Eric Boehlert with another useful insight into the media and the plague of Donald Trump. You do have to wonder how this can all just be attributed to ignorance and malfeasance…
Everything Trump has done in response to the coronavirus national emergency has been dead wrong. That’s confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines that were established over a decade ago for when dealing with a health crisis. The agency created a 450-page manual and Trump and his team have not only ignored the recommendations — be consistent, transparent, factual, and credible — they’ve actively done the opposite.
To date, Trump has ignored intelligence warnings, called the crisis a hoax, downplayed the threat, lied about virus testing, lied about the government’s on-the-ground response, lied about the rate of infection, blamed the Obama administration, misled the country about a cure, packed his days with non-action, blamed governors, failed to order a national lockdown, refused to work with certain Democratic officials, and has provided zero national leadership. (“I don’t take responsibility at all.”)
“The U.S. response will be studied for generations as a textbook example of a disastrous, failed effort,” said Ron Klain, who was tapped by President Barack Obama to oversee the nation’s fight against Ebola in 2014.
Trump has seemingly done everything to help spread the disease. “We have to understand that faced with “the invasion” of this virus the President has chosen to stand down, do nothing, let people die and it ravage America,” wrote Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg, in an entirely accurate description of what has transpired — Trump stood down and let a virus invade the country, knowing from intelligence briefings what that would mean for the U.S. population.
No other country is facing the coronavirus disaster while its national leader appears not to care how many of his country’s citizens die, and who day after day refuses to take common sense steps to address the crisis. (Where are the tests, masks, hospital beds, and respirators?)
Trump’s behavior has been shocking — except it hasn’t been. For five years, since entering the national political scene in the summer of 2015, Trump has shown us who he is everyday, a deeply damaged narcissist who can’t stop lying. Yet the press treats his sociopath tendencies as taboo.
The larger, looming question is, why is Trump doing this? Or as Greg Sargent recently asked at the Washington Post, why must Democrats and other officials try to force Trump be do the right thing? Why is he refusing to protect the population from a deadly invasion?
Maybe he’s vengeful. A fatalist? Maybe he wants to wreck the economy to create investment opportunities? He’s under the thumb of a foreign entity? He wants to cancel the November elections? Who knows. And honestly, the “why” isn’t what matters now. It’s increasingly not credible to suggest Trump has simply been distracted or incompetent during this crisis, leading to constant “flip-flops,” as the New York Times politely calls his hourly contradictions, as the country faces dire circumstances.
It’s time for journalists to stop expressing shock regarding his erratic and heartless behavior, because that unwarranted shock just helps normalize Trump’s dangerous behavior. It plays into the idea that Trump at times behaves rationally, and picks and chooses when he should act like a leader, and when he does not need to — that Trump can mimic the actions of a sane person when the situation calls for it.
If we take a step back, the scale of government’s failure is so complete and so sweeping it borders on the incomprehensible. After a while, explaining this away as Trump being unfocused, or not having a plan, or being shortsighted just doesn’t add up. The failure to protect has been so thorough, it’s difficult to suggest it’s happened coincidentally.
Why is it taboo? The possible answers are too disturbing for the press to ponder, therefore they’re deemed off-limits. Instead of addressing the reality, the press prefers to stick with the safe narrative that the White House is muddled and disorganized. To address the other possibilities would raise stunning questions about the President of the United States —the types of questions that have never been asked about any president in this nation’s history.
In essence, the press plays dumb, as the Wall Street Journal urges Trump to “rethink the coronavirus strategy,” as if there was ever a Trump “strategy” to begin with, while Politico suggests the life-and-death problems the U.S. faces today stem from Trump’s “short-term thinking.”
That’s the simple explanation. What’s going on is far more complicated, and far more disturbing.
Be sure to subscribe to PRESS RUN, Boehlert’s free newsletter. The way the media covers this crisis will play a gigantic role in how it affects our future. We need to stay on top of it.