Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak criticized President Donald Trump for violating the state's rules on Sunday night by holding an indoor campaign rally attended by thousands of people.
Trump "is knowingly packing thousands into an indoor venue to hold a political rally" the governor wrote in a lengthy Twitter post. He added that Trump has "forgotten that this country is still in the middle of a global pandemic."
– Rebecca Shabad, NBC News (September 14, 2020)
What kind of person makes a mockery of social distancing while refusing to put medical science before politics during a pandemic that has claimed more than 194,000 American lives?
Who would ignore health directives time and again with his reckless, selfish actions while calling a pandemic a “hoax” or simple “flu”?
What U.S. president would not only risk the health of thousands of people attending a political rally in defiance of the state's ban on local gatherings of 50 people but also chance turning that event into a super spreader event that could seed Covid-19 outbreaks in a much wider community?
The answer: the president who is responsible for the most dangerous breaches of his own government's coronavirus recommendations and who is now trying to stop the full story of the coronavirus emergency from coming out – Donald Trump.
Trump downplays the serious consequences of contracting COVID-19 to pander to his base and project a sense of normalcy. To feed his gigantic ego, he soaked up the raucous cheers of his adoring audience in Hendersonville (Las Vegas), a crowd in which relatively few wore masks … with one clear exception: Those in the stands directly behind Trump, whose images would end up on TV, were mandated to wear face coverings.
This is a hypocritical reality-show backdrop created to convince a nation Trump really does care. He claims he is the “one leader” who stood up to the virus, yet his coronavirus response has been criticized for being inadequate and slow. Sadly, voters overwhelmingly see the coronavirus crisis through a partisan lens. And, no matter what happens – such as the potentially deadly rally in Las Vegas – Trumpers use it to reinforce their pre-existing beliefs.
Who could forget this Trump comment?
“Here’s the bad part… when you do testing to that extent, you’re going to find more people; you’re going to find more cases. So I said to my people, slow the testing down please.”
Trump pretends that the virus will disappear on its own, and he has encouraged businesses to reopen without mass testing and tracing in place. He uses the virus to rally his base around white identity politics.
The White House is hoping that Americans will grow numb to the surging coronavirus death toll and simply learn to accept 100,000 new cases a day, The Washington Post reports. Coronavirus is shaping up to become the key election issue, prompting the Trump camp to try to shift its messaging to attempt to convince Americans they can live with the deadly virus, according to anonymous insiders interviewed by the Post.
“They’re of the belief that people will get over it or if we stop highlighting it, the base will move on and the public will learn to accept 50,000 to 100,000 new cases a day,” said a former administration official in touch with the campaign. NBC News reported that the White House’s new message on coronavirus was that life should return to normal and Americans should learn to live with the virus.
(Rachel Olding. “Trump Admin Hopes Americans Will Get Used to 100K Daily Coronavirus Cases.” Daily Beast. July 06, 2020.)
The White House and Trump supporters pretend that the world Trump continually tweets about is real. They hope Americans will go numb to the escalating death toll and simply blame China for it.
The reality?
Trump continues to care nothing about the COVID-19 pandemic as he holds large indoor rallies without social distancing and masking.
Want more reality?
Scientists and physicians reacted with words such as “aghast,” “despicable” and “outrageous” over the weekend as news spread that White House appointees (Michael Caputo and others) interfered with a basic national public health report when it conflicted with President Donald Trump's coronavirus messaging. including Trump's claims that fears about the outbreak are overstated, or stop the reports altogether.
And even more disturbing reality?
Trump has publicly spread fantasy and lies since February, while privately telling Bob Woodward, the associate editor of The Washington Post, the truth about the coronavirus’s deadliness – on tape, mind you, for all the world to hear. Nearly two hundred thousand Americans are dead now, and “few of them had any inkling that their lives would soon be in danger because the President chose neither to tell the country the truth nor take actions that would empower the government to properly respond to a pandemic of this scale and lethality.”
. (Susan B. Glasser. “Bob Woodward Finally Got Trump to Tell the Truth About COVID-19.” The Atlantic. September 11, 2020.)
Isn't it about time for all American patriots to denounce the actions of an autocrat who presents a present danger? The November election will tell the will of the majority. At stake is the soul of America. Right now that soul is deeply divided in a struggle between saving lives and a conjured-up grab for power and greed.
“The coronavirus would weaken when we get into April, in the warmer weather – that has a very negative effect on that, and that type of a virus … It’s going to disappear. One day it’s like a miracle – it will disappear.”
– Donald Trump, Friday, February 7, 2020 and Thursday, February 27, 2020
No comments:
Post a Comment