"I want them to be appreciative. You know what I say? If they don't treat you right, I don't call."
Trump, Press Briefing, March 27, 2020
Quid Pro Quo. He says it aloud.
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| Mike Pence is nice. Not me. |
It backfires. People don't like being bullied on medical equipment.
There are stories circulating about which states and hospitals secured the medical equipment they needed and which did not. Governors of both parties complain. There were scarce goods--masks and ventilators. It was a mess. Everyone was shorted, some more than others.
We can leave aside for a moment the question of why they were scarce, whether the federal government dithered, how much blame is Trump's, how much China's, how much WHO's, how much the market system. Those questions would be the diversion questions, safe ground for Trump.
In the here and now, the question was allocation. There are shortages. State governors were getting panicked calls from health workers. They are in competition with each other and the federal government then outbid states for it. Jared Kushner said that equipment was the federal governments' not the states.
Who is daddy's favorite?
Trump thinks deals are the way of the world. He is comfortable with them. He is OK with quid pro quo.
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| Click: It's our stockpile, not the states'" |
Two days ago he made a boastful tweet. The Denver Post, in a scathing editorial, describes the situation. "Trump had only days before prevented Colorado Gov. Jared Polis from securing 500 ventilators from a private company, instead, taking the ventilators for the federal government. Polis sent a formal letter pleading for medical equipment, but the president took the time to make clear he was responding to a request from Gardner. We are left to believe that if Colorado didn’t have a Republican senator in office, our state would not be getting these 100 ventilators."
The Denver Post called it "disgusting."
The Denver Post called it "disgusting."
Senator Gardner is a Republican up for re-election in a tough race against former Governor Hickenlooper. Trump's behavior is on-brand: Trump has power and he uses it to reward his friends. Cory Gardner asked nicely and Trump came through for him.
That is pure Trump. He portrayed the dominant, decisive, sometimes cruel executive on TV, the guy who says "You're fired!" to the losers. He developed that role as a candidate, portraying himself as the defender of America against interloper immigrants, sponging Europeans, and cheating trading partners. That is the role he now plays as president. He fights for his team of true blue Americans.
Trump displays openly that he punishes the disloyal, including top administration officials. Democrats and good-government media observers complain that Trump is breaking norms and abusing his power. Their complaints are a feature. Democrats and the media are enemies. Let them cry.
But there is a problem in the land of quid pro quo. Trump plays favorites with medical equipment. There are stories circulating that Jared Kushner directed material to a New York hospital, because a friend asked. Another story is that swing state Florida got prompt delivery because a Republican governor asked. California says it is disfavored and locked out.
This isn't just trolling enemies, sort of partisan fun, this goes too far. Even people inclined to think that New York and California are liberal hotbeds and deserve whatever ill fortune they get, have a sense that killing old people there is wrong. Besides, young and old, everyone in America wants to believe that hospitals are open and supplied. That is the safety net.
The governor of Michigan complains that she is shorted. Trump, on video, insults her and says she isn't grateful enough. People in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and Arizona and North Carolina have to wonder. Are they next? This idea is getting around.
These are bad optics for Trump, especially against Biden. Biden's core brand is empathetic decency. Biden would not play favorites with ventilators; Trump would. People understand that.
The 2020 election will be a referendum on Trump. Pundits have been surprised by how comfortable Americans have shown themselves to be with a strong executive. Trump will inevitably look strong in comparison with Biden. The trouble with playing favorites on medical supplies is that he looks abusive and vindictive and untrustworthy with that strength. He directs it against people who don't kiss his ring.
And he is doing it about hospital equipment. This just doesn't feel right. This will hurt him.
1 comment:
I Learned Most of This from UpClose with Peter Sage
American voters could care less about the reports of political patronage in the pandemic response you report on today. Instead, as you recently said, what they care about is whether anyone they know personally has been hospitalized or died. While 21% in the FoxNews poll said they "knew" an infected person, that is actually "know of" an infected person. Where less than 1/100th of one percent of the population has been hospitalized it is statistically impossible that 21% of the population knew one of them. Regardless, the test for Trump getting hurt won't even be if you know a hospitalized person-- it will be do you know someone who could not get a hospital bed or a respirator. The answer from 99.999% of the electorate will be "no".
Trump not only learned from Bush's skewering during Katrina, he has already perfected the politically potent response twice when he fended off and then decimated his critics over partisan treatment of FEMA aid to Puerto Rico (Hurricane Maria) and Texas (Hurricane Harvey). From all my reading of this daily blog, it is clear that Trump has perfected the following five rules for the handling of pandemic optics:
(1) Delegitimize the press by emphasizing examples of "fake news". Credible Covid-19 coverage was long ago swamped by its own sensationalism, none worse than Governor Cuomo claiming NY needed 140,000 new hospital beds when only 18,500 were, (see NYT Apr 10, 2020 "New York Coronavirus Hospitals Update", shorturl.at/mqsPS), and demanding Trump send him 30,000 ventilators but hospitals later said all the one they found plus the 3,000 donated by other states (including Oregon and Washington) were enough. Add to this the Pro Publica report that New York sold off its entire pandemic ventilator reserve in 2016. (See, Apr 6, 2020 "How New York City’s Emergency Ventilator Stockpile Ended Up on the Auction Block", shorturl.at/xIJL6).
(2)Take personal control of the federal government's pandemic narrative with daily presidential briefings. This has prevented different agencies from contradicting or attacking each other, which in turn muted out perhaps the most critical media reporting efforts. This leaves only governors and Congress to go after Trump, which is the very definition of partisan attack, allowing him to dismiss it.
(3)Reposition the debate from the pandemic itself to Trump's daily and high viewership press briefings. Every story about a nursing home, minority neighborhood, testing kits, masks or ventilators is rendered anecdotal, and therefore debatable. Questions about macro-data are filtered through the White House press corp where reporters like CNN Jim Acosta get used then delegitimized in spats with Trump. This winning strategy should sound familiar. It is how Trump defeated impeachment and the Mueller probe.
(4) Keep your friends close and your enemies even closer. Whether it is the experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci or Surgeon General Jerome Adams, they were potential enemies because they might contradict or even turn against Trump. But Trump puts them all in the same room every day and puppet masters them to speak on cue, such that if they later give a contradictory press account their credibility and careers are ruined.
(5) Highlight pandemic successes as patriotism and vociferously attack those who try to focus on pandemic failures. Trump calls them critics who "pray the pandemic gets worse so they can be proven right", or reporters who in time of American crisis think only of sensational attacks.
The result, despite virtually non-stop bitterly negative coverage of Trump's pandemic response, he has actually ticked up a point or two in the polls. Trump may not manage a pandemic well, but he has mastered pandemic perception.
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