By Steven Jonas
Answer: Plenty, if it’s “Trump.” On Jonathan Swan’s historic Axios/HBO interview (8-4-20) Trump was asked what he thinks about the state of the pandemic at this time. “It is what it is,” he said. Golly gee. Indeed, setting forth his state of mind about this rampant infectious disease that is ravaging the nation of which he is the putative Chief Executive, Trump actually told the truth for once. He uttered a phrase that is going to go down in history as one of the most prominent ever made by any President. Translation: “It’s out there, you know, and there is really nothing I can do about it.”
It tells you all you need to know about Trump’s mind and how it works (and doesn’t). Just recall how “We have nothing to fear but fear itself,” told the nation volumes about Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and how his mind worked. In his five words Trump described his state of mind about what he thinks the pandemic is, and what he can — and cannot — do about it. He then went further, with two of the standard lines that have carried him through the countless obstacles he has faced during the course of his life and business, entertainment, and political careers.
First, “it’s not my fault.” That is, with classic Trump blame-shifting, “it’s the fault of the Chinese Communist Party which unleashed the ‘Chinese Flu’ upon us.” (Trump, of course, for the Trumpidemic2020© brings up this excuse up all the time. I have not yet heard an interviewer, not even Jonathan Swan, point out that those European and Asian countries that have so well faced down the same situation — that is that the SARS-CoV2 virus apparently emanated from the Chinese city of Wuhan. So, it could not have been the “Chinese” who created the out-of-control problem here. For if it were “their fault,” then all other countries should be in the same boat.)
And then next comes “it’s not my responsibility: it’s the Governors.” Classic blame-shifting Trump again. That he has followed that policy is of course is precisely the problem. It is precisely the opposite of what all those countries that have done so much better than the U.S. have done: set up a national program. Starting with the creation of an effective, fast, testing program (with contact tracing and isolation), they did not leave it up to provincial authorities. This is because the virus does not recognize provincial/State boundaries.
Of course, Crew Kushner thought it would when they indeed did develop a testing program that had promise, but then withheld it because they thought that the pandemic would be limited to the “Blue” states and they didn’t want to help them out (even though, of course, Republicans live in those states too[!]). We won’t go into the ethics and morality of that one here. But we will say that it turned out to be politically stupid for them since the virus does in fact easily cross state lines. But that’s another story.
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Source: OpEdNews