It would be a gross understatement to say that Trump has neglected to use the vast powers of the presidency to mount a successful response to the coronavirus pandemic. First, there were failures to prepare – such as the disbandment of the National Security Council’s directorate for dealing with global health security, as well as cuts to a host of related offices and programs. Second, there have been monumental failures to react with a sense of urgency. From bungling the development and distribution of coronavirus test kits to using his bully pulpit to spread misinformation, the President has simply failed in his duty to galvanize an effective national effort.
Of course, any president would have found it difficult to combat the spread of the coronavirus. But not all leaders would have chosen to lie about the availability of test kits in the United States, downplay the severity of the illness, offer irresponsible advice about how sick people might be able to carry on with their normal routines, or use Twitter to criticize political opponents just hours after reading a pre-prepared speech from the Oval Office that called for national unity. These mistakes were quintessentially Trumpian – and they have contributed massively to the sense of panic and confusion that now permeates American society.
Jim Antle is right: Trump’s missteps could easily cost him re-election in November. Given that the President’s approval rating has hovered at around 40 percent for the past three years, even a marginal dip in support – if sustained – would render his chances of winning the Electoral College almost non-existent. Up until now, members of Trump’s base have been reluctant to abandon their standard-bearer. But they will have ample cause to reconsider their position if the United States begins to look like a national disaster zone.
Things are similar here in the rural areas of the us. Most of the hoarding at grocerie stores is predictably only found in big cities. The media has its story for a while longer.
Panic helps nothing. It is a bit disconcerting to see shelves being cleared because of panic while I'm in the middle of trying to get supplies for my new house so I can hurry up and get moved into it though.
I don't want the federal government being able to mandate shutting down businesses, curfews or seizing property that doesn't belong to them.
That being said, I think what President Trump is doing is prudent. It appears to me he is working with businesses to help with what's going on, not seizing them. He's putting out guidelines that should help slow the spread of the virus to make it more manageable for the healthcare system, but not mandating that people must do these things or face legal consequences.
I believe there will be enough people to take this seriously to achieve the goal the President is trying to achieve even with people that ignore the guidelines completely. So I'm definitely not going to disparage people who go about their daily lives, this is America and it is their right to do so. We are not slaves.
Honestly I do get a bit nervous when I here talk from people saying the government should shut down travel by force. To me that is just a foot in the door to making us no longer free. I hope the President doesn't go down that path. It's best to warn people what is coming as he is doing, issue guidelines and offer assistance to meeting those guidelines where necessary, no force, no removing of rights.
I can definitely say that I thank God we have President Trump and not Hillary as president.
I am concerned that more people have contacted the wuflu than we think though. I think the entire office where I work had it close to 2 months ago and we're all better now, but where I work and live isn't a too densly populated area, so nothing terrible came of it around here. If I'm wrong and it wasn't it, then I guess I can look forward to getting it in a few weeks.
Whatever I had, it was just fever for a couple of days and a week or two of coughing with no sinus issues at all. I gave it to my parents before I even knew I had it. Neither of them went to the doctor, I guess I come from a stubborn family, although this was before we even heard of the new virus. Anyway, my mom got it the worst out of all of us, she even fainted at one point. My parents are both in their 70s, they both recovered and are no longer sick.
I have read several reports that there are two strains of this coronavirus as it spread from Wuhan. One is more lethal, but not as infectious as the other. One is not as deadly, causes less symptoms, but is more contagious. What that means, who knows?
The media HATES Donald Trump, and would LOVE the US to sink into oblivion. It’s the literal form of cutting off your nose to spite your face. So they are enjoying talking up this situation. We’ll get through fine. And be stronger for it as a result. The average person just feels a little annoyed at all these closures and curfews popping up, and wonder if it’s really needed. It really only kills the very old or immune-deficient, so most of us aren’t in any danger. Is it really worth tanking the stock market over? IDK. But I think our economy will roar back sooner than a lot of people may think, so don’t listen to the naysayers.
It killed a 21 year old soccer coach. Many of the people catching it are in their 40s. They don't tend to die, but they still are getting very sick.
I just wonder why this is suddenly a Federal Government responsibility? States and local governments are also jumping in to push their political agendas and it's turning into chaos and deep anger. Ohio has some extreme issues with what they are doing. How do guns figure into disease prevention?
We are very good at "relief pitching", which I guess for a non american would be "substitution in 90+2." Now that we are aware there is a problem, watch and see how things change. It's like airline security after 911.
Though it might also be wise to encourage what's being brought up in my corner of Asia: don't stress yourselves out by gluing to 24/7 coverage or social media.
Oh, our market dropped considerably, the worst drop in history, but it’s because we just halted the economy temporarily in many sectors due to the virus.
So there’s nothing really unhealthy in the market except the uncertainty surrounding the virus, but as more becomes known the market should pick right back up. In other words the drop isn’t permanent, the DOW is more just a measure of the current market valuation based on economic conditions, and as those conditions improve so will the market.
Frustrating is, if you look at the NYT or Business Insider, you'd think America is already in a new Great Depression. With experts outright claiming that global recession is imminent.
If Trump were downplaying the virus, he wouldn't have blocked travel from China still in January, while neither DemocRATS nor their media cared about the coronavirus, but instead only focused on the impeachment trial lies and on trying to remove him from office. They condemned his decision to try and protect Americans, and called him racist & xenophobic. More recently, when he blocked entry from Europe, now identified by the WHO as the current epicenter of the virus, the DemocRATS and their media also criticized him.
Trump isn't a doctor or an expert in infectious diseases. He repeated what was hearing from the doctors and he always talked about the situation as it presented itself at that moment, but he also always said that things could change.
It's true that a lot of people who get infected barely have symptoms or don't feel worse than anyone who catches the regular flu, and that healthy people younger than 60 have little to worry about even if they get infected. This is not like Ebola, which is almost certain death, but unlike Ebola, it's very contagious.
When only China had a large number of infections and the U.S. had very few cases, it would have made no sense for Trump to have told people not to live fairly normally (as people lived fairly normally throughout the other pandemics of the last few decades), but he did tell people to take the usual precautions to minimize chances of getting infected, and that we'd have to see how things would develop.
He was definitely taking the virus seriously if he took the unprecedented and very criticized (by Dems & their media) action of blocking travel from China quite early, but he also wanted to encourage people to maintain a balance between sane caution and deranged panic.
Deranged panic is the feeling that the media has instilled in a large part of the population in order to create chaos, destroy the economy, and damage Trump's reelection chances. They've been openly wishing for and trying to help cause a recession since Trump created an economy boom.
The so-called Swine flu (H1N1) infected 60.8 million Americans and killed 12,469, but Obama was never blamed for anything (maybe he shouldn't have been, as Trump shouldn't either), and the media didn't create chaos over that pandemic because they kissed Obama's ass every minute of every day, protected, and literally covered up for him, from the moment he became a candidate for the DemocRAT nomination to the present.
It doesn't matter that, if a DemocRAT were president now, political correctness would have caused us to have way more cases way faster because blocking entry into the U.S. to save lives, in their opinion, is "racist and xenophobic," and it doesn't matter that DemocRATS are corrupt and incompetent at a much higher rate than Republicans. The media people are part of the DemocRAT party, and it's Trump whom they have been trying to destroy since he was a candidate, especially after he became the Republican nominee and direct opponent of the DemocRAT candidate.
Many Americans have been brainwashed into thinking the world will end in a decade because some people might have to turn on the AC a day earlier, or the seas might rise an inch. Too many participation trophies and not enough struggle.
Trump closed the border to china back during the impeachment circus. Now he has closed the boarder the the whole of the EU, then a day later the UK when it looked like he couldnt keep them open. He has got the CEOs of Walmart, CVS, and Target together to allow the US to use their supply lines to create "drive throughs" to get yourself checked out at and hopefully releave the strain on hospitals. But all the discussions held by the media is that Trump hasnt been doing enough because he tried to not cause panic and scream the sky is falling. But lets be real, Trump is a damned if he does damned if he doesn't politican. I would love to know what other people would jave done diffrently (without them using hindsight to their advantage) because when Trump shut down the boarders from China the news and the other party screamed xenophobia.
How's this whole thing going to pan out? Who knows, its a pandemic and noone has really figured it out, but I have full confidence that Trump is doing everything he can to improve the situation.
The thing I love about president Trump is that when there is no way he can win no matter what he does, he wins anyway. I don't see how anyone could think God's hand of blessing is not on that man.
Hi! DJT responded very well, very early. Against ridiculous opposition.
If we take numbers from the rest of the world and extrapolate them onto our situation, we'll have fewer than 7000 dead if we handle it no better than China. I think we'll handle it better than a lot of places. We'll likely still have over 6000 dead.
So, not a big difference either way. We should do the best we can but the panic is NOT warranted! And the MSM is full of shit, as always.
What will make this all worthwhile after this is all over:
nobody owes China a dime. They owe the world.
Everybody boycott China.
Nationalize any and all Chinese investment in your Country, worldwide.
World armed alliance to guarantee freedom of navigation throughout the south China sea for 60 years
Yes! Now they're obfuscating to try to influence world opinion to continue the previous momentum of hating US and gain allies for themselves.
This is when we must go on offense, per my above brief outline. It's for everyone's best, including the good people of China. It's their best hope for freedom from oppression. Which doesn't mean they'll like the idea, but everyone else has to make the choice of doing this or being swept under China's oppression soon.
The thing is, if truly left unchecked, this virus could potentially be really bad. I think GEOTUS and his panel have done a pretty great job so far, and had to balance their approach in prepping US citizens without inciting full scale panic. The left wants the panic, and wants to wield it as a weapon against GEOTUS.
If we as a country can keep our wits about us, we will be OK.
The toilet paper thing is a fucking mystery, lol. We’re still trying to figure it out ourselves. We’re kinda torn right now with half the people being ultra-paranoid, and the other half thinking it’s a completely overblown flu virus. I’m one who just tries to give it to people straight.
The truth is somewhere in the middle. If the virus infects 60% of our population, using current statistics of a 1% mortality rate that’s still over 1 million people. Yeah, it’ll probably be serious for a lot of people, and most of us will probably know someone who had a critical case, but it’ll be way worse if we can’t get ahead of it.
I’m not one of those panicked people, but I also have never seen them put the military on alert for a “flu.” There’s so much preparation going on that shows they’re expecting something big, and I’m gonna take them seriously.
You've got both NeverTrumpers and doomers outright invoking Lyndon Johnson and 'Nam: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/trump-could-become-next-lyndon-johnson-thanks-coronavirus-133287
Wishful thinking on behalf of three author. This is why people don't trust the media.
The misleadia want to micromanage this crisis they have largely created. Trump isn't going to let that happen. Biden certainly would.
Things are similar here in the rural areas of the us. Most of the hoarding at grocerie stores is predictably only found in big cities. The media has its story for a while longer.
100% this!!!
People making this thing out to be worse than it is have ulterior motives, mostly anti American/Anti Trump.
These people would gladly sacrifice our lives if they could use our death against Trump.
This, times 1000.
Panic helps nothing. It is a bit disconcerting to see shelves being cleared because of panic while I'm in the middle of trying to get supplies for my new house so I can hurry up and get moved into it though.
Yeah. At this point, fearmongering is redundant at best, irresponsible at worst.
I don't want the federal government being able to mandate shutting down businesses, curfews or seizing property that doesn't belong to them.
That being said, I think what President Trump is doing is prudent. It appears to me he is working with businesses to help with what's going on, not seizing them. He's putting out guidelines that should help slow the spread of the virus to make it more manageable for the healthcare system, but not mandating that people must do these things or face legal consequences.
I believe there will be enough people to take this seriously to achieve the goal the President is trying to achieve even with people that ignore the guidelines completely. So I'm definitely not going to disparage people who go about their daily lives, this is America and it is their right to do so. We are not slaves.
Honestly I do get a bit nervous when I here talk from people saying the government should shut down travel by force. To me that is just a foot in the door to making us no longer free. I hope the President doesn't go down that path. It's best to warn people what is coming as he is doing, issue guidelines and offer assistance to meeting those guidelines where necessary, no force, no removing of rights.
I can definitely say that I thank God we have President Trump and not Hillary as president.
I am concerned that more people have contacted the wuflu than we think though. I think the entire office where I work had it close to 2 months ago and we're all better now, but where I work and live isn't a too densly populated area, so nothing terrible came of it around here. If I'm wrong and it wasn't it, then I guess I can look forward to getting it in a few weeks.
Whatever I had, it was just fever for a couple of days and a week or two of coughing with no sinus issues at all. I gave it to my parents before I even knew I had it. Neither of them went to the doctor, I guess I come from a stubborn family, although this was before we even heard of the new virus. Anyway, my mom got it the worst out of all of us, she even fainted at one point. My parents are both in their 70s, they both recovered and are no longer sick.
I have read several reports that there are two strains of this coronavirus as it spread from Wuhan. One is more lethal, but not as infectious as the other. One is not as deadly, causes less symptoms, but is more contagious. What that means, who knows?
The media HATES Donald Trump, and would LOVE the US to sink into oblivion. It’s the literal form of cutting off your nose to spite your face. So they are enjoying talking up this situation. We’ll get through fine. And be stronger for it as a result. The average person just feels a little annoyed at all these closures and curfews popping up, and wonder if it’s really needed. It really only kills the very old or immune-deficient, so most of us aren’t in any danger. Is it really worth tanking the stock market over? IDK. But I think our economy will roar back sooner than a lot of people may think, so don’t listen to the naysayers.
It killed a 21 year old soccer coach. Many of the people catching it are in their 40s. They don't tend to die, but they still are getting very sick.
I just wonder why this is suddenly a Federal Government responsibility? States and local governments are also jumping in to push their political agendas and it's turning into chaos and deep anger. Ohio has some extreme issues with what they are doing. How do guns figure into disease prevention?
We are very good at "relief pitching", which I guess for a non american would be "substitution in 90+2." Now that we are aware there is a problem, watch and see how things change. It's like airline security after 911.
Though it might also be wise to encourage what's being brought up in my corner of Asia: don't stress yourselves out by gluing to 24/7 coverage or social media.
Thanks for sharing. That was informative and made me even more relaxed.
Though question: how's the state of the US economy, really?
I'm hearing a new round of "2008-09 financial crash" if not Great Depression 2.0.
Oh, our market dropped considerably, the worst drop in history, but it’s because we just halted the economy temporarily in many sectors due to the virus.
So there’s nothing really unhealthy in the market except the uncertainty surrounding the virus, but as more becomes known the market should pick right back up. In other words the drop isn’t permanent, the DOW is more just a measure of the current market valuation based on economic conditions, and as those conditions improve so will the market.
Frustrating is, if you look at the NYT or Business Insider, you'd think America is already in a new Great Depression. With experts outright claiming that global recession is imminent.
Fingers crossed that you guys get out alright.
The doomsayers were trying to impeach him , while he was halting travel from China.
Btw, itsnotonl6 American markets taking a hit.
Yeah. Though it seems like his downplaying it initially (which the media latched on as "treating it like it's nothing") certainly gave 'em ammo.
They said he was racist because he did what he had to. Also, impeachment failed.
If Trump were downplaying the virus, he wouldn't have blocked travel from China still in January, while neither DemocRATS nor their media cared about the coronavirus, but instead only focused on the impeachment trial lies and on trying to remove him from office. They condemned his decision to try and protect Americans, and called him racist & xenophobic. More recently, when he blocked entry from Europe, now identified by the WHO as the current epicenter of the virus, the DemocRATS and their media also criticized him.
Trump isn't a doctor or an expert in infectious diseases. He repeated what was hearing from the doctors and he always talked about the situation as it presented itself at that moment, but he also always said that things could change.
It's true that a lot of people who get infected barely have symptoms or don't feel worse than anyone who catches the regular flu, and that healthy people younger than 60 have little to worry about even if they get infected. This is not like Ebola, which is almost certain death, but unlike Ebola, it's very contagious.
When only China had a large number of infections and the U.S. had very few cases, it would have made no sense for Trump to have told people not to live fairly normally (as people lived fairly normally throughout the other pandemics of the last few decades), but he did tell people to take the usual precautions to minimize chances of getting infected, and that we'd have to see how things would develop.
He was definitely taking the virus seriously if he took the unprecedented and very criticized (by Dems & their media) action of blocking travel from China quite early, but he also wanted to encourage people to maintain a balance between sane caution and deranged panic.
Deranged panic is the feeling that the media has instilled in a large part of the population in order to create chaos, destroy the economy, and damage Trump's reelection chances. They've been openly wishing for and trying to help cause a recession since Trump created an economy boom.
The so-called Swine flu (H1N1) infected 60.8 million Americans and killed 12,469, but Obama was never blamed for anything (maybe he shouldn't have been, as Trump shouldn't either), and the media didn't create chaos over that pandemic because they kissed Obama's ass every minute of every day, protected, and literally covered up for him, from the moment he became a candidate for the DemocRAT nomination to the present.
It doesn't matter that, if a DemocRAT were president now, political correctness would have caused us to have way more cases way faster because blocking entry into the U.S. to save lives, in their opinion, is "racist and xenophobic," and it doesn't matter that DemocRATS are corrupt and incompetent at a much higher rate than Republicans. The media people are part of the DemocRAT party, and it's Trump whom they have been trying to destroy since he was a candidate, especially after he became the Republican nominee and direct opponent of the DemocRAT candidate.
Many Americans have been brainwashed into thinking the world will end in a decade because some people might have to turn on the AC a day earlier, or the seas might rise an inch. Too many participation trophies and not enough struggle.
Trump closed the border to china back during the impeachment circus. Now he has closed the boarder the the whole of the EU, then a day later the UK when it looked like he couldnt keep them open. He has got the CEOs of Walmart, CVS, and Target together to allow the US to use their supply lines to create "drive throughs" to get yourself checked out at and hopefully releave the strain on hospitals. But all the discussions held by the media is that Trump hasnt been doing enough because he tried to not cause panic and scream the sky is falling. But lets be real, Trump is a damned if he does damned if he doesn't politican. I would love to know what other people would jave done diffrently (without them using hindsight to their advantage) because when Trump shut down the boarders from China the news and the other party screamed xenophobia.
How's this whole thing going to pan out? Who knows, its a pandemic and noone has really figured it out, but I have full confidence that Trump is doing everything he can to improve the situation.
The thing I love about president Trump is that when there is no way he can win no matter what he does, he wins anyway. I don't see how anyone could think God's hand of blessing is not on that man.
Hi! DJT responded very well, very early. Against ridiculous opposition.
If we take numbers from the rest of the world and extrapolate them onto our situation, we'll have fewer than 7000 dead if we handle it no better than China. I think we'll handle it better than a lot of places. We'll likely still have over 6000 dead.
So, not a big difference either way. We should do the best we can but the panic is NOT warranted! And the MSM is full of shit, as always.
What will make this all worthwhile after this is all over:
nobody owes China a dime. They owe the world. Everybody boycott China. Nationalize any and all Chinese investment in your Country, worldwide. World armed alliance to guarantee freedom of navigation throughout the south China sea for 60 years
Pretty much. And agree. The PRC's doing quite a bit of PR, including the donating testing kits thing.
But let's be real: the CCP's ineptitude and censorship were what allowed this situation to even escalate.
Yes! Now they're obfuscating to try to influence world opinion to continue the previous momentum of hating US and gain allies for themselves.
This is when we must go on offense, per my above brief outline. It's for everyone's best, including the good people of China. It's their best hope for freedom from oppression. Which doesn't mean they'll like the idea, but everyone else has to make the choice of doing this or being swept under China's oppression soon.
The thing is, if truly left unchecked, this virus could potentially be really bad. I think GEOTUS and his panel have done a pretty great job so far, and had to balance their approach in prepping US citizens without inciting full scale panic. The left wants the panic, and wants to wield it as a weapon against GEOTUS.
If we as a country can keep our wits about us, we will be OK.
Hope you guys pull through this one.
Though how would you respond to those who seemed resigned to "millions will die" or think that Americans are being too calm?
Like, Taiwan and Japan aren't exactly fighting over toilet paper.
The toilet paper thing is a fucking mystery, lol. We’re still trying to figure it out ourselves. We’re kinda torn right now with half the people being ultra-paranoid, and the other half thinking it’s a completely overblown flu virus. I’m one who just tries to give it to people straight.
The truth is somewhere in the middle. If the virus infects 60% of our population, using current statistics of a 1% mortality rate that’s still over 1 million people. Yeah, it’ll probably be serious for a lot of people, and most of us will probably know someone who had a critical case, but it’ll be way worse if we can’t get ahead of it.
I’m not one of those panicked people, but I also have never seen them put the military on alert for a “flu.” There’s so much preparation going on that shows they’re expecting something big, and I’m gonna take them seriously.
That preparation alone seems already slated to mitigate a worst-case scenario.
Though some still seem to wanna see socio-economic collapse to feel "vindicated."
This, too, shall pass.