.
70 thousand Americans have died, and the President is calling the American people “warriors,” and “winding down” the White House Coronavirus Task Force. Please vote.
— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) May 5, 2020
He’s a war president, for sure, if you assume his war is against at least 63% of the American public.
Succinct director of Harvard Global Health institute: “People who are dying of this virus are not dying to protect the American way of life. They’re dying because their government has had a completely ineffective response to this infectious disease." https://t.co/fpwHRh3xo2
— Ronald Brownstein (@RonBrownstein) May 6, 2020
START THINKING OF YOURSELF AS A WARRIOR ORIN. https://t.co/5CnzkM4G2I
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) May 6, 2020
"The people of our country should think of themselves as warriors. Our country has to open." https://t.co/GSgDqPKj42
— Schooley (@Rschooley) May 5, 2020
lionizing casualties is the oldest trick in the "we need to justify this war" book https://t.co/TKHyTasj6H
— Gerry Doyle (@mgerrydoyle) May 7, 2020
The implicit challenge of Trump as president is how much abasement and insult the country is willing to endure. It's all he has to offer, and all he has ever given to anyone, in any circumstance. Thousands of deaths a day won't give him pause for a minute. https://t.co/DWmxNMChm2
— David Roth (@david_j_roth) May 5, 2020
It would be my honor to serve my country in this glorious war by coughing to death because public health policies are boring and difficult to enact.
— David Roth (@david_j_roth) May 5, 2020
Trump is kind of the logical endpoint of decades of treating every challenge as a war. Bush used to say we could help the war effort by going out and shopping. This is the next level: shopping is war, but now we must lay down our own lives.
— Joseph Flynn (@ChinaJoeFlynn) May 5, 2020
Am I the only one who doesn't want to be a warrior to serve a guy who used a favor from his dad's podiatrist tenant to not be a warrior?
— Schooley (@Rschooley) May 5, 2020
some miss the dead, some miss the rallies https://t.co/lsswwWTTSG
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) May 3, 2020
Here is my fear: numbers are abstract, and most Americans have not personally experienced death due to the coronavirus. The pandemic is disproportionately devastating elderly in nursing homes, hourly workers in a handful of urban areas, immigrants in meat-packing plants…
— Michael Bayer (@mbayer1248) May 5, 2020
And eventually, it WILL begin to impact Americans in the suburbs and exurbs, beyond the meat-packing plant workers and prisons and nursing homes. People will start to lose loved ones, but by then, potentially hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths will have occurred…
— Michael Bayer (@mbayer1248) May 5, 2020
There's so much more that could be said, but I'll end with this—contemporary Americans have been inculcated to believe that our intrinsic exceptionalism combined with the correct application of military force can solve all the world's problems. Seal Team 6 can't defeat a virus.
— Michael Bayer (@mbayer1248) May 5, 2020
If I live through this I will never, not for a single moment, stop blaming the people who made it worse, starting with the president who suggested people poison themselves and the party — your party, @purduemitch — that stood by his side. pic.twitter.com/tzMnjzVUW2
— Jamison Foser (@jamisonfoser) May 5, 2020
Trump gives pep talk to essential workers before reopening. pic.twitter.com/5zjeRLr9je
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) May 5, 2020
Roger Moore
But what if ineffective government is part of the American way of life?
artem1s
Red shirts, indeed.
Just Chuck
Not to be unhumble, but maybe add this to the article:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFkANvtxLoY
TaMara (HFG)
Where is the covidiot-in-chief flying to today, spreading his germs? Meanwhile Joe Biden aims for the nuts.
Elizabelle
Quotes and passages from the sane side, in the (very good) LA Times story in Anne’s roundup of tweets, above.
Trump calls Americans ‘warriors’ in fight to open the economy
We were discussing this the other day, and got sidetracked by the reporter’s mention of the “Resolute” desk. Maybe Trump will rename it the “Warrior” desk. And, FWIW, I think Trump called Michael Flynn a “warrior” a few times yesterday.
Hunter Gathers
Give me the ability to hassle the wait staff at Hooters or give me death!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@TaMara (HFG): I dunno, but Mike Pence is on his way to Iowa. I wonder if he’ll make a mask-less visit to a meat-packing plant, to show how safe it is?
8:48 AM · May 8, 2020·
Elizabelle
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Time for the Grim Reaper to harvest Chuck Grassley. Enough.
Wouldn’t it be something to elect two Democratic Senators from Iowa this fall?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Roger Moore:
Were it not for the completely ineffective, imbecilic national response to both the medical and economic factors of this, there wouldn’t be such pressure to reopen.
An effective medical response would be a use of the DPA to compel production of masks, and not the haphazard distribution disruptions that have occurred. It would bypass IP profiteering on mask design and pharma, and do a Manhattan Project on treatment and vaccine, also bypassing the profiteering and gouging features of our economic model.
An effective economic response would be a moratorium on all rents and mortgages, congressionally mandated haircuts to bond and swaps holders via the bankruptcy power, a halt to equity trades and Fed backstops to make some gesture to investors harmed.
It would have been cheaper, and we could’ve stayed locked down for about 120 days.
You think Europe or SE Asia will want American travelers for a while?
Baud
Where’s my Purple Heart?
germy
Trying to prevent more deaths would be unfair to those who have already died from this virus.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Elizabelle:
I really want some senior GOP senator or senior admin official to get it and die a choking death, drowning in their own lung fluid.
SiubhanDuinne
MSNBC is reporting that a member of VP Pence’s staff has tested + for COVID-19. They haven’t identified the staffer’s role, closeness to VP, or other details.
Trump must be freaking completely the fuck out.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
It’s there already, just a significant portion of the population as been trained all their lives to ignore reality. This is the deadly fruit of the Creationism. That “I reject reality and substitute my own” that Jamie from Myth Busters talks about.
OldDave
Bless his heart.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@germy:
Ah yes, the old student loan and 2008 mortgage adjustment arguments.
Its always nice to see the classics return to the political pitch.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@SiubhanDuinne: This another one after Trump’s military aid yesterday?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@SiubhanDuinne:
I just hope he catches the fatal version.
SFAW
“Let’s avoid the partisan blame game”
— usually uttered by someone from the group that actually SHOULD be blamed for causing the problem in the first place.
germy
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Wait! They’re not really saying that, are they?
I just made it up as parody.
Barbara
I still have a sense of wonderment that Trump has been completely incapable of taking advantage of the situation. Think of GWB, sucking wind by September of 2001, with his approvals at an all-time low and then 9/11 happens, and boing, with just the ability to play the part of the protector in chief he goes up to 90% approval with a lingering tail long enough to get him reelected, even though he completely fucked us up by invading Iraq (and fucked up Iraq by many multiples of the domestic impact).
hueyplong
Yesterday alone we saw Trump’s freak-out over an aide’s positive test and the immediate change of WH testing from weekly to daily while simultaneously telling untested Americans to be warriors.
In a rational narrative that would be a Stillson moment effectively ending his presidency.
Instead we move on to Friday, wondering what’s next.
(And this doesn’t even take into account the godawful Flynn power grab on the same day.)
artem1s
well scaring the rubes by declaring a war worked for Bush II, not so much for Bush I. I’m kind of betting that the folks this typically work on expect those other people to be the cannon fodder in these dog wagging shows. For once the regular troops may actually be safer than the war mongering armchair commandos.
Searcher
The efforts of humans can roughly be divided into two categories: war and agriculture.
War is all the things that are done and won. You fight a war, you win it, it’s over. You design a building, you build it, it is done. A lot of work is like this; you are presented with an objective, you accomplish it, and you move on to the next.
Then you have agriculture. Do you know what happens after you reap what you sow? You get ready to sow again. It is a recurring process of doing the same thing over and over, day after day, year after year. You don’t finish farming, you don’t finish teaching, you don’t finish maintaining and preserving and archiving. You just keep doing it.
Besides everything else that is wrong with it, the wartime mentality that infects public thought is dangerous in that it looks for endings, to finish things once and for all that are never finished, because that is not the point.
We need fewer warriors in public service and more gardeners.
hueyplong
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: And video of that choking death needs to go viral on the internet.
Otherwise it didn’t happen.
Miss Bianca
@Barbara: IKR? One of the tweets that one of the front-pagers (probably AL) embedded recently marvelled at the fact that Trump simply couldn’t grok the notion that an effective COVID-19 response would have *boosted* his re-election chances.
artem1s
@SiubhanDuinne:
I hope he sues the VP for reckless endangerment.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I hope stress and rage and panic give him a stroke and he’s trapped in his own body, cognizant and unable to communicate, still consumed by rage and resentment as he helplessly watches his power slip away…
Suzanne
So. Pence delivered empty boxes to a hospital. Pretended for the cameras (of course there’s cameras) that they were full of PPE for the workers. He struggled to lift the empty box. He set it down in such fashion that it prevented the functional operation of the sliding door, the door that keeps literal hot air out of the building.
If I was a screenwriter in the future trying to come up with metaphors for the utter mendacious ineptitude of these people, I could not do better than this.
Struggling to lift an empty fucken box.
JPL
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Amazing waste of time. Spend the money sending tests, so that essential workers can be tested before reporting to work.
SiubhanDuinne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Yes, a different person. I doubt he’ll be the last, either, and I’m guessing that within a couple of weeks someone from the inner circle — family member, Cabinet officer, very senior staffer (IOW, someone whose name we know) — will show symptoms/test positive.
japa21
@Searcher:
I love that phrase. I will try to give you credit when I use it. Emphasis on the word try.
Barbara
@artem1s: The use of war to galvanize your fellow citizens is much more effective when their own welfare is not threatened. Seeing people whine about not being able to get their nails done is kind of stunning. I do get it. It’s not really my nails that are suffering, it’s my manicurist (well, if I had one). So I actually do have some sympathy for the salon operators and their employees. But their anger should be directed at the authorities who will not come up with a plan to figure out how to slowly reopen as they ramp up testing, especially for vulnerable people. This is just an abject failure of leadership.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Wait. Is that a different staffer? One of Pence’s?
James E Powell
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Just one? I’d like it to be every R in the senate.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@germy:
It’s a version of the spirit of covetousness I’ve always heard from goshdarned hardworking southern and midwestern white conservatives who get angry over any benefit that doesn’t go to some white man born to wealth and privilege.
SiubhanDuinne
@artem1s:
Simple justice.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@hueyplong:
Run it as Pay per Click, and you could pay off the national COVID expenses in three months.
Have the Pornhub engineers design the architecture of the servers and site.
Barbara
@hueyplong: They have definitely been having a lot more of these staged offsite events. There is a lot of planning that takes place, and the aides and personnel who have to arrange these things are basically unprotected as they fly to wherever in advance of the President and VP, who just basically get on a plan and go there and don’t really come into close contact with anyone. They stay in hotels, they usually fly on non-government airplanes, they meet with police or with the institutional security and scope out the conference rooms and other locations where the president will be, etc.
All I can say is that as more and more of them get sick, I would not be surprised if Trump ends up canceling whatever rallies he has been planning in his head.
SiubhanDuinne
@Searcher: I really like that analysis/analogy. Nicely done. Thank you.
artem1s
@hueyplong:
We may actually be approaching the Hitler bunker meltdown point. I’ve been expecting someone inside to release a secret recordings any day now. With all the unsecured phones in the West Wing, someone’s got to be betting on a “tell all” book deal – provided they live thru this mess.
At this point the Stillson moment may have to wait for 2021 when the secret service have to drag his sorry ass out of the WH.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@SiubhanDuinne:
Wilbur Ross – oh GOD, let that be so….
rikyrah
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
the thought of going into a meat packing plant unmasked
JaneE
With all due respect to Harvard, people are dying because their government chose to let them die.
Wolf
Michael Bayer@mbayer1248
Here is my fear: numbers are abstract, and most Americans have not personally experienced death due to the coronavirus. The pandemic is disproportionately devastating elderly in nursing homes, hourly workers in a handful of urban areas, immigrants in meat-packing plants..
———————
That’s why we need to move from abstract numbers 70k deaths to emotional images, e.g., more deaths now than in Vietnam. Use Vietnam or 9/11 units. It hits the gut.
Miss Bianca
@Barbara: Meanwhile, I just found out that the proprietress of one of my salons (OK, every 3-4 months I’d go get my eyebrows waxed, don’t judge!) died recently. Directly COVID-19 related? Probably not – the last time I was in there, which was right before the big shutdown, we talked about the death of her son and his father, both in the same car crash. It was awful, and I couldn’t believe she was able to talk about it at all.
Now I hear rumors that her death might have been suicide. Maybe not related at all to the fact that she had to shut down and couldn’t make a living, maybe just related to grief. But still…it gave me a pang to drive by her salon the other day and see that big banner she had outside – “WE LOVE YOU, STAY SAFE, WE’LL SEE YOU SOON” – was gone. : (
SiubhanDuinne
@Suzanne: Even better, he was caught on a hot mic saying that he wanted to carry a couple of empty boxes “for the cameras.”
What. A. Maroon.
Gvg
We aren’t warriors fighting the virus, we are warriors fighting our own government. We are going to have to risk our lives to go to the polls. In the meantime it sort of resembles hamburger hill with a lunatic in charge.
i wonder if real soldiers are as insulted as I am. He has no clue what the really have to do, they are just slogans whose popularly he wants to steal.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@James E Powell:
Picture McConnell whimpering and gasping in a bed in the crowded hallway of Bethesda, as he sees an intubated Grassley being wheeled down a hallway. A few doors down, in Graham’s room, the tones of all the devices and shouts are coming as he is coding out.
Shit, this stuff is better than V!agra…
SiubhanDuinne
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: That would be so frickin PERFECT.
rikyrah
@Barbara:
I will never forget the protester who said that he was mad about not being able to get free refills on his drinks at a restaurant.
Someone should risk his life so that he can get an extra Sprite.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Miss Bianca:
I can’t be too angry at anxious shop owners – our government has absolutely failed us and has led to the pressure to reopen, as none of our creditors or landlords are going away.
Aleta
Yes send the warrior children in to reveal the enemy’s hiding places. Search and destroy! Sacrifice the dirt-eating grunts to call down hospitals’ firepower. Attrition will win this war, you better believe it! Go Warriors! Gung and tally ho!
catclub
also, all the people ( sorry, warriors) who die from it don’t even help establish herd immunity
Aleta
@SiubhanDuinne: There was one in his (VP) office a few weeks ago too.
Brachiator
Today is the 75th anniversary of VE Day. You know, when real warriors fought to defeat an enemy. And no one suggested that the people back home had to sacrifice themselves to save the economy.
Zinsky
The only reason our reptilian acting president is so damn worried about America “getting back to work” is that his crummy hotels and shitty golf courses are just about to go teats up! He literally is on the brink of becoming the first sitting president to declare personal bankruptcy. I’m sure Deutsche Bank is calling the White House every day, wondering how this POS is going to pay them back. Vote but even more important – don’t go back to work until you absolutely have to! You will help bankrupt Trump!
SiubhanDuinne
@Aleta: Oh, I missed that. Thanks.
RobertDSC-Work
@Baud:
(hands you a Band-Aid)
Suzanne
@SiubhanDuinne: If there is a better metaphor for the absolutely shameless falsity and weakness of this administration, I have yet to see it.
Archon
If someone were to ask me last year which country would have the absolute worse outcomes in every measure if a global pandemic would have hit, I would have said without hesitation the United States.
The “this is just a flu” hoaxers, the mask truthers, the epically botched response and botched reopening by Trump and right-wing governors. The number of dead that dwarfs every other country. None of this would have surprised 2019 Archon with a glimpse into the future.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Archon:
I would have predicted that the moment that the bloated buffoon got sworn in.
MisterForkbeard
@Archon: I think my favorite ridiculous statement are the people who claim that it’s a ‘seasonal flu’ and therefore no vaccine will ever be available and yet THEY’RE the victims here because people keep calling this lies and misinformation. Go freedom!
It’s not a seasonal flu, but there is literally a flu vaccine every fucking year. You get to watch them make two incredibly wrong points that nevertheless disprove each other in just one sentence.
MisterForkbeard
@SiubhanDuinne: Yep. Screwing up the actual response so badly that you cause real harm and then fucking up the scripted propaganda event too is exactly on brand for this clusterfuck of an administration.
Citizen Alan
@artem1s: Actually, war worked too well for Bush I. His mistake was in being too effective as a wartime President and thus declaring victory early enough for his approval rating to come back down in response to his economic fumbling. It was a lesson Bush II learned well, which is why we’re still in Afghanistan 20 years later.
Mike in NC
In his latest column, Dana Millbank speculates that if Trump had been responsible for the Manhattan Project, we’d all be speaking Japanese today.
Citizen Alan
@rikyrah:
No way that lard-ass drinks Sprite. He drinks Coca-cola and would get it with extra HFC if he could.
Elizabelle
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Me too. But they’ll go out warriors!
/snicker
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Yes, apparently they delayed AF2 taking off because a couple of Pence staffers on the plane, have had recent contact with another Pence staffer who today tested positive. If I understand correctly.
Pence staffer tests positive
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Mike in NC: Nah, we would be glowing in the dark! Gotta think bigly!
sdhays
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Wow. This has literally been my wish for a while now. The only difference is that I don’t care if he’s trapped in his body. I just want him to not be able to use his vomit hole to speak, and to be unable to write/tweet. I think having him just be able to watch while he’s shoved aside and ignored (and blamed) would have to be a particularly personal hell for him.
Ruckus
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Or ever again….
Ruckus
@SiubhanDuinne:
So, new day, same as the old day.
lumpkin
Trump is like a puppy with a chew toy and this “warrior” shit is just the latest. Somebody got him all jazzed up about it and now he thinks he sounds inspiring and courageous. He’ll flog this thing to death like he does everything else and won’t inspire anyone. The only people who are inspired by him are his psychotic supporters and its the hate and racism they love, not any call to national sacrifice.
L85NJGT
The correct post peak analogy would be winning the peace. Full throttle on test, trace and quarantine, finding an effective course of treatment, and a vaccine.
lumpkin
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone: Imagine if trump and pence both got it.
Please, please, please.
Brother Maynard
Since we are now a warriors in the CV-19 fight, do we get to use the VA after it’s over? Can we use the GI Bill for schooling and to get VA housing loans?
L85NJGT
@Baud:
This is Trump were talking about – it will be some garish multi-colored sash, with a big pot metal trinket.
lumpkin
@Brother Maynard: No but you get a free body bag.
Just One More Canuck
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Canada’s not too interested in opening up our border any time soon
JCJ
@Baud:
Where’s my Purple Heart?
Didn’t you have purple toes?
bemused
@Ruckus:
Trump is whipping his staff, spraying spittle everywhere, for not being good enough warriors to stop covid-19 from entering his space.
Tdjr
@Miss Bianca: Oh that’s a sad story! ?
Fair Economist
@Suzanne:
Obviously defective door. If it really kept hot air out it wouldn’t have let Pence in.
NotMax
Turning the floor over for a moment to Aldous Huxley:
“One of the great attractions of patriotism – it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of our nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat. Bully and cheat, what’s more, with a feeling that we are profoundly virtuous.”
“A country which proposes to make use of modern war as an instrument of policy must possess a highly centralized, all-powerful executive, hence the absurdity of talking about the defense of democracy by force of arms. A democracy which makes or effectively prepares for modern scientific war must necessarily cease to be democratic.”
And a bonus smidgen of Kierkegaard:
“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”
VOR
@SiubhanDuinne: Slightly more nuanced in reality. Pence did a photo-op where he delivered PPE to a facility. I say “delivered”, he rolled a cart from a van 50 feet to a sliding door, picked up two boxes, and placed them on the ground blocking the sliding door. He then took the cart back to the van. Someone said the remaining boxes in the van were empty and he said, that’s okay it’s just for the photo-op.
The MAGAts are going to claim you libs got it all wrong, he didn’t deliver empty boxes, he delivered full boxes. All liars, fake news.
But Pence was totally okay with bringing empty boxes as long as it was caught on camera. Shades of Paul Ryan washing clean dishes. Oh, and Pence was not wearing a mask.
TKH
Dulce et decorum est pro apertio mori
dnfree
Apparently the Pence empty box thing is fake. He was joking. I wish people wouldn’t do that.
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
@Zinsky: Not to mention the Bank of China, and various “friends of Vladimir Vladimirovich” are quite interested in his financial well-being.
Another Scott
@Searcher: This is really excellent.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@Zinsky: IIRC, Donnie has his businesses set up to kinda-sorta work as family enterprises, but he also had a zillion “companies” set up (that he did divest from) for his real-estate holdings. Like every apartment unit was a separate “company”, kinda thing. I doubt very much that he would have to declare personal bankruptcy given all the machinations he’s done. Others will be holding the bag – as always.
We’ll see.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jay Noble
@dnfree: Kimmel owes Pence and everyone an apology on this one. Can’t be doing the O’keefe route.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Hair Furor’s sole tactic in fighting his war on the virus is much like the Allied commanders did early in WWI where they just kept throwing soldiers at German machine guns and letting them get mowed down.
We’re warriors now? Fuck that static, I didn’t enlist and I’m not being drafted. I want to live. When a Republican starts talking about patriotism and warriors, people usually start dying.
Chris Johnson
Being mad at the empty boxes is like being mad that the WMDs weren’t REALLY under the couch in Bush’s jokey video.
Unclear on the concept, and not spotting the part that’s legitimately bad.
J R in WV
@SiubhanDuinne:
Perhaps, but he well may not be able to accept that he too is vulnerable to diseases.
Has he ever had a serious illness, where you lay in bed wondering if this is what it feels like to be dying? Or so serious that you are kinda hoping you won’t wake up in the morning still being sick and wondering how sick you really are? If he did, once, does he remember it or has he cancelled that memory because it is not acceptable to his neurosis?
J R in WV
@Miss Bianca:
While this is true, if perhaps he knew that an effective plague response would ensure his re-election, would he, could he have possibly mustered an effective federal response?
No.
He can’t even pick competent people (like the CDC staff and other federal researchers) and let them do what they do. He has to poke and prod and make speeches and hire and fire — that’s what he always does. He can’t help it, it’s why he keeps going bankrupt.
This is how that works in public policy.