Author: Paul Murphy

This is a good example of why Trump has zero credibility with actual thinking adults.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/29/politics/fact-check-coronavirus-briefing/index.html

He says outrageous things. Especially on Fox News. When confronted with what he has said and asked to explain, he simply lies. Does he think that the damning video has disappeared?

If these so-called briefings seem “political” it is because Trump has chosen to pepper them with his whining, lies, unmerited bragging and partisan nonsense. He is NOT doing “a great job.” His leadership in this crisis is a failure of historic proportions.

Politics “Trumping” Science

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/03/27/coronavirus-models-politized-trump/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most

Interesting article how the variables and unknowns introduced by “conservative” and Trump attacks on science can skew epidemiological models.

The article does not make this point but Trump’s predictions of an early end to the need for social distancing (a “miracle”) is a self-defeating prophecy. The more people who believe it, the less likely it is to happen.

Trump’s conflict of interest

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/before-trump-called-for-reevaluating-lockdowns-they-shuttered-six-of-his-top-earning-clubs-and-resorts/2020/03/23/88780374-6d38-11ea-aa80-c2470c6b2034_story.html

It is very probable that Trump’s management of the pandemic crisis is based more on his concern for his business interests than for the welfare of the American people. Such a conflict of interest would explain his nutty rush to overrule science on the ending of social distancing measures.

Based on past performance the Trump Organization is very likely built on a shaky foundation of expensive debt and will not survive the hole in its revenue stream that social distancing is creating. Thank God Trump has no power to end the state-by-state measures now in place. He would do so in a heartbeat to protect his business interests no matter how many people would die a painful death. IMHO.

Why Trump is flailing and, of course, failing.

“Mr. Trump’s performance on the national stage in recent weeks has put on display the traits that Democrats and some Republicans consider so jarring — the profound need for personal praise, the propensity to blame others, the lack of human empathy, the penchant for rewriting history, the disregard for expertise, the distortion of facts, the impatience with scrutiny or criticism. For years, skeptics expressed concern about how he would handle a genuine crisis threatening the nation, and now they know.”

The faces of mass murder?

Anybody who doubts the headline is not paying attention. We are eight weeks behind the curve because of the President and his supporters like these. That translates into massive extra deaths. Yesterday, almost 1,000 people died in Italy from this virus. ONE day. That is the price they are paying for their slow reaction. We are subject to the same laws of nature and are about where they were two weeks ago.

If there was any doubt about the role Fox News plays as the damaging propaganda arm of the Trump GOP, please note the short time between minimizing the threat – as Trump had been doing – to telling the truth about the mortal danger we face. From one day to the next. About the time that Trump decided that playing a “wartime President” on TV was his last hope for political survival.