"This too shall pass, as all things will.
If the virus don't kill us, the stay-at-home will."
Dolly Parton, quoted on Fox and Friends, Friday morning.
Donald Trump tweeted, "The Wall Street Journal 'forgets' to mention that the ratings for the White House Press Briefings are 'through the roof'."
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| How big a problem could it be????? |
Trump knows what he is doing here.
Trump was responding to the Wall Street Journal editorial admonishing him that his daily virus briefings had gone astray. Trump has been using them to replace mass rallies. They have become the Trump show, dominated by banter with the media, score settling, and off the cuff promotion of his efforts to conquer the virus and make the America great again.
The briefings are primary source material. They are theater, body language with a simple message.
Trump presents himself as the commanding general, stage managing and controlling Mike Pence and the epidemiologists and medical people. Trump comes off as a swaggerer and bullshitter next to the buttoned up Pence and the knowledgeable medical experts. The dishonesty and exaggeration, and replacement of fact with aspiration, is understood by Trump's critics to be a negative. They are wrong.
This is an unmistakable display of one big thing, what side Trump is on: he wants America to go back to work. He openly exaggerates and makes aspirational claims about drugs and vaccines and equipment. He does it to overpower and show his disdain for the experts, the nervous-Nellies, and pessimists. Too soon to go back to work? Darn right. Unproven drug? Sure. Too impatient? Yes.
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| Exciting new treatment |
In a one hour period Friday morning, viewers heard Dolly Parton and observed the following guests:
HHS Secretary Ben Carson: "About 98% of all the people who get it, they're going to do quite well. We need to start talking that up, and not how we are going to be harmed. . . . We can't operate out of hysteria."
Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia: "We had a blue collar boom. Now we want a blue collar bounce-back."
Dr. Mehmet Oz: Hydroxychloroquine. . . 92% had superb outcomes. . . very few side effects."
VP Mike Pence: "It's working, America."
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| Victory is near |
This isn't as much about the illness as it is the economy. Trump can manage the virus death: blame China. He is now working to avoid blame for doing too little to end the coming recession.
There will be controversy over the pace of ending distancing. Stores and restaurants will ask to re-open. People will try work-arounds and be criticized for it. Experts will disagree. Governors will propose different timetables.
There will be critics sounding the alarm of "too soon, too soon." Trump is already where he wants to be, at the very, very front position, getting criticized for saying "the sooner the better." There will be no room on the other side, inevitably positioning Democrats and Joe Biden as nay-sayers in comparison.
It is what Trump wants: Energetic Trump vs. Sleepy Joe.
1 comment:
In 2018 the volcano on Hawaii erupted and lava began flowing across the land. It moved a few feet every day, some days faster, some slower. If one were in the path you could watch it coming inexorably towards your house. We are in the same situation; the plague is moving through the population at its own pace.
What FOX and the Republicans are doing is making statements based on where the "lava" is today.
Nobody knows where it's going.
Optimism is a virtue, but what they are doing is a blowing smoke at people so if it's even slightly less of a catastrophe they can take credit. It's a tactic that works on those with short memories and a predilection for for fantasy. Trump's credibility, and that of everyone around him, which unfortunately includes Dr. Fauci, evaporated at "This will disappear like magic". If anyone believes a word of what's being said at the daily MAGA rallies they don't deserve much sympathy for the consequences.
The US is falling ill at a higher rate than any other country, and so far there is no sign of a slowdown, despite the happy talk. At this rate we will have half a million infected by Easter, as if the virus observes religious holidays. No doubt thousands will flaunt quarantine to worship.
Meanwhile the lava flows...
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