Writing from the “great indoors,” when I'm not washing my hands, I find myself longing for the good old days. Actually, I'm referring to February 29, which was an infamous, albeit seminal day.
After ignoring warnings for months, Donald Trump stood in front of a packed White House briefing room, and told the country that, while there was a single death, there were only 15 cases of coronavirus in the U.S. “And the numbers are going down, not up.” He bragged, “And within a couple days it's going to be down to close to zero.” (He also predicted, “In April, when the weather heats up, the virus could magically disappear.”)
Trump would soon call the virus a “hoax” and no worse than just the regular flu and weeks later he would mock that Mitt Romney was in quarantine. (Is Trump more horrible as president or as a human being?) In any event, in the beginning the Coronavirus was “no big deal” for the Trump administration. In fact, Director of the National Economic Council, Larry Kudlow said “We have it contained” adding “it's almost airtight.”
Apparently some air got in because currently there are 16 coronavirus cases confirmed in Santa Monica while L.A. County cases top 660 with 11 deaths. Nationwide, there are at least 59,502 patients with the virus of which 804 have died.
At current rates, those numbers could double every sixty hours. (Yikes!) In fact the World Health Organization predicts that the U.S. could be the new epicenter of the Covid-19. And yet Trump Trump says he “sees the light at the end of the tunnel.” (Which could also be the lights of the train coming right at us.)
Trump touted the stock market rally of 11% yesterday as Congress passed a multi-trillion dollar stimulus package. This was the largest one day gain since 1933 but it should be noted that it took another eight years and WWII to finally come out of the Great Depression.
But childishly impatient, Trump doesn't want to wait years or even months. Riding roughshod over public health experts, he wants to put an end to the Covid-19 guidelines in time for Easter. The 2020 Olympics have been delayed a year but Trump wants it over in two weeks.
“Easter is very special to me and I want the churches packed,” he said. Although he's admitted he's never asked God forgiveness for his sins, a basic tenet of Christianity, he claims no one is more of a Christian than he is and talks about how much he loves the bible. Yet when asked for his favorite passages he can only say, “All of them.”
Ironically, his comments are almost identical to Sarah Palin's in 2008 when asked by Katie Couric what newspapers she read. Nervously, Palin said, “Um, all of them.” (To be fair, Trump didn't say “Um.”)
By the way, the devoutly religious, Palin recently appeared on Fox's The Masked Singer where she rapped “Baby Got Back.” The lyrics include, “When a girl walks in with an itty bitty waist/And a round thing in your face, you get sprung.”
Trump's April 12 date to “have the country raring to go,” has been greeted with retorts a la John McEnroe, “You can't be serious!” As the virus is spiking, we don't remotely have the necessary tests, masks, ventilators, hospital beds, doctors, nurses and health care workers. Other than all that, April 12 seems quite feasible...not! (Angered by lack of testing some are tweeting, to speed the process, we should send stool samples to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.)
Some scientists have speculated that we might incur more deaths than in all our wars from 1776 until now combined. (Is that all?)So how did the U.S. wind up on the precipice of being the most Covid-19 infected country in the world?
In 2018 Trump disbanded the NSC pandemic unit that experts had praised. In January 2020, he was briefed on the potential pandemic but reportedly was more interested in when when flavored vaping products would be back on the market. (Doubly weird because in September, 2019, Trump was against vaping citing “The First Lady has a son,” though being the father you'd think he'd have said “we have a son.”)
Self-congratulatory, Trump has to be the worst “Consoler in Chief” in modern presidential history. But Ivanka posted a “We're with you” video. Given that she and Jared took in $92 million last year, to many it had a “let them eat cake” quality. One viewer commented, “Her affected voice sounds like a sophisticated porn star.” (At least he said “sophisticated.”)
With unemployment skyrocketing to 10%, Texas Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick says that he and other grandparents are willing to die to save the economy for their grandchildren. On the other hand, April is only days away and Trump predicted the virus could “magically disappear.” Of course he also says, “We'll just have to see what happens.” I vote for new management.
Jack is at: facebook.com/jackneworth, twitter.com/jackneworth and jackdailypress@aol.com
