I don’t think I am alone in being comprehensively gobsmacked by the pathetic, shambolic, ineffective, and dangerously muddled response so far from our “president” and his maladministration to the COVID-19 outbreak.
There have been lies. There have been half truths and quarter truths. There have been jarringly tone-deaf-riffs of self-congratulation. There’s been bootlicking (and licking of other, worse, things than boots) by Federal officials – and by VP Pence, in particular. There’s been constant foot-dragging, gaslighting, and pissing into the wind.
We are utterly failing at testing. FAILING. The promised “millions” of tests are not “around the corner,” as repeatedly promised.
Hospitals are already running perilously short of personal protective equipment (PPR) for healthcare providers. Surgeons and techs are furiously MacGyvering ways to use a single ventilator for 4 patients. Hospital administrators are sitting around in conference rooms, using tape and Elmer’s glue to fashion masks for patient care staff. Hell, we’ve got crafting groups sewing makeshift surgical masks out of fabric to send to healthcare facilities!
We have no national policy on social distancing, on which businesses should close and which are “essential” to a smoothly functioning society, on whether or not schools should close, or on where the populace should shelter in place vs where we might get away with a less strict response. We have no national policy ON ANYTHING related to COVID-19.
Trump and his “drown the government in a bathtub” minions have ripped the guts out of the Federal government’s ability to respond to a novel infectious agent and the resulting epidemic/pandemic.
Even the recent “now we’re being serious, really!” press briefings have been a mess, with Trump and his gaggle of minions (some of them accomplished powerhouses like Dr. Fauci, some of them fools like low-rent-Dickens-villain Seema Verma) modeling exactly what NOT to do in a group as they press shoulder to shoulder and spittily share the same mic.
Trump has been a little more serious sounding this last week, and some chowderheads in the media (looking at you, Dana Bash) have been pathetically eager to embrace this new tone as a sign of a major shift in Orange Twitler’s “presidency.” But he’s still the same guy, shucking and lying and dodging and trying to shift blame. He has told the states that they’re at bat, while the Federal government intends to sit in the stands vaguely waving a puffy hand and yelling “go team America!” at intervals, rather than buckling down on a “WAR FOOTING” to unleash and mobilize the tremendous resources of the Federal government.
In short, it’s a mess. It’s a terrifying, nerve-shattering, entire-economy-and-thousands-of-lives-risking MESS. It doesn’t appear to be getting any better. And so we wait, transfixed in horror, possibly not even getting a paycheck (!) as we watch the train rumble off a high trestle into the yawning canyon below.
So. What would YOU do differently? If you woke up Monday morning (or preferably tomorrow) and found that you were president of the United States, what would you do?
Would you take the reins and nationalize the response? Would you mobilize the National Guard? Would you actually use the Defense Production Act, rather than just bleat about it on TV?
I would love to hear your suggestions in the comments. When we’ve finished chiming in, let’s relentlessly tweet this piece – with helpful comments! – to Trump, Pence, the entire GOP, every senator, every rep, and anyone else we can think of in the Federal government.
If there’s one thing I know about the folks here in the audience at dailykos, it is that we are SMART and savvy and determined and know how to get things done.
And if no one listens, at least this might be a good place to vent, brainstorm, and get our yah-yahs out.
