Sunday, July 05, 2020

Trump's Message re SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic: "Learn To Live With It"

After ignoring the warnings to minimizing the threat to downplaying the risks to promising a miracle to describing it as harmless to predicting it would vanish one day to stating warm weather will kill it to ridiculing the media fuss as a hoax to promising "the problem goes away in April" to doubting hospitals needed the supplies they were begging for to demanding that governors publicly kiss the president's ass to hyping unproven drugs (that govt. officials owned stock in) as a cure to accusing nurses of stealing and reselling equipment to predicting "packed churches all over our country" on Easter to vowing to "WIN THIS WAR" to abdicating all responsibility to insulting (usually female) reporters for asking basic, common-sense questions to hijacking life-saving equipment meant for states with Democrat governors and redirecting that equipment to states with Republican governors to praising the virus as a "brilliant genius" to stating "by Memorial Day weekend" the epidemic would be "behind us" to playing golf to suggesting that drinking bleach or injecting Lysol would keep you safe to pronouncing the country would be "really rocking again" by July to touting a gain of 5 million jobs (after losing 40 million jobs) as a breathtaking success to redistributing billions of dollars of taxpayers money not to taxpayers to help them survive but to multi-national corporations to claiming that testing is bad because then the number of cases increases to refusing to set an example and wear a mask to lying constantly about every single thing possible to lie about to actually coming back around and stating with a straight face to "stay Calm" because the virus will simply go away one day to diverting attention from 130,000 American corpses by teargassing and shooting protesters and defending the Confederacy to . . . telling Americans "Look, our worthless ideas turned out to be worthless and we don't want to pretend to deal with this shit anymore. Just fucking deal with it on your own. Goodbye. #MAGA" ... It's been a hell of a six months.
Heather Digby Parton, Hullabaloo, July 5, 2020:
"We need to live with it"
After several months of mixed messages on the coronavirus pandemic, the White House is settling on a new one: Learn to live with it.

Administration officials are planning to intensify what they hope is a sharper, and less conflicting, message of the pandemic next week, according to senior administration officials, after struggling to offer clear directives amid a crippling surge in cases across the country. On Thursday, the United States reported more than 55,000 new cases of coronavirus and infection rates were hitting new records in multiple states.

At the crux of the message, officials said, is a recognition by the White House that the virus is not going away any time soon — and will be around through the November election.

As a result, President Donald Trump's top advisers plan to argue, the country must figure out how to press forward despite it. ...

"We have to get back to business. We have to get back to living our lives. Can't do this any longer," Trump said in an interview with Axios last month before his campaign rally in Tulsa, where almost no one socially distanced and few wore masks. "And I do believe it's safe. I do believe it's very safe." A number of Trump's own campaign staffers and Secret Service agents contracted COVID-19 in Tulsa.

Eager to move forward and reopen the economy amid a recession and a looming presidential election, the White House is now pushing acceptance.

"The virus is with us, but we need to live with it," is how one official said the administration plans to message on the pandemic.
The countries that drove the cases down very low established a serious testing and tracing program to stop any flare-ups before they get out of hand. ...

We didn't do that and apparently, we are not going to do it now. So, it will likely be surging out of control someplace for the foreseeable future.

It helps so much that the president is saying that 99% of cases are no big deal, giving permission for all of his cult followers and many others who don't care about politics to throw caution to the wind. The number is ridiculous, of course. People get very sick and die from this thing and nobody knows if they are going to be that person. It's playing Russian Roulette with your health. And then there is the fact that these people are spreading it all over the place to vulnerable people.

I don't know if this is a problem of basic education ... or if it's a problem with brainwashing. But I do know that our government has failed spectacularly and continues to fail. I don't see any way out.

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