Trump says he wants people to go back to work but is doing less than nothing to see that such a transition happens safely and without risking another flare-up.
...
Most people will keep waiting, too, despite the rampant jackassery of the president, because they are taking this thing seriously and want to protect their families, their communities and themselves.
...
Most people will keep waiting, too, despite the rampant jackassery of the president, because they are taking this thing seriously and want to protect their families, their communities and themselves.
...
Here’s the conundrum: The only way this country gets past the COVID-19 pandemic is testing, testing, testing. We can’t even begin to fix it if we don’t know how sick we are. The only way to know how sick we are is through the kind of mass-testing program perfected by countries like South Korea, which tests tens of thousands of its citizens daily, and with the data collected, has managed to wrestle the virus to the mat.
Trump wants no part of mass testing, because he doesn’t want the country to know how sick it actually is. If the country knew how far this pandemic had reached, people would (gasp) refuse to work for fear of dying, and (gasp) the industrialists reaping wealth from that labor would lose money. Worse, they might (gasp, gasp) not vote for him in November because of how lethally he botched this crisis from the first day.
...
As has been his way with every other scandal and mess he has gotten us into, Trump has chosen to face the current dilemma with his usual double-barreled shotgun approach. First barrel: Lie at every opportunity, take credit for other people’s work and point out nonexistent progress. Second barrel: Pander to his far-right, gun-waving base.
