From the Battleground, by Rich Paschall

“We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China,
and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.” – Jan. 22

From the very beginning, DJT has not understood the gravity of the situation. Just like he has done with his many failed businesses (13 but who’s counting), and ones that sought bankruptcy protection (6 more), he has miscalculated and mismanaged the pandemic in ways that could only be considered epic, as in epic failure.

“China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts … on behalf of the American People, I want to thank PresidentXi!” – January 24

That’s right. He thanked China, but when things started going poorly in the US, he blamed China and began making racist statements against the Chinese.

“Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.” – Feb 10.

He told the American people what he wanted them to believe. The lies and misstatements were just campaign rhetoric. He did not research. He did not study what to do. He made campaign statements.

“The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. … Stock Market starting to look very good to me!” – Feb 24

It was important to his reelection process for the economy to look good. So he told his followers that everything was fine. It wasn’t. Did he think that things were just miraculously going to fix themselves and his campaign statements were actually going to come true?

“It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”  – Feb 27

That seems to be what he thought. The passage of time was just going to make things better. It didn’t. Things only got worse. Instead of taking charge, he blamed everyone he could think of.

“The Fake News Media and their partner, the Democrat Party, is doing everything within its
semi-considerable power … to inflame the CoronaVirus situation.”  – March 9

It is his style to lash out at others when things are not going his way, which is more and more often lately. The statement above was made as the stock market was falling, the virus was starting to spread and people were dying. The following day, the same day the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, the orange one had this to say:

“We’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.” – March 10

Basically, they weren’t doing any type of job unless you consider that blaming others was his job. Yes, politicians often do that, but denial and lies were not what was needed in a time of national crisis. It is what we got, however.

“This is a very contagious virus. It’s incredible. But it’s something that we have tremendous control over.” – March 15.

Contrary to the orange’s one assertions that everything was going well, things were clearly moving in the wrong direction. On March 16th the Orange one announced a guideline for “15 days to slow the spread.”

“We want to have very — as few deaths as possible. This is a horrible thing.” – March 17

One hundred and eight were dead and the numbers were trending the wrong way. Five days later he was getting tired of the whole mess.

“America will again, and soon, be open for business — very soon — a lot sooner than three or four months that somebody was suggesting. A lot sooner. We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself.” –  March 23

Now it was 557 dead. Trump wanted businesses to reopen. On March 31 Dr. Fauci warned in a task force briefing that 100,000 Americans could die from the disease. There were 3,874 dead. On April 3 the Center for Disease Control recommended Americans wear masks when going out in public. Trump responded:

“It’s going to be, really, a voluntary thing. You can do it. You don’t have to do it.
I’m choosing not to do it, but some people may want to do it, and that’s OK.” – April 3

There was no firm guidance, no leadership, no clear path to success. Trump’s briefings seemed to be an exercise in contradicting the guidance of medical professionals. When Dr. Fauci or Dr. Birx were present, they had to walk a fine line between speaking the truth and not making the orange one look like an idiot. A strong contradiction would have gotten them fired.

“Today I am instructing my administration to halt funding of the World Health Organization while a review is conducted to assess [its] role in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus.” – April 14

Cover-up? WHO declared a pandemic on March 9th. They certainly were not responsible for the Trump administration’s lack of response, but they became the latest scapegoat in the Trump blame game.  607,670 U.S. cases, 25,843 deaths

This was the beginning. A path to nowhere. A solution to nothing. A failure in the making. Donald J. Trump tried to lie the pandemic out of existence. That didn’t work. He tried to force states to open or re-open. That made things worse. He desperately wants a good economy to help his re-election. His push to put things back to the way they were at the beginning of the year has backfired in historic proportions.

Categories: corruption, Epidemic - Pandemic - Plague, Government, Medical, Politics, Rich Paschall

Tags: Business, Coronavirus - Covid 19, economy, masks, medical, pandemic, partisan politics, stupidity, Trump