Trump knew early enough. He knew how it was spread. He knew the fatality rate pretty accurately and he knew it was much more deadly than the flu.
That right there should be enough to scuttle his presidency forever. Because not only did he know that the “deadlier than flu” virus was spread by airborne droplets, he made a big effing deal about not wearing a mask being a sign of FREEDOM!! And even MORE stupidly, he used the high number of infections in densely populated states like NY, NJ, CA, MI, etc, as an opportunity to pin the coronavirus catastrophe on the Blue State heavy handed, draconian, callous disregard for the rights of working people.
There’s a degree of stupidity laced with venality here that is absolutely gobstopping. I always assumed that he was briefed in January but I didn’t think he really understood the seriousness and that’s why he was acting the way he did, you know, as a total incompetent.
But the truth is worse. He knew AND he understood how serious it was. He knew it was airborne AND he still made a big f]{#ing deal about not wearing a mask so that his followers, taking his lead, truly thought that the virus wasn’t that serious. He knew it was deadlier than the flu but he allowed Democratic governors and mayors take the fall for having to lockdown the states. He knew that many people would die but he refused to offer federal assistance with PPE and contact tracing.
What should put the nail in his presidential re-election coffin is this:
HE CALLED COVID A DEMOCRAT HOAX.
Lather, rinse, repeat. Hoax, hoax, HOAX.
And now we have proof that he knew it wasn’t a hoax and that people of good faith everywhere were trying against the odds to put together a response in the absence of federal assistance with duct tape and chewing gum. Or garbage bags and bandannas. Think of all the nurses and doctors who gave their lives so that Trump could run around calling the science community liars and fear mongers.
It’s unforgivable.
And yet, it’s not all his fault.
Americans have to take some of the blame for this for letting their guard down with some media outlets who told them not to trust the experts.
They have to blame themselves for not learning to consume news in a consensus format from many different sources.
They need to be kicked in the head for blaming the Chinese for this catastrophe when the Chinese were perfectly open about having to completely shutdown a city of 11 million people – for weeks – to get the contagion under control. No one needed a specific set of instructions from Beijing to get America’s ass in gear and it’s just as unforgivable that so many of Trump’s base were so ill-informed, conditioned and incurious that they managed not to think their way into a realization that we were going to be totally hosed by this virus if we weren’t proactive.
Meanwhile, the economy is wrecked, 60% of restaurants aren’t coming back, layoffs are becoming permanent, small businesses are going under, children are losing a year of school, some kids are going to bed hungry, in homeless shelters. And we Americans are effectively in prison because there is almost no country in the world that will allow us to travel to them.
No, they took it out on those of us who looked through the confusion, listened to the experts and took action to protect ourselves and others. They stormed the statehouse in Michigan with their army surplus gear and semi-automatic rifles. They screamed and threw fits in grocery stores and spit on essential workers. And the rest of us were expected to bear with it patiently, reason with them gently, put up with their bombastic whining indefinitely.
Oh, I’m sure the base will yawn and excuse him and say no one else could have done a better job when the world is literally full of leaders who actually did a better job. They are saying that the greatest country in the world, their pride and joy, couldn’t find one person better than Trump to do as good a job as the leader of Vietnam? Seriously?? That’s what you want to run with? After you now know that he put everyone’s life in danger and lied to everyone – repeatedly??
But you know what? I don’t want to hear another peep out of any MAGA head who thinks making him (or her)wear a mask is tantamount to depriving him of his American citizenship. You’re going to have to do better than that. But don’t bother. Relationships have been tested, livelihoods and lives lost, vacations ruined. It’s all better left unsaid.
Zip it. Zip it good.
Filed under: General |
The Confluence 
Premeditated murder?
Yes, he knew. We knew he knew. He isn’t stupid. He is a murderer. So many people knew. Navarro knew, Woodward knew he knew, Birx knew. So many were silent and complicit. He was/is surrounded by those in the know. What matters now is the hope that these tapes somehow convince a few of what we already know. And then, after January comes and a new regime is in, we pray, we start investigating crimes against humanity. We must be careful not to tell him up front, or the jerk head may unleash even more locusts.
No president in our history could have gotten past this. This is far worse than Teapot Dome and Watergate. So if the Constitution and our democratic system stand for anything, Trump has to be gone immediately. But of course he won’t, not before the election, at least. Which is awful enough in itself. But in an optimistic vein, maybe people can vote out most of the Republicans, the party which voted for conviction and removal of President Clinton, for lying about a consensual sexual relationship with an adult; and which certainly would have impeached and voted for removal of President Hillary Clinton within her first three months in office, and probably have done it multiple times, with the media wringing their hands about how maybe she should resign even though she may have done nothing wrong, because the optics are just not good.
It is a bitterly perverse conception that if Trump gets re-elected after it is revealed on tape that he knew the virus was very deadly, and tried to hide it, we don’t have a country left in anything more than name. So we’ll find out where we are, and how many people are left who are still capable of responding to actual facts. Fortunately, the election is only two months away, and this is our chance to alter course. Our last chance, all things literally considered. And they absolutely need to flip the Senate. And the Biden campaign and the DNC need to stress this over and over, because we need the most far-reaching victory possible, or we will just get another Obama Administration, in which the Republicans have so much legislative and state power, that they could render it mostly ineffective, while they waited to take over everything in the next election.
And it is academic now, but I would so much have wanted Gretchen Whitmer to have been the VP candidate right now, as she was the governor who stood up to Trump and his militia mob, and who held firm with shutdowns, because her goal was to follow science and save lives, and that would have made for an enormously compelling narrative, not only for this election, but going forward.
I will settle for A Biden win with bare majorities in the House and Senate, as long as Biden doesn’t start putting Republicans into the government. As much as all of today’s news is (at least in my mind) proof that the Reagan Rot has been fully digested by the base, I am still not certain that Biden gets it. Our governments (state and local) all need to be purged of these tainted Republicans, but to start we need to clean up the mess in the Federal government.
Well , Orange Me WAS elected to bankrupt America .