that enforced the federal
government’s War on Drugs. By 1973, he used his executive powers to consolidate several
other federal drug agencies to create the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) as a
comprehensively address all aspects of the War on Drugs. However, the metaphorical War on
Drugs was launched decades earlier and the ensuing increase in the prison–industrial
complex [1] has caused irreparable harm to thousands of communities across the USA and
the world. Entire regional and community economies are rooted in the building of private
for-profit prisons which contract with local and state governments with the expressed
purpose of the incarceration of thousands of people as a direct result of the War on Drugs.
As noted by Coyne and Hall (2017), “[t]he penalties for violating U.S. drug law extend
beyond prison, and the specter of past drug crimes can haunt individuals for years.
Approximately 50,000–60,000 students are denied financial aid every year due to past drug
convictions” (Lederman, 2005). The War on Drugs is expressed in many overt and subtle
ways including limited job, education and professional licensure opportunities.
Furthermore, Coyne and Hall (2017) maintained that many employers, both private and
public, will not hire individuals with prior drug offenses. Hence, the War on Drugs has a
more devastating individual and communal impact on minority and vulnerable groups
who get arrested for drug-related crimes. With the War on Drugs, also came the emergence
of a “prison industrial complex” (Marable, 2002) and a “mass imprisonment society”
(Garland, 2001) [2]. Blacks and Hispanics, for example, are much more likely than their
IJSSP White counterparts to be arrested for drug-related crimes and raided by police, even though
40,9/10 the groups use and sell drugs at similar rates (Alexander, 2013).
Evidence of the impact of war metaphors can be found in how the federal, state and local
authorities waged the War on Drugs. Evidence of the battles waged would be seen in the
forms of tougher new “three-strikes laws,” arrests, mass incarcerations and the
ever-increasing hold of the prison–industrial complex is part of the lives of many poor,
Hispanic and Black citizens. The predictable outcome of the War on Drugs is a rise in Black
1114 arrests and incarceration (Tonry, 1995). The War on Drugs has always disproportionately
affected minorities. Richard Nixon’s former domestic policy chief, John Ehrlichman
admitted that
The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar
left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we could not make it illegal to be
either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and
blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities.
We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after
night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did (cited in
Garza, 2016).
However, if society is willing to accept hypervigilant efforts to police communities and
the devastation of the lives of residents in low-income communities ravaged by efforts
to eradicate drugs as casualties of the war, then we must also be willing to accept as
places that serve as surreal zones of sacrifice in the war against drugs. As Susan Sontag
argued, “[w]ar-making is one of the few activities that people are not supposed to view
‘realistically;’ that is, with an eye to expense and practical outcome. In an all-out war,
expenditure is all out, imprudent – war being defined as an emergency in which no
sacrifice is excessive” (Sontag, 1989, p. 99). Thus, no personal, financial, or social sacrifice
is too great to ensure an ultimate victory in the war against drugs (Spencer, 2012,
p. 402). The enduring legacy of the War on Drugs can be easily summed up by John
Ehrlichman’s assertion that the War on Drugs was created to only criminalize Black and
Brown peoples. However, the metaphors and their ramifications fundamentally served to
disrupt minority communities and silence dissent of the anti-war movement for
generations to come, while fueling personal goals, political ambition and economic gain
for countless stakeholders.

Coronavirus disease 2019 war metaphor: everyday troops battling the

invisible enemy
Doctors are fighting [3] on the frontlines [4] without sufficient ammunition [5]. They are battling [6]
the enemy [7]. They are at war [8] [with no Ammo] (Wise, 2020).

From December 31, 2019, notification by Chinese health officials to the WHO about a
cluster of 41 patients with a mysterious pneumonia to the current state of the COVID-19
global pandemic, the ongoing pandemic disaster has caused global disruptions unlike any
in modern times. By February 19, 2020, the WHO announced the name of the new disease
as COVID-19; within two weeks of the WHO announcement, Iran, Italy and South Korea
reported cases of COVID-19. On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared COVID-19 a
global pandemic, and travel restrictions from Europe to the USA began. Before March
ended, New York became the viral case epicenter of the USA; the total number of deaths in
the USA surpasses the reported numbers of death from China, and over one-third of
humanity around the globe is reported to be under a stay-at-home order or mandatory
lockdown.
 Fashioned, framed and reframed, the metaphors used to describe the “war” on the novel From
coronavirus-19 (COVID-19) have been invoked against a rapidly spreading virus as an armed metaphor to
conflict against an enemy invading the USA. So complete is the use of the war metaphor for
the COVID-19 pandemic that the Defense Production Act, invoked on March 18, 2020, during
militarized
the Coronavirus Task Force in Press Briefing, is in effect to make military resources available response
as part of a mass mobilization in the efforts. During the press briefing, President Trump
stated, “We’ll be invoking the Defense Production Act, just in case we need it. [. . .] It’s
prepared to go.” United States military assists have been deployed throughout the country to 1115
aid in crisis mitigation efforts. Numerous states deployed National Guard units to aid with
logistics and rapid response to critical supply shortages (Ward, 2020). The United States
Navy deployed one of its two hospital ships – the USNS Comfort – to New York City,
allocating 500 of its 1,000 beds to COVID-19 patients (Ziezulweicz, 2020). Although not
unprecedented, the deployment of military assets domestically not only demonstrated early
on the severity of the rapidly developing crisis but also helped popularize and normalize the
“wartime” mindset in the USA.
The declaration of the War on COVID-19 occurred during a the time of record-setting
economic indicators (including lower unemployment in the USA, higher New York Stock
Exchange closing figures and the international trade negotiations); however, the social and
political climate of the nation after the first case of coronavirus became anxious, exhausted
and angry. This national anxiety, exhaustion, and anger was fueled by health-related
challenges from the virus, a severe economic downturn, localized food shortages, quarantines
and lockdowns all, racially charged civil unrest, and social unrest related to citizen’s rights.
While racial disparities in social justice and health equity did not begin with COVID-19, the
social, economic and health disparities experienced by African Americans who suffered
higher mortality rates attributed, in part, to COVID-19 were made more clear to all. Even
relatively early on in the outbreak, there was a significant racial divide in COVID-19 cases as
communities of color were disproportionately impacted (Cineas, 2020; Johnson and Buford,
2020). In an April 16 report, the New York City Department of Health (2020) published age-
adjusted statistics for nonhospitalized, nonfatal-hospitalized and fatal COVID-19 cases.
African Americans are hospitalized (271.7 per 100,000) at a significantly higher rate than their
White counterparts (114.5 per 100,000). The fatal cases are equally grim with African
Americans dying at a rate of 92.3 per 100,000 cases compared to 45.2 per 100,000 among the
White population. Other areas around the country do not fare better. Mortality rates in
Chicago show that African Americans are dying at six times the rate of White Americans
(Reyes, et al., 2020) and death statistics from Louisiana show that African-Americans make
up nearly half of the state's COVID-19 fatalities (Louisiana Department of Health, 2020). The
Centers for Disease Control report that there is increasing evidence that some racial and
ethnic minority groups are being disproportionately affected by COVID-19 (Stokes et al., 2020;
Killerby et al., 2020; Gold et al., 2020; Price-Haygood et al., 2020; Millet et al., 2020; Coronavirus
Disease 2019 (COVID-19), 2020). Inequities in the social determinants of health, such as
poverty and health-care access, affecting these groups are interrelated and influence a wide
range of health and quality-of-life outcomes and risks (U.S. Dept. of Health and Human
Services, 2020; Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), 2020). To achieve health equity,
barriers must be removed so that everyone has a fair opportunity to be as healthy as possible
(Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), 2020).
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed African American
man killed during an arrest in Minneapolis, the USA, by a White police officer, Derek Chauvin, led
to civil protests and efforts to defund the police. Officer Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck for nearly
eight minutes. Chauvin’s actions led to Floyd’s death and quickly ignited national and
international protests against police violence toward African Americans and other minorities.
The protests grew into a larger movement to dismantle systematic racism, xenophobia, economic
IJSSP and social discrimination and a series of other social justice problems such as police brutality and
40,9/10 health-care inequity during the time of the pandemic. With the pandemic’s hold deepening, racial
unrest occurring in communities and major cities (Philadelphia, Portland, New York, Atlanta and
Chicago) across the USA and the world and a presidential election looming, the need to fight and
stave off the “enemy” became more pressing.
Military imagery and cultural memory have been used to frame the coronavirus pandemic.
President Trump invoked the Second World War, an event that most Americans have not
1116 directly experienced; however, because of its cultural impact, it still resonates in the national
consciousness. As with the Second World War, the War on COVID-19 is complete with the
engagement of the expertise from academic researchers, science and medicine, public health,
industry, military and government, all collaborating in a massive effort with all of the
connotations of shared sacrifice and the absolute resolve to defeat the invisible enemy and claim
victory at any cost. President Trump described in detail the monumental efforts made in the
mobilization, “young people [teenagers] volunteered to fight” and “Workers refused to go home
and slept on the factory floors to keep the assembly lines going,” notably recalling examples on
both the “home front” and the “frontline.” He ultimately called for the “shared sacrifices for the
good of the nation,” proclaiming “And now is our time” (Trump, 2020a). Military imagery has
been extensively used in support of these mobilization efforts, especially those on the
“frontline.” President Trump continued, “And this afternoon, I’ll be meeting with nurses on the
frontlines of the battle against the virus. They are truly American heroes. [. . .] They’re very
brave. They’re taking a lot of risk[s].” These statements are complete with metaphorical imagery
of battlefields (otherwise known as hospitals and mobile testing centers) where doctors,
medical teams and nurses are depicted as heroic soldiers in the fight against the disease. On
April 28, the U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels and the U.S. Air force’s Thunderbirds demonstration
squadrons flew over New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia – areas particularly impacted
during the initial phases of the pandemic – as a self-described tribute to health-care workers
(Goldman, 2020), providing a type of “air support” against the COVID-19 crisis.
The “frontline” in the coronavirus pandemic is omnipresent; it surrounds nearly
everything. The “war” is not only fought in the halls of hospitals but every community, in
every store, with every interaction – it is a city-by-city, block-by-block and room-by-room fight.
This pandemic has made manifest a well-established theory within the sociology of medicine –
the social determinants of health, which Cockerham (2017) described as “social practices and
conditions, class positions, stressful circumstances, poverty, and discrimination, along with
economic, political, and religious factors affect the health of individuals, groups, or
communities, either positively or negatively” (p. 4). These social determinants were made
starkly manifest by the outbreak of COVID-19. Particularly, as states began issuing stay-at-
home directives, key distinctions were made between “essential” and “non-essential” workers.
Many “low-skill” service industry jobs were required to remain open – placing their workers at
heightened risk of exposure, creating a stark class divide in terms of social vulnerability to
COVID-19 (Smith and Judd, 2020). The pandemic has left millions of Americans filing for
unemployment, bringing the unemployment rate to 13% by some estimates (Long and Van
Dam, 2020). The notable lack of a rigorous social safety net was felt almost immediately.
Federal legislators rushed to pass the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES)
Act, which provided loans to small businesses, granted temporary relief to individuals and
allocates federal resources in response to the COVID-19 crisis. The meager appropriations
to individuals provided a $1,200 one-time payment to individuals who met income
requirements (Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, Sec. 6428).
As patience with unpopular modes of shared sacrifice including limited access to stores, social
distances, beach and park closures and nonessential business closures began to wane, protests
were held daily. Because of the complex nature of the “invisible enemy” and the overuse of
metaphor, many people grew concerned about what is safe and what is not safe in the midst of the
economic collapse around them. All the while, President Trump and members of his From
administration increased the usage of metaphors to explain complex structures of risk by metaphor to
reminding the public that we had not “flattened the curve” or “we begin to see the light at the end
of the tunnel” [9]. Just as elusive as the wars of poverty and drugs, there is no magic to overcome
militarized
the lasting impacts of the immediate or long-term societal impacts of the War on COVID-19. response

Conclusion: metaphors – crisis, disasters and pandemics yet to come 1117

The metaphor of war is purposely employed to construct a sense of building support for a
struggle against the enemy. The metaphor, situated at a time of social upheaval, is used to
bring stability and calm once an enemy is identified. However, the metaphors discussed in the
analysis offer insight into the oversimplification of personal risks as a shared sacrifice. The
simplification of vast sociopolitical problems makes them actionable. By framing social
problems using war imagery, nuanced and complex social problems are reduced to a simple
dichotomous conflict, in which the enemy must be destroyed. Equally important is the time
and cultural context in which the war metaphor is used. In the examples highlighted, the
presidents elevated their respective “enemies” as a way to garner support and shift the public
attention to an external threat while seeking to advance a policy or political agenda. The racial,
ethnic and xenophobic undertones of the War on Poverty, the War on Drugs and the War on
COVID-19, all refocused public attention on external threats in an attempt to draw attention
away from failed economic policies, health and health access problems, social inequities and
justice systems that continue to fail minorities. Recasting overt and latent social, economic and
political problems via metaphor produces a different set of issues and solutions that ignore the
foundations of the very social problems the “wars” seek to address. The use of the full force of
government on a singular facet of a vast social problem, without considering the social
implications, produces massive bureaucratic structures that, in turn, are the sources of new
social problems. These policies – particularly mass incarceration, the construction of a
surveillance state and the hypervigilant militarized enforcement of the law in minority
communities and the ever-increasing prison–industrial complex – have been demonstrated to
disproportionally affect minority communities within the USA, while also having broader
implications beyond American society. The COVID-19 pandemic, while still developing, has
the potential to fall in the same cycle of manufactured metaphorical “warfare,” where
neoliberal, policies are crafted similarly to the socially divisive wars on drugs and poverty.
Within their cultural contest, metaphors used by presidents to galvanize support and
oftentimes resentment against a segment of the population has allowed for the weaponization
of metaphor and the resulting policies to alter the entire trajectory of communities, namely,
Los Angeles, New Orleans or Chicago and the War on Drugs. In the case of the War on
Poverty, generations have benefited from some of its programs, while many have also
suffered under the stigma of the long-lasting impacts of failed programs and policies meant to
assist, that ultimately perpetuate generations in the cycle of poverty. In much the same way,
Klein (2007) maintained that the exploitation of national crises or in the case of our examples,
manufactured “wars” are used to establish policies, at a time when citizens are seeking
solutions. Most often, the citizens are too physically, emotionally or financially shocked to
comprehend, respond and resist the onslaught of ongoing assaults on their current civil
liberties, futures and the life of their communities due to policy actions. Just as our examples
illustrate, these presidentially declared “wars,” instituted at opportune times, within a specific
cultural context created more social inequality and distress leading to modern-day social
upheaval and civil unrest.
In this paper, we illustrated how noble causes to defeat the “enemy” – whether it is
poverty, drugs or COVID-19 – continue to come under scrutiny because of the
transgenerational impacts on the community’s overall well-being. No matter the time or
IJSSP the place, the discourse from public officials, wherein the enemy and the means of combating
40,9/10 said enemy, often lead to more harm than good, are rooted in systematic systems of authority
and oppression. To this end, an additional movement arose during the War on COVID-19 as a
way to seek redress for the past systems of oppression. The Black Lives Matter Movement
(BLM) ignited into a worldwide series of protests and presentation of grievances in the
aftermath of the death of George Floyd. In the USA, according to Elaine Godfrey of The
Atlantic, thousands of protesters took to the streets to demand justice for the killing of not
1118 only George Floyd but also for many others who have suffered. Godfrey (2020) noted that
protesters, from all over America, gathered in parks, streets, public buildings and a myriad of
places to let their voices be heard. While the movement has no official leadership, the goals of
each protest share similar themes. One factor the protests share is the need to address
systemic oppression, which was exacerbated by decades of metaphorical war.
The demonstrations are in the service of a constellation of hyperlocal and national
goals, from small, material targets like tearing down statues of racist men that literally
loom large over communities to a whole-scale reimagining of how law enforcement is
conducted in this country, including divesting from police departments and eliminating
special legal protections for officers. “The demands all come together to stop the war on black
people (emphasis added),” said YahN
e Ndgo, an organizer with BLM Philadelphia. “The
ultimate demand is the end to violence, to end the war against black life” (Godfrey, 2020;
emphasis added).
Calls for radical change offer hope to end the countless wars that are perpetrated on
minority lives, where the “battleground” for the metaphorical wars are often the streets of
minority neighborhoods and serves to collectively destroy the communities’ social fabric.
Just as the previous policy efforts used metaphorical warfare as a justification for
implementing and escalating policy initiatives, the beginnings of a similar escalation have
opened up various debates in the public consciousness. A few areas of contention include
means and method of economic reopening, the expansion of contact tracing measures as it
pertains to individuals’ privacy and liability and the continued electronic surveillance of
individuals’ medical information (including disease status, vital signs, COVID-related
symptoms, etc.) as an infringement of the right to privacy. The public and scholarly debate
over the effects and implications of these concerns opened up by the pandemic could serve as
starting points for future research.
The war metaphor strategy and language intentionally shape policy by defining
victory conditions. Thus, metaphor language catalyzes the policy agenda. It is a call to gather
a coalition of willing stakeholders to bravely execute the war with precision. War metaphor
language is strategic and vividly paints images of death; its metaphorical offshoots to
describe people, ideas, objects or events that influence the shaping of public perceptions that
have policy consequences. Although the call to action is tremendously effective, the means of
demobilization often remain unclear. The result is a series of seemingly endless wars that are
fought on multiple fronts. Both the War on Poverty and the War on Drugs were declared
decades ago and the prospect of peace seems distant. The COVID-19 pandemic could serve as
another impetus for a protracted conflict. When the virus reached American shores, war
metaphors immediately emerged as a salient mechanism for understanding the pandemic. In
response, extensive public health measures were taken by both the federal and state
governments; these measures were exacerbated and made manifest many social inequalities
endemic to American society, such as the implementation of “lockdown/ shelter in place”
policies which have placed those working “essential” or “frontline” jobs at greater risk of the
contracting the disease. Employees not deemed “essential” face pay cuts, unemployment or
other financial risks, which the United States’ limited welfare state is ill-equipped to handle.
Meanwhile, disaster capitalists – from pharmaceutical firms to technology companies – stand
to gain the most from increased demand and federal relief packages. Just as in the War on
Poverty and the War on Drugs, many intentionally enacted in the ongoing War on COVID-19 From
have the possibility of creating enduring systems of oppression. Although the COVID-19 metaphor to
situation is currently developing, the pervasive use of war metaphors demonstrates the
beginning of what could be long term, damaging social policy for socially vulnerable groups.
militarized
response
Notes
1. The prison–industrial complex describes the expansion of the incarcerated inmate population 1119
[especially in the aftermath of the War on Drugs] due to policies, such as the “get tough” laws, racial,
economic and ethnic disparities in sentencing policies and the political influence of private prison
companies and auxillary businesses that supply goods and services to the government, other prisons
and industry for profit (see: Harcourt, 2012; Cummings, 2012). For example, the California
Department of Corrections, under the auspices of The California Prison Industry Authority
(CALPIA), has over 30 corrections facilities that manufacture goods and provide industrial services.
California has a profitable state-regulated prison–industry partnership, known as California Prison
Industries (CALPIs), the inmates manufacture and sell a variety of goods and services (see the
website for its “Prison Industry Board, product catalogue, and more details https://www.calpia.ca.
gov/)”.
2. For more information see: Bobo, L., and Thompson, V. (2006). Unfair by Design: The War on Drugs,
Race, and the Legitimacy of the Criminal Justice System. Social Research, 73 (2), 445–472.
3. Yang, M. (2020). Letters to the Editor: A doctor fighting COVID-19 without a mask is like a soldier
fighting without a gun. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-03-24/doctors-nurses-
coronavirus-protection-masks
4. Bair, Robert P. (2020). How Doctors on the Front Lines Are Confronting the Uncertainties of COVID-
19 https://www.newyorker.com/science/medical-dispatch/how-doctors-on-the-front-lines-are-
confronting-the-uncertainties-of-covid-19
5. Jacobs, A., Richtel, M., & Baker, M. (2020, March 19).’At War With No Ammo’: Doctors Say Shortage
of Protective Gear is Dire. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/19/health/
coronavirus-masks-shortage.html
6. Raphael, Therese. (2020). Hospitals Are Losing the Coronavirus Battle. https://www.bloomberg.com/
opinion/articles/2020-04-03/coronavirus-doctors-don-t-have-what-they-need-to-stay-safe.
7. Gross, Terry. (2020). ’War Doctor’ Says Treating COVID-19 Is Like Fighting An Invisible Enemy.
Fresh Air. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/04/02/824703205/war-doctor-says-
treating-covid-19-is-like-fighting-an-invisible-enemy.
8. Jacobs, A., Richtel, M., & Baker, M. (2020, March 19).’At War With No Ammo’: Doctors Say Shortage
of Protective Gear is Dire. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/19/health/
coronavirus-masks-shortage.html
9. In the Remarks by President Trump, Vice President Pence, and Members of Coronavirus Task Force
in a Press Briefing on March 24, 2020, President Trump remarked: And I’m very proud to be your
President – I can tell you that. There’s tremendous hope as we look forward and we begin to see the
light at the end of the tunnel.

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Further reading
Drug Policy Alliance (2016), “Drug war statistics”, available at: http://www.drugpolicy.org/drug-war-
statistics.
IJSSP Drug War Facts (2016), “Crime, arrests, and US law enforcement”, available at: http://www.
drugwarfacts.org/cms/Crime#sthash.YB72ynK2.uGixeEd5.dpbs.
40,9/10
Nixon, R. (1971), Transcript of Richard Nixon’s War on Drugs Speech on June 17, 1971, available at:
http://media.avvosites.com/upload/sites/396/2019/07/Transcript-of-Richard-Nixon%E2%80%
99s-War-on-Drugs-Speech-on-June-17-1971-Google-Docs.pdf.

1124 Corresponding author

DeMond Shondell Miller can be contacted at: millerd@rowan.edu

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