Yesterday's post:
"a welcome change from trying to predict whether Donald Trump's antics are helping his re-election chances."
Herb Rothschild, comment on yesterday's post
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| Twitter commentary |
I am back at it. There is so much material.
Trump doing something so improbable and ridiculous it requires explanation. Surely this time he has gone too far.
Yesterday the president of the United States suggested injecting disinfectants into a COVID-19 patient. Alternatively, he said, maybe we could just shine light on a patient, maybe ultraviolet light, and that would be a quick cure. Disinfectant "knocks it out in a minute, one minute."
Democrats are having fun with this. It is an archetypal Trump experience. Trump is rambling, moving on from pitching hydroxychloroquine to suggesting other potential quick fixes. He heard scientists say sunlight and bleach kills viruses on metal playground equipment. He needed to chime in. Maybe we could just drink some, he suggested. Or inject it. The professional people around him attempt a steely face respectful silence as they hear him put this out there.
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| Click: Dr. Birx reaction to Trump. 50 secs. |
Her face is eloquent, yet another example of the brutal honesty of body language. Watch and listen. There is no question what she is thinking. It's irresponsible, dangerous quackery by Trump. Will people people start sipping bleach? One can read her face, thinking, "When will he stop. What a mess to clean up."
Surely this must be bad politics for Trump, another devastating nail in his political coffin.
I think not.
One simple trick. Americans did not invent the idea that there is some marvelous and powerful outside force that sweeps in to resolve a story or situation, the deus ex machina. Humans believe in miracles. Quarterbacks throw a "Hail Mary." Cartoon Superman and Mighty Mouse sweep in to save the day. I get a popup ad every single day telling me "You can cure your toenail fungus with this one simple trick."
This morning the Huffington Post--which leads with the featured article mocking Trump for his dangerous simplistic solution--has two stories just below the lead, one saying that stretching is the simple answer to your virus stress and anxiety, and another recommending deep breathing as the simple solution to lung congestion from COVID-19. Simple.
Americans learned an implicit lesson coming out World War Two and the next decade: firepower and invention. Somewhere there is a scientist with the answer, be it an atomic bomb or a vaccine. It might be right under our noses.
Trump lacks the eloquence of Franklin Roosevelt, but each have the same message of hope and persistence. FDR: "The country needs, and unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all try something."
Democrats see a dangerous blithering idiot. Dr. Birx sees a problem to sweep up. But a great many Americans will see a president open to anything, maybe grasping at straws but if straws are all there are, then, sure, grasp at them. They see an optimist, impatient to get back to normal, someone wanting to look under every rock. We may already have invented the solution, and what with all the already-approved medicines out there, surely one of them does something. Or bleach.
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| Answer: Yes. |
Trump looks ridiculous, but he looks ridiculous trying to get people healthy and back to work. The fact that Democrats are making a fuss over it will make sure that Trump's suggested experiments will be noticed.
Net-net, this is probably good for Trump.
Net-net, this is probably good for Trump.
6 comments:
What's next? Leeches?
There is something 19th century about hearing Trump talk about science, and brings to mind the image of a snake oil salesman hawking a patent medicine from the back of his wagon. The problem is that there is a grain of fact, albeit tiny, in the assertion that UV light could be a treatment. Some experiments have been made and maybe, some day, a form of UV light might have some benefit. So one can make an irresponsible claim and appear knowledgeable and those who take it on face value give it credit.
"What have you got to lose?"
Any reasonably educated person knows Trump is not credible on this or any other topic, but with FOX and other enablers the facts do not reach everyone. You are right that Democrats can overplay their response. They are always playing catch up with the latest whopper when the real task is to discredit the source; much more difficult. It might be smarter to ignore the lies because debating them just muddies the water and distracts from the very real incompetence on display.
Fauci and Birks should resign. I suspect they are considering the possibility they can do more good away from the circus, where they are giving undeserved credibility to a politicized response.
"Propaganda should be popular, not intellectually pleasing. It is not the task of propaganda to discover intellectual truths.”
― Joseph Goebbels
"Where's the beef?" Clara Peller (American character actress who, at the age of 81, starred in the 1984 advertising campaign for the Wendy's fast food)
Trump is the master of serving "red meat" to his base. The "drink bleach" message is a middle finger to the meritocracy that rewards intellectuals/experts and logic, rational thinkers who most liberals believe we should all worship...the same experts who were used by liberal elites to bolster the neoliberal project. "Use your common sense, your own individual creativity, Trump is saying; it's every man/woman for him/herself...trust in the common man...very Jeffersonian and Jacksonian, too. Most liberals I know arrogantly assume their reality is THE reality; but it is a reality that has been intentionally manufactured for them.
Andy Seles
Bob Dylan's lyrics often didn't make a whole lot of cognitive sense. But they made a deeper kind of sense, expressing things that couldn't be articulated explicitly.
I think that Trump is like that. At the cognitive level, Trump often makes no sense. This is apparently not a bug but a feature. It functions like the red laser dot that cats chase around, but in this case it's the liberal media and left-wing intellectuals chasing it. "Look at the latest stupid thing he said," they cry, wasting time and mental energy that could be put to better use.
Meanwhile Trump's deeper meaning comes across to both his supporters and to those of us who don't necessarily support him but empathize with the "deplorables" and harbor extreme dislike "woke culture and those who spread it.
Trump trolls them, and he does it well. It seems that they can't help themselves; they rise to the bait every time. They have no idea what he's actually doing or how futile and weak their denunciations look.
Because something is happening here but you don't know what it is,
Do you, Mr. Jones?
-- Bob Dylan, Ballad of a Thin Man
Very interesting post. First time I've heard someone ascribe to him that he's actually trying to help. Might be wrong, but he's open to ideas. I do wish you'd made more clear that he did not once suggest that anyone should drink bleach or light. He was asking if there were a possibility of being able to tackle the virus by "somehow" introducing (or injecting) a disinfectant or UV rays into the body. This is not crazy and is a possibility. I want my president to ask questions. Instead he is deliberately misinterpreted and mocked by the media for what they know he didn't say. Sad state of journalism.
I refuse to watch the 5:00 Follies. Had enough of that in Vietnam. If Dr. Birx, and Dr. Fauci really, truly valued their credibility, and dedication to their work, they would resign, and go to work to discredit the flammable being issed by IMPOTUS 45, on a daily basis. For that matter, if any of the MSM reporters at those monitors Nuremburg rallies had the courage of their convictions, they wouldn't be there.
I agree, Peter, his "base" is going to eat this up, and I shall not be surprised to read about some poor dupe diluting a glass of Clorox before drinking it. IMHO, that's Darwinism at work, but it still shouldn't happen. I have no idea what a real solution is, except I really hope Joe Biden gets a great VP Candidate, because if we do replace IMPOTUS 45 in November, the new crew is going to be faced with a near overwhelming task. Won't be solved in my lifetime, if ever.
Rather than scoff at the president's sophmoric ideas on how to best combat the Corona virus Democrats would be better served by insisting on the establishment of a panel of impartial medical experts to evaluate the efficacy of each "Trump quick fix". Only when the Donald's desperate half-baked ideas are exposed as not only ineffectual but potentially capable of doing great harm will his ignorance on this matter (as well as anything and everything else he espouses) be fully exposed. Remember, (however painful the thought may be) this is our president speaking. He doesn't need some stupid doctor of medicine telling him that by offering his ideas on dealing with this pandemic he sounds like a medicine show quack, exposing himself as a fount of total ignnarance. Which of course we already knew.
Bob Warren
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