More on the Trump Speech
From Rod Dreher
To add to my post, let me add the following observations from Rod Dreher at The American Conservative, as he highlighted the utter lack of public health discussion in the speech (Trump’s Coronavirus Speech Reaction):
-He spoke much more about economic relief than public health concerns
[…]
– He said little or nothing about testing, which we are still not able to do. No real talk about social distancing
[…]
– He said nothing about the critical-care crisis facing hospitals. I have found that this is a point that is not widely understood by the general public: that even if only a relatively small number of people are ultimately going to die from this virus, it stands to overwhelm our hospitals. This is why it is so very important for everybody to practice social distancing and the rest: to slow the rate of infection, and give our health care system the chance to cope. It is beyond comprehension why he didn’t make this clear to listeners tonight. I’ve had a number of conversations these past few days with people who aren’t following the story closely, and they are entirely unaware of this fact. The president blew an opportunity to explain that to the nation
Indeed, indeed, and indeed.
And the “no duh” observation:
Watching him, I realized the cost of a president having pissed away his authority these past three years, with his daily juvenile tweets and schoolyard rhetoric. The country needs a president now who can inspire, galvanize, and lead. Tonight I saw a president who looked tired, afraid, and completely unconvincing. He ended by calling for an end to partisanship, and the nation coming together to fight this threat. That’s what any president should do in his position, in a moment of great national crisis. It is difficult to imagine a president with less credibility to make that ask
“Watching him, I realized the cost of a president having pissed away his authority these past three years, with his daily juvenile tweets and schoolyard rhetoric. The country needs a president now who can inspire, galvanize, and lead. Tonight I saw a president who looked tired, afraid, and completely unconvincing. He ended by calling for an end to partisanship, and the nation coming together to fight this threat. That’s what any president should do in his position, in a moment of great national crisis. It is difficult to imagine a president with less credibility to make that ask”
While I am glad (entirely non-sarcastically) that Dreher recognizes this, up until a couple of weeks ago, his position was that pretty much all of this was true, but it was worth it for the judges and executive orders protecting conservative Christians. So I am also glad (more than a bit sarcastically) that he now realizes that the President’s ability to handle a crisis is more important than protecting the rights of Christians to treat gays and members of other religions as second class citizens.
Here is one more piece of evidence that Trump and the US Government has buggered up the response to Coronavirus.
Two years ago, STAT News interviewed Bill Gates regarding meeting with President Trump to discuss investing in pandemic preparedness for the inevitable future pandemic. Evidently this advice wasn’t taken.
https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/10/bill-gates-president-trump-pandemic-preparedness-investment/
It is more than Trump’s inability to lead the country in any kind of rational direction. He cannot do the basics of building an organization that can put together a speech and a message. Everybody who is the least bit competent has been driven out, leaving Jared Kushner and Stephen Miller to do the staff work?
I remember stories during the campaign on how Trump ran his businesses. It was him making decisions and the staff cleaning up after him. Being rich covers up a multitude of sins. It doesn’t work in government.
We need the deep state back.
I came in from a meeting and my husband was listening to this speech. All I caught was the phrase “foreign virus” and I got so irritated I left the room.
He is completely incompetent and people are quite literally going to die because of it.
And this is the advice Trump should have given. In Italiano.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ey08XMOisiw
@Scott:
I want my country back. Back from these Tea Party dipwads.
Its also worth nothing that within less than 12 hours, he was already back to partisan tweeting.
“Calls for an and to partisanship” means, “please do not criticize me during this difficult time for my approval ratings.”
Well, Dreher has never been a True Trump Believer. He reminds me of a friend, who lives in CA but is from Utah, and disavows Trump as a conservative. But he said, a year or so ago, that he was getting to be ok with Trump. I wonder how he feels now.
For me, I felt Trump would be terrible in a crisis from the beginning. I didn’t really want to be proven right at the cost of many lives.
This must be what Cassandra felt like.
And if you needed convincing that Victor Davis Hanson is an idiot:
https://www.nationalreview.com/podcasts/the-victor-davis-hanson-podcast/episode-6-going-viral-the-updated-case-for-trump-wuhan-virus-overreaction-joe-biden-altercations/
Also, Rich Lowry’s observations about how Trump’s speech struck just the right tone is gone from the front page of The National Review:
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/coronavirus-trump-address-strikes-right-tone/
@Steve V: Back to 9-11 and before, Republican calls to come together never mean they’re willing to give an inch.
@Kingdaddy: Isn’t Rich Lowry the same guy who gushed over Sarah Palin and the “sparkles in her eyes”?
Well, we know which part of his body he thinks with….
@Kingdaddy:
I did not, in fact.
Just watched about half of Biden’s speech on the covid-19, which is a heck of a lot more than I usually watch of a politician giving prepared remarks. Honest to god, I can’t evaluate whether it was actually good because it was so far better than anything Trump is capable of I lose sight of the comparison. Was it Presidential or just table stakes? I honestly cannot discern the difference in my joy at seeing someone who gets it, and understands what needs to be done. It’s not like it takes a high IQ to see the obvious, but Trump is such a low IQ loser it’s like comparing a fart to a steady trade wind.