March 8, 2020

MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH

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According to a recent tweet, “Richard Hatchett, the doctor leading efforts to find a vaccine for Coronavirus, says it is much more lethal than normal flu….This is the most frightening disease I've ever encountered in my career.”

Amidst the news reports on Coronavirus, there is a steady flow of warnings from epidemiologists that the Coronavirus presents a tsunami pandemic. Although it may be an outlier estimate, according to a CBS Evening News interview with a top Harvard epidemiologist, he predicts 40-70% of every adult in the world over the age of 35 will be infected with Coronavirus, “with millions of people dying.” That may be alarmist, but if you watch the interview with this solemn, low-key Harvard expert, you are left shaken not only by the gravity of what might face us, but by the willful denial of the potential catastrophe led by Trump.

Trump’s visit to the CDC on Friday was surreal, typical of his deranged preoccupation with and perpetuation of an alternative universe that is grounded in a Fox News fantasy that is aimed at controlling his base, while consolidating power and attempting to steal the 2020 election to assert “unitary executive authority” over the US. His indefatigable propaganda, that conflicts with epidemiological experts in regards to the Coronavirus, will not be modified by any concessions to reality if they detract from his pernicious fantasy world that he has constructed largely with the input of Fox News TV personalities, particularly with the ongoing advice of Sean Hannity.

In the unhinged news conference at the CDC, Trump appeared as if he had slept in his golfing clothes and wore a red campaign cap as he made pronouncements that had more to do with spreading deadly disinformation on the Coronavirus than in limiting its wildfire expansion..

“Anybody that needs a test gets a test…. the tests are all perfect,” Trump said from behind a CDC lab desk. “like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect. Right? This was not as perfect as that but pretty good.”

He couldn’t resist trying to again claim that his call to Ukrainian President Zelensky on July 24, 2019, was “perfect,” even though he was impeached over it. But, of course, as with his violation of asking for a foreign power to assist him in the 2020 election, he was equally guilty of promising universal testing when the kits are, as of today, still in extremely short supply. Less than 2000 people in the entire US had been tested as of Thursday.

He boasted the demented falsehood, “People are really surprised I understand this stuff [the Coronavirus]. Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability.’”

He managed to squeeze in his usual barb at one of his self-perceived “enemies,” in this case Democratic Washington Governor Jay Inslee whose state is currently at the initial epicenter of the Coronavirus outbreak in the US, and has just declared an emergency in the state. Trump called him a “snake” and a bad man because when Mike “HIV Epidemic and Smoking Doesn’t Cause Cancer” Pence called Inslee to offer federal help, Inslee recounted, “I told him [Pence] our work would be more successful if the Trump administration stuck to science and told the truth.” It was like a dagger through Trump’s vampire heart, striking at the very gaslighting that the DC press has generally faithfully reported.

There was so much more of Trump’s vast array of unabashed lying during the “briefing,” but one particular exchange sticks out more than the other dangerous lies, in part because it was the frightening truth. He was asked when the passengers on the stricken Grand Princess, moored off of San Francisco with no one allowed to leave, would be discharged to quarantine on the mainland (only a small percentage have been tested thus far), and Trump said he has been against letting them off because it would hurt “my numbers.”

What did he mean? He was just publicly, as he is wont to do, revealing his con. He didn’t officially include any passengers on the ship who have contracted the Coronavirus as being among Americans who have been infected (the number of whom have the virus is not trustworthy as revealed by the CDC). The infections appear to be vastly under reported because there are, as noted above, not enough test kits to determine, even roughly, how many people are affected, and Trump wants to keep “his numbers” low to reinforce his lie that the Coronavirus is a Democratic “hoax” and “will disappear some day like magic.”

But no reporter followed up on this despicable statement on his part. The Grand Princess, given that the Coronavirus is transmitted at up to 6 feet, is Trump's Voyage of the Damned. He is facilitating infection of passengers by not letting them off the ship, because he doesn't want known US infection numbers to ratchet up. Couldn’t one reporter call him out on how he is indifferent to the passengers confined and destined to be infected?

There was so much more inanity to the briefing filled with lies, bombast, name-calling and even a Trump digression to ask a Fox reporter how his ratings were for a recent town hall appearance. In short, if was vintage unhinged Trump.

However, we are facing a catastrophic pandemic being managed by a mentally incompetent faux president, and lives are on the line — many lives, as he and his anti-science Sancho Panza, Mike Pence, run havoc through efforts to mitigate the virus’s spread, not to mention handling the devastating economic fallout, the stress on the US public health system, social disruption, the uninsured, and honest recommendations about avoiding the virus.

In short, Trump needs to be restrained in a mental health facility, not to be “governing” the nation. His handling of the Coronavirus is beyond incompetent. He is offering "advice" that will actually accelerate the spread of the virus. If the DC press corps didn't treat his lunacy with such deference, we might see the virus spread at a lower rate (and its exponential spread is just starting), but they are incapable — for the most part — of doing anything other than transcribing his lies and false assurances aimed, in large part, at trying to stop the stock market from plunging even further.

Some cable news stations have become more critical of his pronouncements and tweets, and are starting to interview actual medical experts, but, for the most part, the media continues to treat the travesty of the likes of his CDC press briefing as standard practice. They normalize Trump’s pathology.

Don't these "reporters" have families they cherish and now face Coronavirus unchecked by a lunatic? How can they still act as if Trump is suited for office? The virus is closing in on DC — and it will inevitably start to infect the DC media, members of Congress and staffers, and even likely the White House. That is because unlike Trump’s other enemies, a virus does not care about a person’s status in life. It can’t be stopped by bullying, deceit and power.

Part of the problem, as explained before on BuzzFlash, is that the major media is owned by corporations, who are concerned with profits, who have wealthy people on their boards, and rely on conservative advertisers. The interest of the publishers filters down to reporters to treat Trump as an actual president and not to demand the truth from him. This is what Noam Chomsky famously called the “manufactured consent” guard rails of the media.

This epidemic is going to get worse, far worse, and the infections and deaths are on Trump's hands. He is a toxic contagion of misinformation and a sociopathic, cruel demagogue, who only values creating a spectacle for the media, chaos and grifting. Meanwhile, we will all suffer from his evil.

The media, particularly the DC White House “reporters,” are Trump’s enablers as the Coronavirus will take a larger toll than it would otherwise if Trump’s cons were challenged. Our lives are at risk, and many many reporters still assist Trump by making excuses for, what one news outlet euphemistically called, his “freewheeling style."

What Trump needs is not servile scriveners. He needs a mental health intervention.

The media is largely inured to a mentally impaired impostor presiden and treat him as though he merits his authority.

Let's hope that the 2020 election isn't canceled due to a "national emergency" declared by Trump as the Coronavirus pandemic explodes out of control due to Trump's ineptitude and political cynicism. Our economy may have imploded by then too. Is the media prepared for this, or will they just again report Trump’s rants rather than ferret out the truth as we enter into full-fledged fascism?

That the DC press corps is still normalizing Trump when he is making preposterous claims about his "ability" to contain the virus when he is worsening the pandemic, that he is endangering our lives, is mind boggling. Aren't these journalists supposed to take a deep dive into the truth?

Under Trump, the US has become the epitome of ignorance. We are purveyors, under Trump's macabre "hunches," of a primitive denial of reality.

Trump is frustrated because he can't give the Coronavirus a nickname and mock it. However, the Coronavirus cannot be intimidated by the rantings of a carnival barker con man. Death and disease have an agenda that can't be bullied.

Journalist Nancy LeTourneau, in a March 5 article in the Washington Monthly straight forwardly charges that the “media still won’t address Trump’s unfitness for office”:

The unwillingness of the news media to discuss Trump’s unfitness for office keeps the public from grappling with the fact that his response to this crisis has been a disaster. That will also shield the president from accountability when this particular crisis gets much worse—which most experts assume is just a matter of time….

Since shortly after Trump was inaugurated, I have been saying that we need to talk about his mental health issues. To anyone who has been paying attention, he has only deteriorated since that time….

It is becoming more clear every day that none of us are safe as long as Donald Trump is president. That is why all of us have to talk about the elephant in the room that the media wants to avoid: this president is not well.

LeTourneau includes tweets to buttress her argument that the health and safety of US residents are at grave risk with Trump asserting presidential powers, even though, as BuzzFlash has repeatedly pointed out, he is clearly mentally unbalanced, narcissistic, cruel and preoccupied with his role both as the master entertainer and creator of diversionary spectacle. Add to that his role as a demagogue seeking to become a dictator and his functioning as a mafia don who only values personal loyalty to him over loyalty to the United States, and you have a clear and present danger in the White House.

Tourneau included a tweet in her commentary from Ben Rhodes — who is a writer, political commentator and former Obama aide — expressing astonishment at how the DC press corps normalized a particularly incoherent news conference in late February on the virus, although aren’t they all?

Tourneau concludes: “The unwillingness of the news media to discuss Trump’s unfitness for office keeps the public from grappling with the fact that his response to this crisis has been a disaster. That will also shield the president from accountability when this particular crisis gets much worse—which most experts assume is just a matter of time.”

The late Polish emigre author Jerzy Kosinski wrote a novel Being There in which a simpleton, “Chance the Gardner,” becomes a presidential adviser because his terse comments are often reported as unchallenged wisdom. Such is the attitude of much of the DC press corps toward the star con man Donald Trump.

Transcribe and don’t challenge, get a six figures or more paycheck, cash it, live the good life, rinse and transcribe again. And don’t forget the hobnobbing with the DC political and journalistic elite. Ah, the life of a White House “journalist.”

Instead of unrelentingly insisting on and reporting the truth, they are generally craven and enabling the advance of the Coronavirus.

What could be a solution? How about the media, all of it that exists in the realm of reality, science, and facts, leads their stories with the truth. Only report Trump’s news conferences, “gaggles,” “sprays,” and click-bait deflecting tweets, in short sidebar stories, if at all. In general, ignore him when he lies, which is almost always, or note his mendacious comments at the end of articles that report what is factual, not what is fabulist, chaotic, dishonest and a threat to our national health (and in other cases our national security).

Treat Trump like a mentally unstable adolescent.

Journalism should be a noble calling, but for the most part it functions now as a fluffer for Trump’s ruinous shortfalls.

Some fault lines are starting to show, as some journalists realize the disastrous future that awaits us as a “normalized” Trump leads us over a cliff. It may be too late, and many of the White House reporters are still treating Trump with deference and recording his misinformation as though it were true, but all we can hope for is that the crack in the dam of the corporate press will widen as DC journalists realize that their lives and the lives of their families are on the line too.

UPDATE: Just one extraordinary example of how Trump is endangering US citizens and urging exposure to the virus, and why he must be removed from control of the strategy to manage the pandemic:

TRUMP: “A lot of people will have this [the Coronavirus], and it’s very mild. They will get better very rapidly. They don’t even see a doctor ... So, if we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work — some of them go to work, but they get better.” – Fox News interview Wednesday.

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