“Are they a symptom or a new social illness? Are they the mirror of our fate or the hammer that will shatter mirror and fate together?” Roberto Bolano, 2666
March 26, 2020: "I don't believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators. You know, you go into major hospitals, sometimes they'll have two ventilators," Trump said. "And now, all of a sudden they're saying can we order 30,000 ventilators. So, look, it's a very bad situation, we haven't seen anything like it, but the end result is we gotta get back to work, and I think we can start by opening up certain parts of the country."
Around midmorning today (March 27), I read that the total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in the US was 86,158.
Five hours later, the number had surpassed 100,000.
This morning the Santa Barbara Independent reported 32 cases in Santa Barbara County.
As we go through this public health crisis, it’s important to keep reality in view and not let our thinking or emotions be swayed by propaganda. I try to read reliable news sources, meaning more independent than corporate sources, and watch or listen as widely as I can to as many sensible voices as possible. I want critique of the system, analysis, a search for root causes. OK, I’m weird, but this stuff matters, the truth matters, and in the midst of a pandemic, competence matters most of all.
This is what Donald J. Trump said on February 19, 2020: “I think it’s going to work out fine. I think when we get into April, in the warmer weather, that has a very negative effect on that and that type of a virus.”
Here’s a thought: when we emerge on the other side of this pandemic, and we will, don’t be surprised if America soon thereafter has three, and only three, retailers: Amazon, Wal-Mart, and Costco.
The complete dysfunction of the American political system has been on display all week, leading to Trump earlier today signing a gargantuan economic stimulus package. Let’s think about this for a moment. As I wrote a day ago (or is it two days, three?), the country is only in the early stages of the pandemic, but look how quickly Congress -- which in routine times cannot accomplish much of anything except increasing defense spending or cutting taxes for the wealthiest citizens and corporations or making life more precarious for the working class -- found the energy to write a massive economic stimulus bill that heavily favors the wealthy and corporations.
Note that the bill passed with bipartisan support; corporate welfare always passes with bipartisan support. Financial assistance for working people, the suddenly unemployed, those without medical insurance, is dwarfed by the giveaway to the financial and political elite. And how much assistance was earmarked for states like New York, California, Washington and Illinois, to name just a few, that will blow massive holes in their budgets as they battle this pandemic? Some, probably, but not enough.
And speaking of governors. If you want help from the federal government, you first must kiss Donald Trump’s ass. You must bow and say, “My King, you are great and merciful, and your leadership in this time of darkness is like a klieg light. May I please have 30,000 ventilators?”
Please don’t ignore this, dear reader. In the midst of a pandemic, the President of the United States has time -- makes time -- to verbally attack governors who fail to display requisite subservience to him, calling Jay Inslee of Washington a complainer and failed presidential candidate, and asking if the governor of Michigan (Gretchen Whitmer), whose name he couldn’t recall, if she knows what’s going on. In a pandemic, Donald Trump demands flattery.
Stable genius, huh? The only stable thing about Trump is his sociopathy.
Congress has screwed the people again, just as it did in 2008-2009. Debate on the bill was limited. Public input was unnecessary. The political elites decided what was best for the lower classes. The size of the package didn’t cause endless hand-wringing about deficits and frenzied calls for the nation to live within its means. That only happens when the proposal on the table is Medicare-for-All, student loan forgiveness, or the Green New Deal.
Will the stimulus bill mark the beginning of the corporate coup? Or has the corporate coup already happened?
When Donald Trump says, “the real people want to go back to work”, who is he talking about? Who are the “real” people? Where do they reside?
When Trump says he wants to reopen parts of the country, does he mean places like West Virginia and Wyoming?
Trump and his gang of looters has treated a humanitarian crisis as an economic crisis. Trump’s entire frame of reference is Money. He starts with money and ends with money, and his primary concern is his money.
Trump urged GM to convert its Lordstown, Ohio plant to manufacture ventilators. GM sold Lordstown in 2019. Trump also made this bizarre claim: “I’m bringing back many, many car factories to Michigan…” Did anyone tell the United Auto Workers about these factories? Are they like the phantom steel mills Trump brought back to Pennsylvania?
Donald Trump’s theory of governance: “I have a feeling.”
People in America are dying and Donald J. Trump is running from his failure, backtracking, zigzagging, dodging, blaming, boasting, deflecting, making bogus comparisons between a pandemic and automobile fatalities, lying, flat out lying. Even in a pandemic, Trump cannot put his pettiness aside.
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