June 29th Chart Comparing European
Safe-Distancing, Mask Requirements
with Inconsistent US “Re-Opening” Polices: Infections Per
100,000 people
TRUMP: “You know
testing is a double-edged sword. ... Here's the bad part. When you test to that
extent, you are going to find more people, find more cases. So, I said to my
people, 'Slow the testing down please.'” - Tulsa, Oklahoma, rally June 20.
White House press
secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the comment was ‘made in jest' and other senior
aides similarly brushed it off as not serious. Trump didn't play along. 'I
don't kid,' he said Tuesday [6/23] when asked about the remark.
COVID-19 has killed [over] 125,000 people in the U.S. Infections are far higher than are known because many who get the disease and pass it on are not tested. Associated Press, June 27th. Trump added: "If we didn't do any testing, we would have very few cases… They [the media] don't want to write that. It's just common sense." Most of Europe just banned travelers from the United States. Even as red state idiots – like Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts who told counties that imposed mask-requirements that the state would defund them – truly amplify the risks.
The June 18th Time Magazine notes how the President continues to underplay the severity of the current coronavirus pandemic, misleading Americans into thinking it is fading away and that a vaccine is imminent… despite no tangible evidence in support of those assertions: he coronavirus pandemic will ‘fade away’ even without a vaccine, but researchers are close to developing one anyhow, President Donald Trump said… ‘We’re very close to a vaccine and we’re very close to therapeutics, really good therapeutics,’ Trump said Wednesday night [6/17] in a television interview with Fox News. ‘But even without that, I don’t even like to talk about that, because it’s fading away, it’s going to fade away, but having a vaccine would be really nice and that’s going to happen.’” Totally wrong. Trump is even dismantling the already understaffed cadre of federal workers addressing the pandemic.
“FEMA says there are 1,000 fewer employees assigned to COVID-19 work than during the peak of the response — and that’s not all… Sixty days had gone by since the American public had last heard from the White House Coronavirus Task Force. During that two-month lacuna, almost 70,000 of us died from COVID-19 and more than 1.5 million of us tested positive for the virus. Now, while the countries that were first hit by the virus — China, Italy, Spain — began to reopen their economies and send children back to school, the U.S. plateaued and then entered what appears to be a deadly new phase of the worst pandemic in a century.
“Vice President Mike Pence said the country had ‘flattened the curve, even though the trend line of new cases was aimed unmistakably upward. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar described the recent surge in cases as localized ‘hotspots,’ even though the places experiencing the largest new outbreaks — Houston, Miami, Los Angeles, Phoenix — ranked among the top-ten largest metropolitan areas in the country. Pence cited the declining fatality rate as evidence of progress, even though the data is unequivocal that virus-related deaths can lag behind infections by several weeks.” Rolling Stone Magazine, June 30th.
The numbers reflected in the above chart have now shown even Republican leaders, including Mike Pence and Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, advocate that all of us should wear masks… even as many continue to deny the severity of the resurgence of the infection rate. Even as younger people (18-49) have now become the largest growth demographic for the virus, and even if there is an inherent advantage in younger people surviving, those are precisely the super-spreaders capable of taking the disease to their employers, parents and grandparents.
Trump, a germaphobe, is trapped between his anti-mask, reopen everything, stance and his own morbid fear of contracting COVID-19: “As he seeks to insert rival Joe Biden's health into the presidential campaign, Trump has voiced escalating concern about how it would appear if he contracted coronavirus and has insisted on steps to protect himself, even as he refuses to wear a mask in public and agitates for large campaign rallies where the virus could spread.
“When he travels to locations where the virus is surging, every venue the President enters is inspected for potential areas of contagion by advance security and medical teams, according to people familiar with the arrangements. Bathrooms designated for the President's use are scrubbed and sanitized before he arrives. Staff maintain a close accounting of who will come into contact with the President to ensure they receive tests.
“While the White House phases out steps such as temperature checks and required mask-wearing in the West Wing -- changes meant to signal the country is moving on -- those around the President still undergo regular testing. And even as Trump attempts to put the pandemic behind him by encouraging reopening and downplaying the new surge, there are signs of the still-raging pandemic even within his orbit.” CNN.com, June 26th. The dramatic failure to create and implement a viable national strategy may be Trump’s greatest failure as President, but his never-ending efforts to undermine all reasonable efforts to implement such a strategy, under CDC guidelines and state efforts, earns him the dubious distinction of being the worst president in American history. His supporters have accepted his misstatements as truth.
For folks obsessed with the economy, there are a few harsh realities. First, over seventy percent of the US economy is consumer-based. Most of Americans work for a living, and a soaring stock market is largely irrelevant to their income. Even the standard gross domestic product (GDP) measure is nothing more than a total (so the mega-earnings of the rich jack up the number without reference to how that GDP is distributed throughout the system). But what is clear is that the pandemic is an economy killer such as we have never experienced before. We massively cut taxes for the rich, massively increased our deficit, massive depleted our economic resources accordingly and generated almost no value for “most of us.” As an inept federal government seems only to make matters worse, there are other possible ramifications.
What should really scare even the most fiscally conservative is the value of the US dollar. As long as the entire planet is in the same pandemic boat, the US dollar is relatively stronger because of our underlying resilience, control of most of the global financial system and our accumulated asset base. The dollar’s strength is obviously based on that assumption. But what happens when Europe and the major economic powers in Asia get control of the coronavirus, thus stopping the economic hemorrhaging to rebuild, as that virus continues to spiral out of control in the United States? Look at the above chart. If that pattern continues for much longer, where the US seriously begins to underperform against Asian and European metrics, what exactly do you think that will do to the value of the dollar? And what will that do to cost of living here?
The dramatic failure to create and implement a viable national strategy may be Trump’s greatest failure as President, but his never-ending efforts to undermine all reasonable efforts to implement such a strategy, under CDC guidelines and state efforts, earns him the dubious distinction of being the worst president in American history. His supporters have accepted his misstatements as truth. Ironically, Trump’s missteps seriously threaten to undermine our economic recovery… and so many Americans still believe that this bankruptcy-declaring failed businessman is an economic genius.
I’m Peter Dekom, and until facts
govern our leadership and unifying the nation as one becomes a priority, Donald
Trump will continue to be responsible for tens of thousands, perhaps even a
multiple of those numbers, of needless American deaths and untold suffering.
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