Category Archives: Donald Trump

Donald Trump, Off the Rails

Donald Trump has no plan to defeat the novel coronavirus and doesn’t intend to make a plan

It is May 7, 2020, three months after the first American death from the novel coronavirus. More than 76,000 Americans have died since then.  Yet the Trump administration has no plan to keep us safe. Instead, it is focused on revving up economic activity, while acknowledging that infections and deaths from coronavirus will continue to increase as a result.

On Tuesday Andy Slavitt, former Acting Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (during the last two years of the Obama administration), offered observations about this rush to reopen the country, which put things into a clear, well-grounded perspective:

The truth is we`ve done a very good job over the last couple of months staying inside, slowing down the infection rate. That has saved people`s lives. But nothing`s happened to the virus in the meantime. There was no magic act where that virus became less infectious. And so as soon as we go outside again and start interacting more, if we`re not testing and tracing and wearing masks and taking really profound steps, then the infection rate`s just going to grow again dramatically. And where we sit today is much, much higher than every other country in the world.

Without testing, tracing, PPE, and social distancing, the situation will grow dramatically worse. And we lead the world with the highest rate of infection.

Slavitt argued against the simplistic view that we must put aside concerns with public health for the sake of the American economy, since:

… we`re not choosing between either a good economy or fewer deaths. The truth is that for us to have a better economy, we have to fix the public health crisis. Nobody`s going to start spending money at stores, buying cars, investing in small businesses, signing leases until they feel this crisis is behind us.

The Lieutenant Governor of Texas says, “there are more important things than living. And that’s saving this country for my children and my grandchildren and saving this country for all of us.” Like Donald Trump and Mike Pence, though, he is far from the assembly lines at meatpacking plants, checking out customers at the local supermarket, attending to sick patients in an ICU, or anywhere else where the risks are especially high.

Slavitt noted we are still learning about the virus:

But we know it`s a novel virus. We know none of us have immunity. At best there may be a couple percent of the population that have gained immunity. We know that it infects people and keeps – and while it infects them they`re asymptomatic, or a good bit of the time, if not the entire time. And so it goes from person to person until it finds a host where it can become lethal. And it takes just a small speck through the air for that to happen. And if it gets into a nursing home or a meatpacking factory or a prison or a public housing unit or any place where people congregate and multiple generations live, it can wipe out large communities.

And so we`re seeing death tolls now on a daily basis that are soon to approach the number of people that died on 9/11. Continually. We have to ask ourselves how we reverse course from where we are – and we can. But we can`t if we don`t admit the facts, if we don`t face the facts.

Guys with guns in Lansing.

Slavitt suggested – contra those urging us to accept a higher death count in return for a humming economy, or those guys with guns in Lansing, Michigan, or the crowds clamoring to reopen the beaches – most of us want to protect ourselves and our families from harm [my emphasis]:

… I think that people want to be safe first. I think they want – we all want our lives back. But people don`t want to endanger their selves or their families. They don`t want to endanger others. I actually think that a lot of this, “economy opening” – yes, there are scenes of people at beaches on TV, and yes there`s scenes of people rallying with guns, but the lion’s share of people, I think, want a plan to open up the country safely. And that is not too much to ask. Germany has done it. Japan has done it. New Zealand has done it. I mean, this is not impossible. We just want to open up safely. And safely means we have to do things. We have to have testing and tracing in place. We have to have masks in place. The Czech Republic has done it. Greece has done it. Italy is doing it. Why are we the country that decides we`re going to open up unsafely?

Why have we given up defeating the coronavirus and decided to sacrifice tens of thousands of Americans whose lives need not be shortened by this pandemic?

Because doing things – conducting widespread testing and tracing, providing PPE to our medical personnel, giving the public clear guidance at each phase – would require leadership at the federal level: a strategic plan and energetic executive action. And the Trump administration doesn’t have a plan, much less the will or the capacity to carry out a plan.

Virtually every public health authority has put testing at the center of a strategy to defeat the virus and protect American lives. Why not focus on doing this – to achieve the victory? Because, increased testing would increase the number of identified cases of infection, and that would make Trump’s numbers look bad. As he put it yesterday, “The media likes to say we have the most cases, but we do by far the most testing. If we did very little testing, we wouldn’t have the most cases. So in a way by doing all of this testing, we make ourselves look bad.”

A month ago – on April 5 – David Wallace-Wells (“There Is No Plan for the End of the Coronavirus Crisis”) noted that testing and tracing was the ideal path to containing the pandemic, and that, in the absence of tracing, an aggressive testing program could lead to success. The country’s lockdown provided the opportunity to implement a plan:

buying the country time to ramp up a comprehensive testing regimen. We would shelter in place until such a program was ready to go, then reenter “normal” life through that portal of medical surveillance.

Sadly, he added: “the complete absence of federal leadership … is especially conspicuous.”

Today, as infections and deaths mount, the federal government continues to abdicate its responsibility to protect us.

Jay Rosen has concluded (“The plan is to have no plan”):

The plan is to have no plan, to let daily deaths between one and three thousand become a normal thing, and then to create massive confusion about who is responsible— by telling the governors they’re in charge without doing what only the federal government can do, by fighting with the press when it shows up to be briefed, by fixing blame for the virus on China or some other foreign element, and by “flooding the zone with shit,” Steve Bannon’s phrase for overwhelming the system with disinformation, distraction, and denial, which boosts what economists call “search costs” for reliable intelligence. 

Stated another way, the plan is to default on public problem solving, and then prevent the public from understanding the consequences of that default.

On April 5, I wrote, “Accountability is anathema to Donald Trump. Between now and November 3, he will frantically flee from even a modicum of responsibility for the tens of thousands of deaths from coronavirus that will continue to take place on his watch.”

Donald Trump hasn’t succeeded — or even tried with any conviction — to defeat this virus. He continues, however, to muddy the waters (“flooding the zone with shit”) to escape blame for the carnage.

(Image: U.S. Department of State.)

2020 General Election, Donald Trump

Presidential Priority: Meat on the table. Collateral Damage: Low wage workers, mostly minorities and Democrats

Report (from the Washington Post via the House Education and Labor Committee):

President Trump signed an executive order Tuesday evening compelling meat processors to remain open to head off shortages in the nation’s food supply chains, despite mounting reports of plant worker deaths due to covid-19.” . . .

Trump alluded to the plan Tuesday morning during an Oval Office meeting with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). “We’re going to sign an executive order today, I believe,” Trump said. “It was a very unique circumstance because of liability.” He did not elaborate. . . .

Tyson Foods video.

Response from John Tyson, Chairman Tyson Foods: “The food supply chain is breaking.”

Tyson Foods photo.

Response from Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds: “The reality is that we cannot stop this virus. It will remain in our communities until a vaccine is available. Instead we must learn to live with coronavirus activity without letting it govern our lives.”

Furthermore:

“If you’re an employer and you offer to bring your employee back to work and they decide not to, that’s a voluntary quit. Reynolds said Friday. “Therefore, they would not be eligible for the unemployment money.”

Smithfield Foods video.

Response from Kim Cordova, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7, “If these meat plants can’t be held liable, there is no reason for them to take measures to ensure workers are safe. . . . If workers stop showing up, what are they going to do? Enact a draft? This is insane. If these workers are essential, protect them. They are treating workers like fungible widgets instead of human beings.”

Even a casual review of the videos and photographs on the Smithfield Foods and Tyson Foods websites reveals that men and women are working in close quarters. During a pandemic, that’s a risky business. But not for Donald Trump (or Mike Pence or Governor Reynolds).

ABC News video.

The President, as Catherine Rampell observed last week (“Trump has almost nothing to lose. That’s why he wants to reopen the economy.”), has relied on a “But the economy” pitch for reelection. That’s gone now. But he’s willing to gamble with other people’s lives on the slim chance that he might get the economy back by November 3.

David Frum sums up this political calculation:

Propublica published a list of seven things that the experts recommended before America can open safely and up in have been done and none of those things will be done any time soon. There’s no contact tracing. And the United States cannot stay locked down indefinitely. That’s the one thing that the resident said is true. I don’t think the President and people like Governor Kemp are consciously planning this, but they’re removing all the alternatives to the only policy that is going to remain this time six weeks from now or eight weeks from now. Which is they’re moving toward the policy of what’s — “let’s take the punch.”

He’ll reopen and see what happens. Let’s accept that there may be hundreds of thousands, or some double hundreds of thousands, of Americans killed. They’re going to be mostly poor and minorities, mostly not going to be Trump voters. Let’s take that punch and push through and try to get to herd immunity as fast as possible.

I don’t think the President quite processes it quite that rationally, but maybe Governor Kemp does. I suspect Governor Desantis probably does. But that’s where with they’re going. When you don’t prepare any alternatives the only plan left available to you is the plan that you have and the plan that they’re working to is take the punch, let people take the casualties casualties. They’re mostly minorities and non-Trump voters.

Does anyone expect to see Vice President Mike Pence walk the assembly line at a meat packing plant — with or without a mask?

[Photo above headline: Smithfield Foods’ “Our COVID-19 Response” video.]

Update: “Nearly 900 employees, 40 percent of the workforce, at a Tyson Foods pork-processing plant in Indiana have tested positive for the coronavirus.”

Donald Trump, Off the Rails, Republicans

“I’m not a doctor, but I’m, like, a person that has a good you-know-what” — President Donald Trump

The President of the United States brainstorms at a coronavirus briefing.

Jesse Watters: The President’s spitballing and he’s asking questions. ‘Would it be possible to maybe target the virus through a cure using certain ingredients and using sunlight?‘ You didn’t believe the President was putting anyone in danger, did you?

Dr. Deborah Birx: No. He gets new information. He likes to talk that through out loud. And really have that dialogue. And so that’s what dialogue he was having. I think he just saw the information at the time, immediately before the press conference. And he was still digesting that information.

Out loud on live television in a briefing to provide information and reassurance to the American public.

While some of the usual suspects jumped to Trump’s defense — among the most relentless, Scott Adams, who has decided that critics who disagree about the brilliance of Trump’s riffing on a cure, must lack intelligence …

— but mostly, even those in Trump’s camp, perceived the obvious: this wasn’t the time or place for musings that could have been spoken by a grade school student after learning that sunlight is a disinfectant. Parsing the words to win a Twitter argument misses the point. (Of course this is straight out of a well-worn playbook: missing the point is the point.)

Jonathan Chait suggested:

If Trump’s presidency has demonstrated any scientific principle, it is the Dunning-Kruger effect, which describes how people who have a low ability to perform a task tend to overestimate their own ability to do it — or, to oversimplify it, they are too incompetent to recognize their own incompetence. “Maybe you can, maybe you can’t,” Trump allowed. “I’m not a doctor. But I’m like a person that has a good you know what,” tapping his head to indicate his gigantic brain.

Philip Bump and Ashley Parker (“Thirteen hours of Trump: the president fills briefings with attacks and boasts, but little empathy”) describe Thursday’s coronavirus briefing:

President Trump strode to the lectern in the White House briefing room Thursday and, for just over an hour, attacked his rivals, dismissing Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden as a “sleepy guy in a basement of a house” and lambasting the media as “fake news” and “lamestream.”

He showered praise on himself and his team, repeatedly touting the “great job” they were doing as he spoke of the “tremendous progress” being made toward a vaccine and how “phenomenally” the nation was faring in terms of mortality.

What he did not do was offer any sympathy for the 2,081 Americans who were reported dead from the coronavirus on that day alone — among nearly 53,000 Americans who have perished since the pandemic began.

They document, in detail, how these briefings have morphed into (what Parker has dubbed) the Coronavirus Show, featuring self-congratulations, attacks on the media and political rivals, fabrications by the President, and often medical advice from a man who is “not a doctor.”

“Like his campaign rallies, the president’s portion of the daily briefings are rife with misinformation. Over the past three weeks, 87 of his comments or answers — a full 47 minutes — included factually inaccurate comments.”

This is what passes for leadership in a country that with any other president in recent memory (or with John McCain, Mitt Romney, or Hillary Clinton) — would have by this time (even if one or another of them might have been caught flat-footed initially) a national strategy to defeat the coronavirus.

Moreover, the world is a witness. The pandemic:

is shaking fundamental assumptions about American exceptionalism — the special role the United States played for decades after World War II as the reach of its values and power made it a global leader and example to the world.

Today it is leading in a different way: More than 840,000 Americans have been diagnosed with Covid-19 and at least 46,784 have died from it, more than anywhere else in the world.

Yet Trump’s catastrophic failures, and his aversion to accountability, are not as significant politically as the Republican Party’s continuing obeisance to him. Never mind the mounting deaths — soon to exceed the number of Americans killed in the Vietnam War over two decades. Never mind our country’s declining influence and security across the globe. The GOP is getting tax cuts, deregulation, and judicial appointments.

Donald Trump, Off the Rails

One constant in Trump’s erratic vacillation: A furious flight from accountability

Accountability is anathema to Donald Trump. Between now and November 3, he will frantically flee from even a modicum of responsibility for the tens of thousands of deaths from coronavirus that will continue to take place on his watch. Fox News Channel, with the rest of the conservative media universe, the White House, the Trump campaign, and every Republican official in Washington will pull out all the stops to prevent Trump from being called into account for the ongoing disaster he is presiding over.

The President’s dithering, fabrications, and missteps have aggravated the public health calamity:

The Trump administration received its first formal notification of the outbreak of the coronavirus in China on Jan. 3. Within days, U.S. spy agencies were signaling the seriousness of the threat to Trump by including a warning about the coronavirus — the first of many — in the President’s Daily Brief.

And yet, it took 70 days from that initial notification for Trump to treat the coronavirus not as a distant threat or harmless flu strain well under control, but as a lethal force that had outflanked America’s defenses and was poised to kill tens of thousands of citizens. That more-than-two-month stretch now stands as critical time that was squandered. the coronavirus

Trump’s baseless assertions in those weeks, including his claim that it would all just “miraculously” go away, sowed significant public confusion and contradicted the urgent messages of public health experts.

As the pandemic spread around the globe and deep into our country, Donald Trump denied and diminished the grave threat to Americans. Jeremy Peters reports on how conservative media amplified, and sometimes inspired, Trump’s tall tales. This is part of Job #1 – venerating Donald Trump and impugning his critics – for Fox News Channel, conservative talk radio, et al. (Accurate information isn’t a priority.)

Peters describes a four step process: blame China (while sometimes adding conspiracy theories to the tales told); play down the risks (just as Donald Trump did for weeks and weeks, until his turn on March 16—though he still shifts back to denial); share ‘survivor’ stories (coronavirus is really no worse than a “bad cold”); and then, when the infection rate and the body count make denial impossible to sustain, pivot and blame the left: the President is a victim of his political enemies.

The pervasiveness of the denial among many of Mr. Trump’s followers from early in the outbreak, and their sharp pivot to finding fault with an old foe once the crisis deepened, is a pattern that one expert in the spread of misinformation said resembled a textbook propaganda campaign.

As the rightwing echo chamber swerves from one fable to the next, yesterday’s account is forgotten. (We’ve always been at war with Eurasia.) Consistency and coherence, truth and facts, don’t matter. But the shifting narratives have this in common: they stoke a fundamental partisan divide. It’s us vs. them. Trump and his conservative base vs. Democrats/liberals/the left, that is to say, the enemies of America.

Peters references Rush Limbaugh’s denunciation of the Four Corners of Deceit (government, academia, science, and the media), which – as it happens – are sources of information independent of the right’s narrative of the day (whatever that happens to be). Limbaugh, with a bigger audience than FNC, deserves a gold star (to go along with his Presidential Medal of Freedom) for yeoman service to the misinformation campaign on behalf of Donald Trump.

Limbaugh, February 24: “Folks, this coronavirus thing, I want to try to put this in perspective for you. It looks like the coronavirus is being weaponized as yet another element to bring down Donald Trump. Now, I want to tell you the truth about the coronavirus. You think I’m wrong about this? You think I’m missing it by saying that’s — Yeah, I’m dead right on this. The coronavirus is the common cold, folks.”

And March 27: “We didn’t elect a president to defer to a bunch of health experts that we don’t know. And how do we know they’re even health experts? Well, they wear white lab coats, and they’ve been in the job for a while, and they’re at the CDC and they’re at the NIH, and they’re up, well — yeah, they’ve been there, and they are there. But has there been any job assessment for them? They’re just assumed to be the best because they’re in government. But, these are all kinds of things that I’ve been questioning.”

The duplicity, the conspiracy theories, the eagerness to play the victim: the charade is over the top because the failure is catastrophic. Donald Trump, who doesn’t focus much beyond the next news cycle, has abdicated a leadership role in this crisis (though he relishes his time on center stage at the daily coronavirus briefings). I noted last month that the United States had no national strategy for combating the coronavirus. It still doesn’t, because President Trump insists that the nation’s governors are responsible for protecting the public, while the federal government will play only a “backup” role.

“Massive amounts of medical supplies, even hospitals and medical centers, are being delivered directly to states and hospitals by the Federal Government. Some have insatiable appetites & are never satisfied (politics?). Remember, we are a backup for them….”

The coronavirus is a national threat, which doesn’t recognize state boundaries. Containment – to be effective – can’t be a patchwork. It makes little sense to fob off responsibility to 50 state governors, who are placed in a position of outbidding each other, and FEMA, for test kits, personal protective equipment, ventilators, and other scarce equipment, as the infection spreads throughout the country. The President of the United States, who possesses authority and commands resources beyond the reach of any governor, could – if he chose – take charge. But he doesn’t.

“Remember, we are a backup for them.”

Doctors, scientists, public health experts, including senior officials in past administrations of both parties, agree that the Trump administration’s disavowal of responsibility will cost thousands of American lives. The failures are ongoing, increasing the death toll (“Trump administration’s lack of a unified coronavirus strategy will cost lives, say a dozen experts”):

The Trump administration has declined to nationalize the medical logistics system and hasn’t executed a national testing strategy. Although the president likely lacks the legal authority to impose a national stay-at-home order, he has declined to urge each governor to do so. Seven states haven’t imposed one, including Texas.

The results are clear: Governors and doctors report critical shortages of gear, it remains very difficult to get tested for the virus, and some Americans still aren’t heeding guidance to keep away from others.

That NBC report references an editorial this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, “Ten Weeks to Crush the Curve,” proposing a strategy for eradicating the coronavirus in a “forceful, focused campaign.” Donald Trump has declared himself a “wartime president” battling an “invisible enemy.” NEJM insists, “It’s a war we should fight to win.” The first step, the step that only a president can take: “Establish unified command.”

This country has never had a Commander in Chief in wartime who deferred to states and localities for leadership. Our erratic, irresolute president can’t settle on a strategy for more than a few hours. This makes little sense, though it is a means to distance Trump from the consequences of COVID-19. It facilitates a dodge of responsibility.

More troubling, Trump’s three years of misrule have undermined the administration’s capacity for effective action. He has hollowed out the executive branch, traded competence for sycophancy, and enfeebled the federal government.

Susan Glasser tells the story in the New Yorker:

“When you are done being angry about all the crazy, nasty, inconsistent, and untrue things that Donald Trump says each day about the coronavirus and other matters, remember that the flood of words is cover for an Administration that in some ways barely exists relative to its predecessors, especially when it comes to crucial areas of domestic, economic, and international security—or even straightforward crisis management. Turnover at the upper levels of Trump’s White House stands at eighty-three per cent, according to a Brookings Institution tracker. In his Cabinet, Trump has had far more turnover than Presidents Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama, and both George Bushes. The capacity of the federal government to respond to this catastrophe—even if Trump had been so inclined—has never been weaker. The virus was not of Trump’s making, but his government’s incoherent, disorganized response to it was utterly predictable.” [My emphasis.]

It is not just the White House that has lost capacity. Vacancies in the Treasury Department have already begun to impair administration economic policy. And, as Jonathan Bernstein suggests, Trump’s economic policies are already shaky:

Trump … likes the idea of big, unprecedented action, which is a perfect match for the current situation. But in three-plus years, he still doesn’t appear have any idea how the government works, what he’s supposed to do to make things happen, or anything about the economy outside of how it affects him personally.

Donald Trump’s shortcomings have been evident for all to see throughout the past three-plus years. National Republicans, making a cynical trade-off, have given him a pass. With the arrival of COVID-19, the country is paying dearly for Republicans’ political calculations.

Now, still all-in with Trump, the party will scramble furiously to avoid a reckoning.

(Image: On April 1, Trump brought out the generals.)

Donald Trump, Off the Rails

In the midst of a deadly pandemic, President Donald Trump is boasting about his TV ratings

…On Monday, nearly 12.2 million people watched Mr. Trump’s briefing on CNN, Fox News and MSNBC, according to Nielsen — ‘Monday Night Football’ numbers. Millions more are watching on ABC, CBS, NBC and online streaming sites, and the audience is expanding. On Monday, Fox News…

…alone attracted 6.2 million viewers for the president’s briefing — an astounding number for a 6 p.m. cable broadcast, more akin to the viewership for a popular prime-time sitcom…

…The CBS News poll said 13 percent of Republicans trusted the news media for information about the virus.” Michael M. Grynbaum @NYTimes  

Image, from animation by Worldwide Engineering, illustrating the daily increase in coronavirus cases by country from January 23 through March 28, 2020, as the United States became the globe’s leading nation for the infection:

Donald Trump, Off the Rails, Republicans, Tribalism

Republicans in Congress, FNC, and GOP voters stand pat as Trump’s ongoing failures increase the death toll

Yesterday, the United States of American became the world’s leader in known cases of coronavirus (even though testing continues to lag). As of Sunday morning, the number of deaths in the U.S. has doubled since Thursday.

The world’s greatest democracy still has no national strategy for combating the coronavirus outbreak. The reason for this failure is obvious for all to see: the President of the United States is incapable of competent leadership. The breakdown, which began in January (when “faced with the coronavirus, Mr. Trump chose not to have the White House lead the planning until nearly two months after it began“), is ongoing.

At his daily briefings he misinforms the public (putting Americans who believe him at risk), offers self-congratulations and points fingers at others; he vacillates and changes his mind from one day to the next (based on criticism he sees on cable TV).

Every status report and decision is from his perspective chiefly about him, not about the state of the nation, the well being of Americans, or pulling out all the stops to blunt the pandemic.

‘The federal government’s done a helluvua job. . . .

… I think we’ve done a great job for the state of Washington.  And I think the governor’s a failed presidential candidate, as you know — he — he leveled out at zero in the polls.  He’s constantly chirping and — I guess ‘complaining’ would be a nice way of saying it.  We’re building hospitals.  We’ve done a great job for the state of Washington.

Michigan, all she does is — she has no idea what’s going on.  And all she does is say, “Oh, it’s the federal government’s fault.”  And we’ve taken such great care of Michigan. . . .

We have done a job the likes of which nobody’s seen. . . .

I think they should be appreciative because you know what?  When they’re not appreciative to me, they’re not appreciative to the Army Corps.  They’re not appreciative to FEMA.  It’s not right.  These people are incredible.  They’re working 24 hours a day.  Mike Pence — I mean, Mike Pence, I don’t think he sleeps anymore.  These — these are people that should be appreciated.

He calls all the governors.  I tell him — I mean, I’m a different type of person — I say, “Mike, don’t call the governor of Washington.  You’re wasting your time with him.  Don’t call the woman in Michigan.”  All — it doesn’t make any difference what happens — . . .

You know what I say?  If they don’t treat you right, I don’t call.  He’s a different type of person.  He’ll call quietly anyway.  Okay?’

The country is paying an extraordinarily high cost for the President’s misrule:

https://twitter.com/Politidope/status/1244252490738143233

George Conway has Trump exactly right (as I have agreed): Trump is psychologically incapable of fulfilling the framers’ vision of the presidency.

But half the country — and based on public evidence, half of George Conway’s household — refuses to engage in a frank national discussion.

I am confident that Senate Republicans — most of them, probably, but certainly enough of them when added to all Democrats could have reached a 2/3 vote for impeachment — are well aware of the President’s incapacity. They refuse as a matter of practical partisan politics to acknowledge this or they downplay, no matter what disasters ensue, the magnitude of the harm to our country. So, who are we going to engage in this conversation?

The party’s base, egged on by Fox News Channel, overwhelmingly approves of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak.

If Trump were politically more skillful and not psychologically debilitated, this could have become a defining success of his presidency. He could have brought the country together à la George W. Bush following 9-11. He would have had to recognize the significance of the problem, rely on the expertise available to a president, and put the federal government to work coordinating a national response. Instead of denying or diminishing the threat, he would have had to speak truthfully about it — and reassured the public with a strategic plan to meet the challenge. (We can imagine, without a stretch, both of his immediate predecessors in the White House, one Republican and one Democrat, acting in this way.)

Had Trump been willing and capable of doing the right thing, he could have nurtured a larger governing majority than the Republican base. Trump’s self-interest and the national interest would have overlapped completely.

This was not to be. Trump cannot overcome his incapacities.

The devastation wrought by COVID-19 will be much greater as a result of Trump’s failures. Unless nature takes a fortuitous turn, Red states and Red regions will not be spared. Will his base stick with him come what may, adding “yet another grievance to their indictment of the liberal establishment” rather than hold Trump responsible? So far, those voters have not wavered.

(Map from New York Times.)

Donald Trump, Off the Rails, Republicans, Tribalism

How did nearly half the country — Trump fans and FNC viewers — get things so wrong?

A reporter asked me today why conservatives were initially so skeptical of the threat of the coronavirus. I tried to explain that one of the dangerous consequences of having a totally dishonest left wing news media was that most Americans discounted their hysteria as phony. – Newt Gingrich

This sample of duplicity and distraction, from a familiar Fox News Channel contributor, is classic Gingrich. The first sentence presents an issue raised by a reporter: “why conservatives were initially so skeptical of the threat of the coronavirus.” The second sentence goes completely off the rails. It’s a clinic on how Trump and Trump apologists obfuscate, distort, and deceive.

“I tried to explain,” begins Gingrich, the ever-tolerant professor offering instruction. Well, not exactly. Instead, in an act of misdirection, he hurls incendiary language, attacking media outfits seeking to inform the public, while completely ignoring the explanation in plain sight.

The issue is why conservatives have been ‘skeptical.’ Polling clearly demonstrates that there has been a persistent reluctance on the right to accept well-established facts. It is hardly true that “most Americans” discounted accurate reports of the threat from the sources where they get their news. A majority of Democrats and independents (who together outnumber Republicans) have taken the reports as credible. We believed what we heard and saw on cable and broadcast television and what we read in newspapers and online. It is a minority of Americans – base Republicans, Donald Trump’s most intense followers – who have been skeptical of the scientific and medical reporting on the coronavirus.

Why were conservatives – grassroots enthusiasts of Donald Trump – so thoroughly misinformed about coronavirus?

CNN and NBC, the New York Times and the Washington Post (to highlight a few of Trump’s bugbears), while fallible, share a journalistic mission: to find the facts and accurately report them. Since the news business is competitive, they seek to get it right, because – otherwise – their errors will be exposed by other mainstream news outlets. They will lose credibility among viewers and readers who wish to know what’s going on. We can say the same thing about scientists, medical researchers, and doctors: while they make mistakes, they try to get it right.

Conservative media do not embrace this journalistic mission (or the ethos of science) to inform accurately. Their job, in the conservative media ecosystem, is to bolster faith in their leader, to cast doubt on facts that might undermine that faith, and to attack and disparage anyone who contradicts the message of the day.

Gingrich, who changed the Republican Party, the Congress, and finally the country, by teaching other Republicans to insult, denigrate, and slander Democrats, introduced an era in American politics where one party (the GOP) has made the other party the enemy, where Democrats’ views are so far beyond the pale they deserve only contempt. Part of this project was to undermine independent (“totally dishonest left wing”) sources of information (from journalists, government agencies, scientists, and medical authorities, among others), whenever or wherever that information challenged conservative messaging.

In Adam Serwer’s words (“Donald Trump’s Cult of Personality Did This“):

Gingrich’s attempted indictment of the mainstream press is a backhanded acknowledgment that the conservative media do not conceive of their job as informing the public.

. . .

Fox News told its audience that the coronavirus was a minor problem their heroic leader was quickly resolving, while quietly having its staff follow the very precautions its hosts were ridiculing on air. The mainstream press didn’t force Fox News to do that.

Gingrich, offering pronouncements from Italy, separated himself from the skepticism of American conservatives, but he has had a staring role in bolstering the conservative media universe that has deliberately deceived its audience and in destroying confidence in independent reporting and inquiry that has created that audience. These conservative achievements, not mainstream media reporting, are responsible for the “dangerous consequences” he references.

Gingrich’s tweet presents a phony explanation for why conservative viewers and readers are sadly misinformed about a grave threat to public health.

Donald Trump, Off the Rails, Republicans, Tribalism

Donald Trump & his Republican Party have failed to protect the country

The Executive Branch of the government of the United States is uniquely empowered to plan, implement, and coordinate measures to ensure the nation’s public health. The Trump administration has failed miserably to do so.

I agree with Senator Tom Cotton (circa February 28), “The single most consequential and valuable thing done to stop this virus from already spreading throughout the United States was when President Trump decided to shut down travel to China last month.”

Unfortunately, that action— taken January 31 — was hardly sufficient to keep the virus from spreading throughout the country. It would be bad enough if all Trump did in the intervening weeks (until his abrupt shift on March 16) was sit on his hands. Instead, for weeks in his every public utterance, he lied about the state of affairs in the country and diminished the increasing threat.

“We have it totally under control. One person from China and it’s going to be just fine.” (January 22) “We pretty much shut it down — coming in from China.” (February 2)

“You know, in April supposedly it dies with the hotter weather.” (February 10) “When it gets warm, historically, it’s been able to kill the virus.” (February 14)

“People are getting better. They’re all getting better.” (February 25)

“And the 15 — within a couple of days, it’s going to be down close to zero.” (February 26) “It’s going to disappear one day. It’s like a miracle: it will disappear.” (February 27) “And you’ll be fine.” (February 28)

“They’re going to have vaccines, I think, relatively soon.” (March 2) “Not only the vaccines, but also the therapies. Therapies are sort of another word for cure.” (March 3)

“We’re talking about very small numbers in the United States.” (March 4) “Our numbers are lower than just about anybody’s.” (March 6)

“It’s really working out. And lotta good things are gonna happen.” (March 10)

“And we are responding with great speed and professionalism.” (March 11)

“It’s gonna go away.” (March 12)

“No, I don’t take responsibility at all.” (March 13)

“They’ll all be great. We’re going to be so good.” (March 15)

“This came up — it came up so suddenly.” (March 16)

And Fox News Channel, the loudest, most influential voice of the Republican Party (next to Trump himself), reinforced the President’s message every step of the way:

News reports of the coronavirus, in the view of Fox News’ personalities week after week, was a hoax manufactured by Democrats to attack the President, an illness no more worrisome than the flu, an overblown brouhaha of scant significance. Dismiss, distract, diminish, disparage. Unfortunately, there is much evidence that the President of the United States often takes his cues from his favorite TV network.

This charade has been incredibly effective at convincing the Republican base. The rest of us, not so much. A recent Axios/Survey Monkey poll, which asked whom Americans trusted to protect them from the coronavirus, found high confidence in prominent health agencies:

Centers for Disease Control — 75%; National Institutes for Health — 68%; their state’s health department — 68%; their local office of emergency management — 67%; and the World Health Organization — 60%.

Trust in President Trump registered at 84% among Republicans, but only 20% among independents, 9% among Democrats, and 42% overall.

The President changed his tune (and his tone) on March 16, as he acknowledged for the first time the severity of the health crisis and issued strict new guidelines for Americans to avoid infection, though when asked, “Was there a change in tone?”, he dissembled:

“I didn’t feel different. I’ve always known that this is a real — this is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic. All you had to do is look at other countries. I think it’s not in 120 countries all over the world. No, I’ve always viewed it as very serious. It was no different yesterday than days before.”

Much too late, facing an imminent disaster, the White House has advanced beyond denials and wishful thinking.

This awakening might have happened more quickly if Congressional Republicans had pushed back against the nonsense coming from their leader. Instead, they spread nonsense of their own (Devin Nunes); or whispered their concerns to VIPs, while reassuring the public and selling stocks ahead of the market disaster (Richard Burr); and then, when the consequences started raining down, tried to slink away to let others clean up the mess (Mitch McConnell). They unleashed the President when they (with the lone exception of Mitt Romney) acquitted him in the Senate — still focused on the next election cycle.

No one in the Republican Party wants to buck the President. They’ve allowed partisanship, tax cuts for their richest donors, and federal court appointments to trump the security of the nation. For more than three years, that reckless bet has paid off handsomely.

As we head toward November 2020, it may pay off once again. But the steep cost to the nation — to our health and economic well-being — of Trump’s misrule is harder to hide now, no matter what diversions the President, Congressional Republicans, and Fox News Channel cook up.

(Image from Los Angeles Times website on March 18, 2020.)

2020 General Election, Donald Trump, Short & Sweet ... Short & Sour

Trump Job Approval at Personal Best 49%. Rising rating due to Republicans and independents – Gallup

WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald Trump’s job approval rating has risen to 49%, his highest in Gallup polling since he took office in 2017.

The new poll finds 50% of Americans disapproving of Trump, leaving just 1% expressing no opinion. The average percentage not having an opinion on Trump has been 5% throughout his presidency.

Trump’s approval rating has risen because of higher ratings among both Republicans and independents. His 94% approval rating among Republicans is up six percentage points from early January and is three points higher than his previous best among his fellow partisans. The 42% approval rating among independents is up five points, and ties three other polls as his best among that group. Democratic approval is 7%, down slightly from 10%.

The 87-point gap between Republican and Democratic approval in the current poll is the largest Gallup has measured in any Gallup poll to date, surpassing the prior record, held by Trump and Barack Obama, by one point. — Gallup, “Trump Job Approval at Personal Best 49%,” February 4, 2020

Never mind impeachment or the Iowa Democratic Party’s debacle or tonight’s State of the Union message. The most significant political news of the day is public opinion as measured by that Gallup survey.

Donald Trump, Republicans

Republican Senators expressing umbrage “are desperate to find an outrage off-ramp”

I think that Chairman Schiff’s presentation through this very long ordeal has been at the very highest level of legal advocacy. He has marshaled an immense amount of information extremely well and effectively. And I thought that last night’s closing was oratory for the ages. So, I give him nothing but props.

I think that if you are a Republican and you’re looking at a really damning case that you have no counter to, and where you’re sitting on lockers full of evidence and not allowing it into the trial, you are desperate to find an outrage off-ramp.

And they will find something outrageous in parts per billion in order to seize the outrage off-ramp and get away from the damning case that has been made on the substance.

…

I think there have been a lot of uncomfortable moments for them through these days. And I thought that Adam’s presentation last night had a lot of them very thoughtful and pensive about the position that this president has put them in.

Uhm, we really have a battle here between truth and falsehood, and right and wrong. And this president is demanding that they follow the path of falsehood and wrong, or face peril. – Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, January 24, 2020

Senator Whitehouse was responding to the manufactured outrage (and dissembling) of Republican Senators to Adam Schiff’s reading a quotation from the mainstream media. “CBS News reported last night that a Trump confidant said that key senators were warned, ‘Vote against the president and your head will be on a pike.’”

There were reports of gasps from the Republican side of the aisle. Senator Susan Collins of Maine was seen shaking her head and could be heard from gallery repeating, “That’s not true,” several times. Later she said, “I know of no Republican Senator who has been threatened in any way by anyone in the Administration.”

“None of us have been told that. That’s insulting and demeaning to everyone to say that we somehow live in fear and that the president has threatened all of us.” – Senator James Lankford of Oaklahoma

The fear of Washington Republicans – in both the House and the Senate – at the possibility of Trump turning on them when they seek re-nomination in a Republican primary is one of the most unshakable facts of today’s GOP. Not giving Trump a reason to turn on them is a guiding principle.

Mark Sanford, Jeff Flake, and Bob Corker all felt Donald Trump’s ire. None remain in office. Trump owns the Republican Party. And – for every Republican who wishes to continue serving in the U.S. Senate after his or her next Republican primary election – Trump owns them regarding any issue he cares about.

The “head on a pike” quote, while pithy (and even demeaning), expresses a fundamental, inescapable truth – all disingenuous protests notwithstanding.

(Image: screengrab from Lincoln Project ad.)