The only way to deal with a pandemic is to follow the advice of experts, be truthful and to hope that the Government is run by reasonably competent people.
And as the Chinese quickly figured out—what will never work, and can only backfire—are lies, a lack of transparency and egotistical idiots calling the shorts. The Math, the deaths—will fairly quickly expose the villains.
But we are indeed lead by VOTUS, the Villain of the United States. Can any one question that? Well, just take time—it’s not like most people are short of time these days—to consider what is a recipe for an exponential disaster. I mean, what other human being could possible say the following:
“I’d rate it at 10. I think we’ve done a great job” and “I don’t take responsibility for anything at all” and “I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic” were capped by this gem about how “It kind of snuck up on us.”
Trump had spent six weeks claiming to his feeble-minded followers that the worst public health crisis since the 1918 H1N1 Spanish Flu was a fake news Democratic media hoax.
Even non rocket Scientist George Bush Jr. could figure out what is still way beyond Trumps intellectual horizon… as reported by The New York Times:
Almost two decades ago, during George W. Bush’s presidency, the federal government developed guidelines for communicating during a public-health crisis. Among the core principles are “be first,” “be right,” “be credible,” “show respect” and “promote action.”
But the Trump administration’s response to corona-virus, as The Washington Post news story put it, is “breaking almost every rule in the book.”
The inconsistent and sometimes outright incorrect information coming from the White House has left Americans unsure of what, if anything, to do. By early March, experts already were arguing for aggressive measures to slow the virus’s spread and avoid overwhelming the medical system. The presidential bully pulpit could have focused people on the need to change their behavior in a way that no private citizen could have. Trump could have specifically encouraged older people — at most risk from the virus — to be careful. Once again, he chose not to take action.
But Trump constantly downplays the virus—no doubt because he only tracks one measure—the Dow Jones index. So the corona-virus must be “far less deadly that the flu”—he’s “not concerned at all” “it will go away”. i.e. keep on partying, keep on spreading that disease—every interaction encouraged by VOTUS, fueling the exponential nature of this disease; every activity adding weeks/months onto the self-isolation we must all now endure; every party leading to a pathway to the ultimate demise of those most exposed. The New York Times continues…
Instead, he suggested on multiple occasions that the virus was less serious than the flu. “We’re talking about a much smaller range” of deaths than from the flu, he said on March 2. “It’s very mild,” he told Hannity on March 4. On March 7, he said, “I’m not concerned at all.” On March 10, he promised: “It will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”
The first part of March was also when more people began to understand that the United States had fallen behind on testing, and Trump administration officials responded with untruths.
Alex Azar, the secretary of health and human services, told ABC, “There is no testing kit shortage, nor has there ever been.” Trump, while touring the C.D.C. on March 6, said, “Anybody that wants a test can get a test.”
Admittedly Trump was relatively quick on one action—to close down international flights—but that was simply because it happened to match his White Supremacist, America only—screw everyone else, agenda.
As reported by The Daily Beast
“He soft-pedaled the crisis even as it grew in scope and risk. His minions and minders repeatedly said that this crisis was contained. He promised a vaccine that is, at best, a year away. He promised testing, without the intention or ability to deliver. He compared it to the common flu, which left disease specialists and epidemiologists heads exploding worldwide. He failed as a leader, from the very start.”… Good leaders react to a crisis swiftly and honestly. Bad leaders blameshift, lie, cover-up, and try to rewrite history. Good crisis leadership has a set of consistent characteristics; it is honest, transparent, and prompt. The path Trump chose, naturally, was the opposite.
The US has known for years that pandemics would be headed its way, thus funding for the CDC, for tests, masks, ventilators should have been increasing. It’s not like the US does not have the cash to cut taxes for the wealthy and increase funding to the military. Who are we scared of? Our puppet master in Moscow? Perhaps it is Iran who the US unilaterally broke the peace agreement with? I guess that leaves China?
But Trump had consistently tried to cut funding to the CDC, but thankfully Congress has resisted implementing most of these cuts. While Democrats during the primary season may have misrepresented certain facts—let’s steer clear of that debate and stick to irrefutable facts—so the following comes from Factcheck.org
The fiscal 2021 budget proposal did call for a $693.3 million reduction to the CDC’s funding compared with what was enacted for fiscal 2020, according to this CDC budget document. That would be a 9% reduction in the CDC’s budget. The president’s budget proposal was released on Feb. 10, after the COVID-19 outbreak began and the first U.S. case was confirmed on Jan. 20.
Employment at the CDC has declined by 591 positions, or 5.4%, from December 2016 through March 2019, the most recent data available from the Office of Personnel Management.
The lack of someone in the White House to coordinate the response to a widespread disease outbreak in the U.S. is something numerous experts and groups at the time had cautioned against.
In a November 2019 report, the Center for Strategic & International Studies recommended restoring the global health security position on the NSC as one of seven key changes to better protect the American public from global health threats.
“It remains unclear who would be in charge at the White House in the case of a grave pandemic threat or cross-border biological crisis,” the report reads, noting that such leadership is “critical in navigating challenging political issues like quarantines and travel bans and in communicating to and reassuring the American public.”
“The authorities currently in place at HHS (Health and Human Services) are insufficient to address these critical, complex, and often urgent interagency demands,” the report continues. “In addition to coordinating the interagency process, a global health security and biodefense directorate at the NSC can reform fragmented programs and ensure higher efficiencies, strengthened accountability, and better spending of scarce resources.”
Much has been written about the woeful lack of testing in the US—and we know that this pathetic effort has resulted in more exponential growth and more deaths. This issue is the responsibility of the CDC. The CDC has come up with numerous excuses—and there is likely some truth in these excuses. But however you slice it, this indicates a lack of planning and a degree of incompetence—which of course boils down to a lack of leadership. Thomas Frieden—a former CDC director, an infectious disease physician—has called for an investigation of this incompetence. As he explains:
In the past, the CDC moved quickly to produce tests for diseases such as H1N1, or swine flu. “We were able to get test kits out fast, something went wrong here. We have to find out why so we can prevent that in the future.”
He also said
“The agency has been muzzled under President Trump and despite the multitude of problems with the roll-out of testing, the CDC is still the greatest public health institution in the world.”
In other words—Trump has so far failed to destroy all of the structural integrity of the US. That project is still a work in progress—and will likely be put on hold until the day Trump takes 100% credit for anything good done by others and 0% blame for anything else.
On March 22, 2020, a point in time when only mental midgets can not see the consequences of not engaging is strict self-isolation, VOTUS tweets out the following in response to an idiot at Fox voicing an ignorant opinion…
This is the very definition of poor leadership—because if he does make a stupidly premature decision, all smart and intelligent people will have no choice but to ignore him. Companies will ignore him. Politicians and world leaders will ignore him. This is the very definition of failed leadership.
Since we are discussing definitions, perhaps now is the time to see the definition of what a truly repulsive human being looks like, and how such villain would have not prevented Ebola from becoming a pandemic
Stupidparty is deadly—I have been saying this for years—how can I help that penny to drop?
Today, Trump has no plan. People are dying. He won’t declare a national emergency—because he has no plan. More people will die. His administration has had years to devise a plan, years to figure out how to mitigate such death. His administration has now had months to devise a specific corona-virus plan, months to learn how to mitigate deaths. Years to figure out how to reduce the “timeout” that all the rest of us must now take.
We will all be stuck in self isolation far longer than would have been necessary if we had simple elected a somewhat decent human being into the White House. It is not like Trump needed to reinvent the wheel. The Chinese and other Asian countries have figured it out. He could have learned from Italy’s failures, from Germany’s low fatality rates. But no, his ignorance leads to avoidable deaths, the death of economic activity for a far longer period of time. He simply has no plan. HE HAS NO PLAN! He simply has no intellectual capacity to co-ordinate a plan.
He has no plan to save lives. That is why he is telling Governors that they must figure it out. That is why Governors have to turn to eBay to buy supplies at usurious prices.
Trump is transparently awful. This has always been the case. Now the consequences are smashing us in the face. Who the hell enabled this transparently awful human being? We all have time to ponder that. Is the earth flat? Will the penny drop?
Thanks for reading. Perhaps today we are entering to a period of more people reading? So if you want know how America got this point, if you want to figure out how America might deliver itself from Stupidparty by around 2025—well those questions are answered here:
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