Trump's Current Narrative Is That Pandemics, Protests, and Recession Are All Fake News
June 12th 2020
Donald Trump - Caricature (DonkeyHotey)
By Mark Sumner
Donald Trump is tired—make that sick and tired. He’s sick and tired of people being sick, and he’s sick of people being tired of the subject of police abuse. Trump has looked into these issues, and neither one seems to create situations where thousands of people stand around cheering for him. So … that’s over.
No matter what’s going on with everyone else in the nation, Trump is going back to a solid routine of playing golf and holding a string of mini-Nurembergs. Because that’s what America needs. Or at least, that’s what Trump needs America to need. And that’s all that counts. Despite the pandemic, despite the calls for an end to police violence, despite an economy that’s genuinely in trouble, Trump is determined to get to what the nation really needs: Holding fundraisers to bring in money for him, and rallies to praise him, and generally concentrating on what’s really important.
Far from being over, the COVID-19 pandemic is in an extremely dangerous phase. There are hundreds of thousands of cases already present, the rate of hospitalization is growing, and ICU beds are growing scarce. Instead of taking action to reduce the spread of the disease, much of the nation is taking aggressive action to “reopen.”
At the same time, the nation has been gripped by the issue of police brutality toward Black citizens following the murder of George Floyd. The protests have swelled beyond the Minneapolis area and beyond the major cities to become a movement that has touched even small towns with predominately white populations. Popular support for the Black Lives Matter movement is swelling. Calls to restructure how communities handle public safety are being confronted in city councils and on the floor of Congress.
And as all this is happening, the economy is staggering. The latest releases show that America had slipped into a technical recession even before the first steps to enforce social distancing for COVID-19. That recession, which began in February, was both masked by and accelerated by the closures related to the pandemic. Donald Trump bragged last week that the unemployment rate was only 13.3%—already 4% higher than the peak of the Great Recession—but that number has already been recognized as a mistake. The actual rate of unemployment is somewhere on the high side of 16%.
The United States has an emergency, on top of a crisis, on top of a calamity. But for Trump, all of this is more of an … irritation. He has no answers to these problems, because he’s never had an answer to any problem. He simply wants to go back to what he knows: Yelling about Hillary and Obama, promising a wall, and encouraging hate toward the media. That America’s issues are so visible Trump can’t blame them on fake news is a source of frustration. Not even Fox News has been satisfactory in their reporting of late, forcing Trump into the sweetly delusional Russian propaganda arms of OANN.
As Politico reports, Trump argues that getting back onto the fundraising, rally, golf cycle will “send a positive message that the country’s problems are under control.” So Trump is lining up big-money in-person fundraisers, planning more trips to his own properties, and planning on restarting his campaign rallies by … scheduling a rally on the site of the notorious massacre of an entire Black community on a date that many people regard as Black Independence Day.
As others have noticed, it takes quite a bit of planning to generate a coincidence that big. Trump may be ignorant of the racial violence that ripped through the Greenwood district of Tulsa 99 years ago. You can absolutely bet that Stephen Miller and the others behind helping Trump plan the event are well aware of that history.
What might actually send a message that the nation’s problems were under control would be some sign that Trump was working to get those problems under control. But Trump has lost interest in the pandemic. He’s sidelined the pandemic task force, demanded that states reopen no matter what the rate of disease in their area, and praised governors who have gone all in on ignoring social distancing guidelines.
On the issue of racial justice, Trump’s position has always been on the pro-brutality side of the line, and none of that has changed. The Trump who spoke at a police event encouraging them to “rough them up” and “stop being so nice” is the same Trump who took out a full page ad urging the lynching of five innocent Black teenagers, is the same Trump who is tweeting demands for “law and order” and “dominating the streets” right now. Trump wants protests to end at the end of baton, under a cloud of tear gas.
And on the economy, Trump never did have any answers. Or real concerns. His policies begin and end with what puts more money in his pocket. He gave himself massive tax breaks. He rewarded those who slipped millions into his inaugural slush fund by stripping away safety and environmental regulations. And most of all, he has walked around with his hand out, piling up money in PACs and making sure that every possible dime circulates back to him.
So Trump will go back to rallies where there will be no masks and no social distancing. He will go back to holding dinners where the plates of rubber chicken are priced in the tens of thousands. He will go back to playing golf, and cheating.
And you can bet the Confederate flag will be welcome at all these events.
Posted with permission