"Yeah, no, I don't take responsibility at all."
Donald Trump, at news conference
Asked about having fired the pandemic response team:
Asked about having fired the pandemic response team:
"Well, I just think it's a nasty question, because what we've done is--and Tony has said numerous times that we've saved thousands of lives because of the quick closing. And when you say 'me', I didn't do it. We have a group of people. . . it's the administration. Perhaps they do that. People let people go."
The virus problem isn't about messaging. It is about governing.
He linked his fortunes to notion that the virus was a foreign invasion, dealt with by exclusion, not infection tracking in-country. He said the virus was no big deal, and people who had it should go to work and carry on as normal. It was just the flu, he said, and the economy is strong and the stock market is hitting new highs.
He showed his hand. He did it on camera and his media allies amplified the message. He was managing the numbers of the disease in the US. He had a story to keep intact, that everything was great in America. He didn't want the Americans on a cruise ship to get off in San Francisco because they would add to the disease numbers. He didn't want testing because it would document the spread.
Good numbers, good country. The policy was hide, deny, and hope.
Few Americans are experiencing the disease so far, but everyone is experiencing the disruptions and cancellations caused by "social distancing," the effort to slow the disease spread. There are school closures, event closures, workplace changes, retirement homes on lockdown.
Good numbers, good country. The policy was hide, deny, and hope.
Few Americans are experiencing the disease so far, but everyone is experiencing the disruptions and cancellations caused by "social distancing," the effort to slow the disease spread. There are school closures, event closures, workplace changes, retirement homes on lockdown.
Trump may get lucky. It is possible that we will look back at the epidemic and conclude there was minimal spread, no more American deaths than from any other seasonal flu, and that it really was, in fact, much ado about little. Possibly, in fact, as Trump predicted, warm weather in April will suppress the virus and by fall the vaccine that Trump says is imminent--and which experts say is a year or more away--will in fact be ready. Sometimes good things happen. Trump would call this another iteration of Democrats and the media saying Trump colluded with the Russians and extorted Ukraine, incidents that show Trump can weather any problem and that Democrats are ineffectual. Trump gambled that that will be the case.
Events on the ground interfere. The "Democratic hoax" turned into a "National Emergency."
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| Click: Just a Democratic scam |
Democrats and Republicans see different news and are responding to the epidemic differently. According to a Quinnipiac poll Democrats think the virus is a problem but six of ten Republicans consider it no big deal. Click
Fox News hosts needed to transition quickly from "Democratic health hoax" to the reality of a stock market crash, widespread fear, and Trump changing course. Some did not survive the whiplash. Trish Reagan on the Fox Business Network was late to getting off the Democratic hoax story and ranted that it was all a scam. She has been abruptly taken off the air.
This is not easy for Trump. The virus and stock market contradict the big story that Trump is keeping America prosperous and safe. Trump defines the virus as a foreign invasion, a "Chinese virus." Unfortunately for Trump the problem now is "community spread." It is here, but Americans did not use the six week head start from China to develop internal testing capability. Testing would have documented the disease. No numbers, no problem. Now his confident assurances to reporters that anyone who needs testing gets testing sets an expectation contradicted by reality. There is minimal testing available in the US. Trump looks inept and dishonest.
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| The spreading Democratic story. |
Trump is extraordinarily adept at recasting problems and pivoting to accusations. He said Thursday that it was really all Obama's fault. This may work and he may get through this just fine, even if we are in both recession and epidemic lockdown. Still, events on the ground give Democrats an opportunity.
Trump gambled that he could cheerlead America into believing the economy was strong and the epidemic was trivial, and that he had numbers to prove it.
The numbers are coming in, and they aren't good.
2 comments:
The Bernie Bros are vowing revenge.
As the presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders continues to crash and burn, the socialist’s most hard-core supporters are vowing they will never vote for Joe Biden at the ballot box — even if that means handing Trump a second term.
“We will never – NEVER boost or support Joe Biden or defend his abysmal record and terrible policy positions,” Henry Williams, executive director of The Gravel Institute, told The Post. “We will tell people, as we always have, to vote their conscience and to make decisions based on the interests of all the world’s oppressed people … I do expect a massive exodus from the Democratic Party.”
Williams, along with David Oks and Henry Magowan, are the driving forces behind the brief presidential campaign of Mike Gravel, an 89-year-old former Alaska senator who left the race in August. The trio then became enthusiastic Bernie Bros.
“I don’t know if I could vote for Biden,” said a high-profile local Democratic Socialist. “Biden is just an old white guy who inspires nobody. I sincerely think he will lose the electoral and popular vote and I know I won’t be voting for him in New York.”
The grumbling from Sanders die-hards is no idle threat. A whopping 12% of them voted for Trump in 2016, according to an analysis by Cooperative Congressional Election Study. That added up to roughly 216,000 voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, exit polls showed. Trump’s combined margin of victory in those states was 77,744.
An untold number of additional Sanders fans almost certainly stayed home or voted third party in 2016 in an election plagued by low turnout on both sides. Green Party candidate Jill Stein earned more votes in each rust-belt battleground than the margin separating Trump from Hillary Clinton. One of those Jill Stein voters was Briahna Joy Gray — Sanders’ current campaign spokesperson.
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Bernie Sanders refuses to drop out
Other Bernie Bros are attempting to split the difference, urging comrades to bolt from Biden in safe states, but hold their nose and pull the lever for him in the swings.
“I have seen a whole lot of people who live in Wisconsin or live in a state like Pennsylvania who feel very obligated to vote for whoever the [Democratic] nominee is because they’re just thinking it’s a zero sum game,” Sam Finkelstein, a law student at Seton Hall University and ferocious Twitter Bernie Bro told The Post.
An aide to Biden insisted that his strength with other demographics would more than offset renegade Bros, but told the Post they recognized the challenge and were prepared for outreach.
“It is going to be our job to bring the party together and reach out to everyone and create a united front,” the aide said.
After sweeping to victories in the early states, many believed Sanders was on a glide path to the Democratic nomination. The momentum was halted by Biden after a crushing victory in South Carolina and strong showings on Super Tuesday. Former establishment rivals like Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg and Mike Bloomberg quickly consolidated around the former vice president. Now, far behind in the delegate math, it’s Sanders who finds his campaign on life-support.
Though party bosses have been agonizing over how to nudge the 78-year-old socialist out of the race, his cheerleaders say the senator should fight on — at least through Sunday’s debate and another round of voting Tuesday — and potentially even further. In 2016, Sanders soldiered into June and only endorsed Hillary Clinton in July, inhibiting her consolidation of the party.
“I think staying in the race is the responsible thing to do,” Bhaskar Sunkara, founder and editor of the socialist magazine Jacobin told The Post. “He needs to challenge Biden on certain aspects of his rhetoric. He needs to accumulate clout and delegates to shape the Democratic platform and pressure the Biden campaign into adopting a more popular economic platform.”
Sunkara says he too has no plans to vote for Biden.
The fat cats never miss an opportunity to make their favorite lemonade out of lemons. Any devastation of the commons is an opportunity to make a few bucks. Look at all the corporate bosses who surrounded Trump at his recent news conference...private sector exclusively to the rescue! In Trump World any problem can be answered by the MARKET. We don't really have to think about anything or do anything...just let competition solve the problem. That is the essence of disaster capitalism. If a few folks die along the way it's a win-win for the healthy, wealthy Scrooges as it will "decrease the surplus population." Funny how so many ears are now straining to hear "the seven words we don't want to hear" (Reagan).
Andy Seles
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