This is what a man of poor character can do to the USA by becoming its above-the-law chief executive. A nation on the verge of the ravages of a pandemic and an economy on the verge of a recession.
Something about testing for COVID-19 has been (for some strange reason) IMPOSSIBLE for T rump to get going. I think it is that testing would reveal facts. I think T rump obsessively opposes the revelation of facts that he cannot control. He wants only his version of reality, not any exposed by pesky facts.
Whatever the reason, however, for not doing testing, for lying about the availability of testing. It is clear that if it is to be done, it is only going to be done by people working around T rump’s efforts to delay massive testing. Hence fighting the pandemic remains hobbled by our not being able to see where the virus has taken hold.
That is the Epic Colossal Failure. The longer that T rump is in power, the more Epic Colossal Failures we are likely to experience.
Here is a silver lining in this time of dark clouds:
Local, State, Corporate, and other entities have recognized T rump is not capable of providing rational leadership thru this crisis, and are taking action to suppress the rate of increase of the spreading infection, by taking the shotgun approach of cancelling all gatherings of all activities above 500 people, in places all over the country. Sports seasons may be cancelled. March Mildness will have no crowds attending the college games. Etc.
We may thus, avoid a peak instance of severe cases that goes beyond our medical capacities to deal with.
Had we had all the testing that we should have, by now, it might have been possible to target closings more selectively depending on area risk factors. But let’s look to the future instead of back at how T rump has screwed us.
This particular colossal failure (the failure of no early broad testing) is particularly attributable to T rump. He left bottlenecks and red tape in place that has prevented broad testing from being done on this virus. He has influenced his administration and one of his subjugated agencies (the CDC) to avoid or delay testing every step of the way. AND even NOW broad testing is STILL a “few days, or early next week” away from getting started.
Testing broadly was the first step to be done. It was not done. It is still not quite yet beginning. Will it ever actually begin? Not if T rump can find other ways to avoid or delay it. He simply does not want any “facts” out in public that seem inconsistent with the “facts” that he makes up.
Fighting this stealth virus blindly is not the best way. But, so far, it is what T rump has left us with.
And don’t conveniently forget that T rump eliminated the established pandemic response task force in 2018.
And don’t conveniently forget that T rump has cut the funding for the CDC in every year of his presidency.
And don’t forget that T rump has been obsessively getting rid of competent career bureaucrats from govt agencies, because they may not be obsequiously loyal to HIM, and replacing them with people whose only qualification is being obsequiously loyal to HIM.
e.g. Azar was afraid to actually try to tell T rump the truth about the virus, from the beginning, because he didn’t want to upset the DOTUS.
Oh yes, and whatever the outcome, good or bad, it was Trump’s fault all along.
That's a useless snark Bob. Our problems with health care were around long before Trump. He was just the right guy at the moment to channel the anger against the progress we were making. He was the guy who would work against the better interest of poor people in Virginia and deny them the care they need. And they are still applauding this. I really don't get it. Trump, Bannon, Tucker Carlson, and many others have successfully pointed to even poorer people and developed followers who would rather fight against those who are closer to their equals, taking all their energy away from fighting the rich, their real enemy.
HEY BOB!, sure as hell looks as though your hero absolutely IS RESPONSIBLE for this viral whirling out of control.
He and all his cronies simply needed to listen to some experts, oh yeah, they also need the brains to understand what was being said. The missing ingredience was intelligence, compassion, vision, respect for cascading consequences. Zip on all counts BOB.
BUT BOB’S STILL A BELIEVER, eh ???
All that was needed was to pay attention to the real world.
National Security
U.S. intelligence reports from January and February warned about a likely pandemic
By Shane Harris,
Greg Miller,
Josh Dawsey and
Ellen Nakashima
March 20, 2020 at 6:10 p.m
… Taken together, the reports and warnings painted an early picture of a virus that showed the characteristics of a globe-encircling pandemic that could require governments to take swift actions to contain it. But despite that constant flow of reporting, Trump continued publicly and privately to play down the threat the virus posed to Americans. Lawmakers, too, did not grapple with the virus in earnest until this month, as officials scrambled to keep citizens in their homes and hospitals braced for a surge in patients suffering from covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.
Intelligence agencies “have been warning on this since January,” said a U.S. official who had access to intelligence reporting that was disseminated to members of Congress and their staffs as well as to officials in the Trump administration, and who, along with others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive information.
washingtonpost _ com/national-security/us-intelligence-reports-from-january-and-february-warned-about-a-likely-pandemic/2020/03/20/299d8cda-6ad5-11ea-b5f1-a5a804158597_story _ html
Obama officials walked Trump aides through global pandemic exercise in 2017: report
BY ZACK BUDRYK - 03/17/20
…The Obama administration walked incoming Trump administration officials through a hypothetical scenario in which a pandemic worse than the 1918 Spanish flu shut down cities like Seoul and London in early 2017, Politico reported. …
… “Thirty Trump officials attended the exercise (Cabinet and senior White House staff),” Lu added in a tweet on Monday. "But the vast majority of these officials are no longer in government
“When you’re dealing with a crisis like #COVID19, stable and experienced leadership matters.” …
“Bottom line: when Trump says “we were all surprised” by #COVID19, he shouldn’t have been,” Lu continued.
“The Obama team warned Trump’s staff about a possible pandemic. Whether it was lack of preparation or staff turnover, the necessary work wasn’t done to get in front of this.”
I suspect that if Bernie Sanders were president right now we’d see huge resources getting leveraged, a more realistic team based mobilization.
Trump is a boss and not a leader, he lacks almost all of the skills that good leaders have thus at this critical point in our history we are - sadly - leaderless.
Good points, hugo. I wanted to say that I have been very impressed by watching Gov. Cuomo of New York, working his ass off everyday to try to save his state. So we are not completely without decent, courageous, leaders with vision and passion in some places in our country, in these times of approaching darkness.
I have been very impressed by watching Gov. Cuomo of New York
He does sound like someone with a good grip on reality. Of course like all politicians, he loves the sound of his own voice. The people on stage with him don't get to speak much. Wonder why the press doesn't jump on him for that like they jump on Trump when one of the darlings of the press happens to not be on stage? Oh yes, I get it, Quomo is a Dem. and that makes all the difference.
if Bernie Sanders were president right now we’d see huge resources getting leveraged
As well as 90% tax rates.
I doubt that Gov. Quomo would be willing to give up his autonomy as a governor and become just another bureaucrat in the central government promoted by Bernie. Don’t think I’ve heard him say anything about Bernie.
How did you establish that we’d all be paying 90% tax? this is one of those myths put about by those who prefer to live in a country that’s become a welfare state for the rich.
Ever consider what % of income tax revenues end up in the bank accounts of shareholders of major defense companies?
Ever consider that the federal government have been borrowing (which is illegal given the terms use to set it up) from the social security fund for decades and will never pay that money back? public money, our money!
Sanders and those like him want to address what has become a siphoning off of public money into private hands.
We have a defense budget (that’s actually used for offense and financing escapades in foreign countries so that investors can reap the benefits) to defend us from military attacks (the last one of those was in 1941!) yet no comparable budget for defense from viral pandemics.
Reason? the beneficiaries of the former is private investors, private wealth, the beneficiaries of the latter are the public, the hapless herd of unimportant people - who ultimately supply the money via taxation.
Sanders wants to challenge this sick situation but alas both the Democrats and Republicans despise this because each in their own way serve the same masters.
I think Bernie is great. If he gets 1991 delgates to vote for him in the 1st round of Nomination at the Democratic Convention, he will be my favorite person in the USA. I would hold my hand in fire if it would get him elected as POTUS, at that point.
But we are at a point where we cannot rely on Bernie and the youth movement revolution (which does not seem to be manifesting). And doing the same ol’ Bernie-bro bullshit of Bernie or bust is a really really bad mistake.
Biden is going to be the Dem nominee for President, unless fate takes another dramatic turn (as it seems to do a lot these days). The BS about the Dems and the T rumpublicans serving the same Masters, is stale, wrong, dangereous, and is a false equivalence (aka, big fat lie), because it directly implies that we are as well off or as bad off with either one. And that works right into the hands of T rump re-election.