Trump Again Downplays US COVID-19 Outbreaks, Ignores His Bungled Response
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)
Since US outbreaks began in January, Trump and regime hardliners surrounding him showed indifference toward public health and welfare.
His regime bungled what could have and should have been a containable issue, what China achieved in weeks.
Since US outbreaks were first reported in late January, COVID-19 infections are spiraling out of control, especially in 19 hardest hit states.
According to data from Johns Hopkins University, for the 7-day period ending Saturday, new daily cases increased 18.34% compared to the previous week.
In recent days, over 70,000 new daily outbreaks were reported.
Through Sunday, the US by far leads the world with 3.9 million cases and over 143,000 deaths.
Nearly all 50 states are reporting increased outbreaks. Hospitalizations are growing in 33 states, 14 states with record-high numbers.
FEMA reportedly sent 18 refrigerated trucks to Texas for use as temporary mortuaries.
Because of misdiagnoses and reporting errors, accuracy of the above data is suspect.
According to some analyses, the true number of US outbreaks is multiples higher that reported figures.
During a Fox News interview with Trump at the White House that aired Sunday, he defied the severity of outbreaks while again displaying indifference toward public health.
He once admitted earlier to knowing less than a drunk in a barroom about America’s healthcare system.
He’s just as clueless now combined with contempt for ordinary people everywhere.
He ran for president with little understanding of what the job entails, and how decisions US leaders make can shake the world disastrously when violate the rule of law and ignore the rights of other nations and their people.
He’s more reality TV president than the real thing, play-acting the role, a world leader in name only, statesman qualities eluding him.
Virtually nothing he says is credible. He’s all bluster, bravado and dissembling, never letting facts interfere with his rants, undeserving of trust by everyone, more a caricature of a leader than real one.
With Fox News host Chris Wallace, he claimed testing “creat(es) trouble (by) skew(ing) the numbers (sic),” adding:
Many cases showing up “shouldn’t be cases (because) many of those cases are young people that would heal in a day (sic).”
Earlier he advised treating COVID-19 “like the flu,” not recognizing that it’s potentially much more serious, including because of other serious illnesses it can cause.
At his Tulsa rally last month, he mocked the virus, calling it “kung flu.”
Johns Hopkins University data show that the US has the world’s largest number of COVID-19 cases and deaths by far, the world’s 10th highest death rate per 100,000 population.
Not according to Trump on Fox News, falsely saying the US has the world’s lowest death rate.
As usual, his notion of reality is fiction, not facts, and when it comes to healthcare, he was right when earlier calling himself dumber than a barroom drunk on this issue.
The same holds for many others, Trump time and again proving he’s unfit for any office, clearly not the highest public one.
Along with rapidly increasing COVID-19 outbreaks, Public Citizen on Monday said try to guess what country the disturbing information below applies to:
“(A) nation that has been taken over by a far-right political party under the thrall of a ‘populist’ demagogue and beholden to the perverse whims of its richest citizens and corporations.”
“Throughout the country, police forces routinely violate the civil rights of law-abiding citizens with near impunity.”
“Activists have been bravely protesting the country’s authoritarian government and the tactics it uses to repress dissent.”
“(T)he nation’s president and his gang send a battalion of unidentified law enforcement personnel — outfitted in battle fatigues and armed with military-grade weaponry — into a city at the heart of a metropolitan area that over 2 million people call home.”
“These forces bear no badges or other identifying insignia.”
“They refuse to provide their names, their orders, or their chain of command.”
“They are caught on video chasing down and apprehending peaceful, unarmed activists, shoving them into unmarked vehicles, and driving away — essentially kidnapping them.”
The above actions don’t describe daily life in a far-off/third world tinpot dictatorship
Nor is it “something from a dystopian novel” or Hollywood film.
It’s going on today in “the United States of America — specifically…in Portland, Oregon, in recent days.”
“To state it very plainly:”
“Donald Trump and his gang have sent unidentified paramilitary troops into an American city to kidnap activists as a craven political stunt designed to:”
“1. Soothe (his) pathetically frail ego and incite his increasingly unhinged base.”
“2. Feed (his) enablers at Fox News and One America News.”
“3. Deflect attention away from (his) absolutely catastrophic response to the coronavirus emergency, which has seen tens of thousands of preventable deaths of Americans as a direct result of his utter disregard and incompetence.”
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and Oregon Governor Kate Brown demanded that he remove his paramilitaries from the city and state.
Public Citizen President Robert Weissman urged PC followers to oppose Trump’s “most fascistic” act of domestic terrorism so far in office.
If he gets away with it unopposed, worse may follow against other public activism that’s against his war on humanity at home and abroad.
The trouble with Trump is the system he represents.
With him or virtually anyone else in the nation’s highest office, ordinary people are grievously harmed so privileged ones can benefit.
It’s the American way, steadily worsening, not improving, how governance of, by, and for the privileged few operates under both wings of its war party.
VISIT MY WEBSITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
My two Wall Street books are timely reading:
“How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion, and Class War”
https://www.claritypress.com/product/how-wall-street-fleeces-america/
“Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity”
https://www.claritypress.com/product/banker-occupation-waging-financial-war-on-humanity/
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