For the offended

What is this?

Tuesday, September 1, 2020

Quick to react to the peril that wasn't there



     One of the many challenges of being a liar is you have to keep track of your fabrications. If I claim to be the King of France on Monday, that claim is undercut—for those who care about such details as actual reality—if on Tuesday I claim to be Emperor of Austria. Which is it?
     During the dystopian nightmare of the Republican National Convention last week, the president and his enablers claimed in chorus that Donald Trump was quick to grasp the threat of COVID-19 and react decisively.
      “We developed a wide array of effective treatments, including a powerful antibody treatment known as convalescent plasma,” Trump said—a double lie, since the process has been around for years. This, he said, “will save thousands and thousands of lives.”
     Save thousands of lives from what? On Sunday, during a barrage of 89 early morning tweets and retweets, Trump shared a Q-Anon conspiracy theory that the vast majority of COVID-19 deaths were misinterpretations or fabrications. That only 9,210 people have died of the virus, and "this week the CDC quietly updated the Covid number to admit that only 6% of all the 153,504 deaths recorded actually died from Covid." 


    Which is it? France or Austria? Did Trump leap to boldly respond to the pandemic peril? Or was there no peril in the first place?
     This of course only matters to those of us who live in the world of reality, who are trying to keep alive in country where our leader is a delusional, traitorous sociopath, surrounded by fawning toadies. Who simply want our actual problems to be perceived and coped with, as opposed to ignored then lied about. 
    That will never happen in a Donald Trump administration. To him,  there is no lie so enormous it can't be plastered over with more lies. He doesn't bother to keep track because he demands that we don't keep track either. And millions of Americans, incredibly, tragically, are all too happy to comply. 
     On Monday, Twitter took down Trump's false tweet. You know you're in trouble when a freewheeling social media site is acting as a reality check for the President of the United States.
     Spoiler alert: we're in trouble.




8 comments:

  1. You know your in trouble when...

    Your most recent coevid test comes back positive. With symptoms.

    Hand washing, social distancing and mask wearing fail!

    You realize politics have nothing to do with contracting a virus.



    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Actually, politics has a lot to do with contracting a virus even if you do wear a mask and distance yourself. Those are not guarantees. They just minimize your risk.
      Because Trump and his merry men have followed the Roy Cohn approach to influencing others (i.e. repeating the same lies and negligent behavior), too many have not minimized the risks thereby increasing yours.
      Yes, we are in trouble and this is just the beginning if we’re stuck with him another four years.

      Delete
    2. A virus doesn't care about your politics Les.
      It was the result of my personal behavior that I became infected.
      In Chicago our mayor and in illinois our govenor and their team of medical professionals did and said all the right things.
      I personally and the people I've been in contact with followed the recommendations and mandates. Sorta not really.
      We certainly didn't play politics with this virus. It is insideous .
      It got me. Politics had nothing to do with it.
      The president and his band of idiots certainly didn't.
      Hopefully it doesn't kill me.
      If I do what I'm supposed to and don't leave the house for 10 days I won't infect others. That's not politics that's responsible behavior.
      IMO americans have acted irresponsibly . Most of us. Regardless of our politics. That's why we're experiencing this catastrophe. People are playing politics with the virus for sure but that's not why I tested positive

      Delete
    3. FME, if you're referring to yourself, I'm sorry to hear that, and hope things go well for you. But your last statement, as Les notes, is not a fair conclusion. You've been "out there" way more than most of us, and if many of the folks you've been surrounded by have been politically motivated to ignore precautions, there was only so much you could do, yourself.

      You specifically told us on EGD about a group outing with friends who disappointed you with their lack of compliance.

      The benefits of mask wearing and social distancing are based on all the other people doing them, as well. We've had 6 million cases in the U.S. while largely shutting things down in many places and with lots of people still staying home as much as possible. Can you imagine how high that number would be if we'd done nothing, as our Maximum Leader preferred, for misguided political reasons?

      Delete
    4. I understand . My point is. My political stance and that of most around me is in support of , distancing masks etc. Still sometimes they don't follow what they support. The virus doesn't care about your politics. Yes I tested positive , with symptoms. Been working outside my home everyday for months.

      Delete
  2. Trump's retweet of the bogus 6% figure doesn't really count as a contradiction, because the tweet didn't originate with him.

    I'm serious; that's probably how his mind works. It's the social media equivalent of his "A lot of people are saying..." trick. He throws stuff out there that way and if it sticks, great; if not, he can disavow responsibility.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Let us stipulate that the "deep state" conspiracy theories have some basis in fact. Not that there is an organized group of Trump haters who at the behest of Hillary Clinton and a bunch of pedophiles is working at fever pitch to undermine all of the Donald's carefully laid plans for saving America, but certainly there are many, many people disaffected by Trump's ignorance, bluster and bullying, and some of them hold government positions. That there's a Trump loving hero also holding a sensitive government position from which he pops up from time to time to give a running commentary on his heroism is a fantasy that even Trump doesn't believe, I'm sure. It wouldn't surprise me to find out that Q-Anon is actually Trump himself, one of his fanatic children or someone with clinically proven delusions of grandeur working out of his mother's basement. Certainly it doesn't matter to Trump; the more mysterious and unprovable the better. It remains to be seen how far down the rabbit hole his congressional sycophants are willing to follow him. We are indeed in trouble.

    john

    ReplyDelete
  4. They laughed when I sat down at the piano when I was younger.
    They laughed in 2010 when I predicted the Tea Party would foment a civil war.

    They laughed in 2015 when I said that Trump would be a catastrophic train wreck.
    They laughed in 2017 when the first fatal left-right clashes began.

    They aren't laughing so much anymore. Especially since early in 2020.
    They're either wheezing themselves to death, already dead, or agreeing with me.

    ReplyDelete

Comments are moderated, and posted at the discretion of the proprietor.