'Trump is killing his own supporters' – even White House insiders know it
In response to:
On Sunday, initially at least, there was no White House briefing on the president’s public schedule. But the bad news kept coming. Coronavirus deaths continued to climb and reports of the heartland being unprepared for what may be on its horizon continued to ricochet around the media.
In the words of one administration insider, to the Guardian: “The Trump organism is simply collapsing. He’s killing his own supporters.”
Members of the national guard, emergency workers, rank-and-file Americans: all are exposed. Yet Trump appears incapable of emoting anything that comes close to heart-felt concern. Or just providing straight answers.
Rather, he is acting like Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America: repeatedly letting governors know the burden of shoring up their sick, their doctors and their people falls on their shoulders first. The national government? It’s the world’s greatest backstop.
Remember when the Republican party freaked out about Barack Obama and the US “leading from behind” abroad? Remember the howls that evoked from GOP leaders? Those days are gone. Welcome to what Martin O’Malley, a Democratic former governor of Maryland, calls the “Darwinian approach to federalism”.
Trump is telling NFL owners he wants the season to start on time. He is disregarding Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advice on wearing facemasks in public. And he is touting untested coronavirus cures live on national TV.
Think Trump University on steroids, only this time we all stand to be the victims.
When Dr Anthony Fauci says there is no evidence to back up Trump’s claims surrounding hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug, pay attention. The fact Jared Kushner is on the case is hardly reassuring. He’s the guy who thought firing James Comey was win-win politics and promised Middle East peace in our time.
While all this is going on, the Wisconsin Republican party is giving America a taste of the campaign to come in the fall. Right now, the Badger State GOP is fighting in the US supreme court efforts to extend mail-in voting for this Tuesday’s Democratic primary.
In other words, voters will be forced to choose between foregoing their rights and risking their lives. Democracy shouldn’t work that way.
Back in the day, Republicans looked upon absentee voting as a valuable adjunct, a key piece in the party’s election day arsenal. Not anymore. Instead it is a dreaded foe, a fact readily admitted by Trump on Fox & Friends this week. If the US were to adopt mail-in voting, said the president, “you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again”.
For good measure, Trump later declared from the White House: “I think a lot of people cheat with mail-in voting.”
For the record, Trump voted by mail in 2018. In March, the Palm Beach Post reported that he had requested a mail-in vote for the Florida Republican primary.
There is nothing like populism marinated in wholesale contempt for the populace. In case Trump and the Republicans forgot, “We the People” are the constitution’s first three words.
Sadly, once again we are reminded that Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe’s masterpiece, Gladiator, is the movie for this presidency and its tumultuous times. In one scene, a senator, Gracchus, attempts to confront Commodus, the emperor, about a plague spreading through Rome. The emperor declines, threatens the senator and muses about disbanding the Senate.
On Thursday, Trump forced the removal of Captain Brett Crozier from his command of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, for having the temerity to plead his sailors’ case as more than 100 of them tested positive for coronavirus.
If you can leave your soldiers to suffer then no American is truly safe, no matter what Jeanine Pirro may say. Crozier left the ship to the cheers of the crew – then reportedly tested positive himself.
On Sunday, initially at least, there was no White House briefing on the president’s public schedule. But the bad news kept coming. Coronavirus deaths continued to climb and reports of the heartland being unprepared for what may be on its horizon continued to ricochet around the media.
In the words of one administration insider, to the Guardian: “The Trump organism is simply collapsing. He’s killing his own supporters.”
Members of the national guard, emergency workers, rank-and-file Americans: all are exposed. Yet Trump appears incapable of emoting anything that comes close to heart-felt concern. Or just providing straight answers.
Rather, he is acting like Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America: repeatedly letting governors know the burden of shoring up their sick, their doctors and their people falls on their shoulders first. The national government? It’s the world’s greatest backstop.
Remember when the Republican party freaked out about Barack Obama and the US “leading from behind” abroad? Remember the howls that evoked from GOP leaders? Those days are gone. Welcome to what Martin O’Malley, a Democratic former governor of Maryland, calls the “Darwinian approach to federalism”.
Trump is telling NFL owners he wants the season to start on time. He is disregarding Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advice on wearing facemasks in public. And he is touting untested coronavirus cures live on national TV.
Think Trump University on steroids, only this time we all stand to be the victims.
When Dr Anthony Fauci says there is no evidence to back up Trump’s claims surrounding hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug, pay attention. The fact Jared Kushner is on the case is hardly reassuring. He’s the guy who thought firing James Comey was win-win politics and promised Middle East peace in our time.
While all this is going on, the Wisconsin Republican party is giving America a taste of the campaign to come in the fall. Right now, the Badger State GOP is fighting in the US supreme court efforts to extend mail-in voting for this Tuesday’s Democratic primary.
In other words, voters will be forced to choose between foregoing their rights and risking their lives. Democracy shouldn’t work that way.
Back in the day, Republicans looked upon absentee voting as a valuable adjunct, a key piece in the party’s election day arsenal. Not anymore. Instead it is a dreaded foe, a fact readily admitted by Trump on Fox & Friends this week. If the US were to adopt mail-in voting, said the president, “you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again”.
For good measure, Trump later declared from the White House: “I think a lot of people cheat with mail-in voting.”
For the record, Trump voted by mail in 2018. In March, the Palm Beach Post reported that he had requested a mail-in vote for the Florida Republican primary.
There is nothing like populism marinated in wholesale contempt for the populace. In case Trump and the Republicans forgot, “We the People” are the constitution’s first three words.
Sadly, once again we are reminded that Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe’s masterpiece, Gladiator, is the movie for this presidency and its tumultuous times. In one scene, a senator, Gracchus, attempts to confront Commodus, the emperor, about a plague spreading through Rome. The emperor declines, threatens the senator and muses about disbanding the Senate.
On Thursday, Trump forced the removal of Captain Brett Crozier from his command of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, for having the temerity to plead his sailors’ case as more than 100 of them tested positive for coronavirus.
If you can leave your soldiers to suffer then no American is truly safe, no matter what Jeanine Pirro may say. Crozier left the ship to the cheers of the crew – then reportedly tested positive himself.
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Comments (20)
Hours after dismissing Crozier, Trump sacked Michael Atkinson, the intelligence community’s inspector general, for simply doing his job. Trump’s Ukraine call was never perfect, however many times he says it was
Hail Caesar, indeed.
Whether Trump wins reelection is an open question. For now, the economy is cratering and the coronavirus death toll has exploded. Not a promising combination. Herbert Hoover faced a depression, not a plague. Trump may contend with both.
According to Chris Christie, a former New Jersey governor and the man who sent Charlie Kushner, Jared’s father, to prison, November will be a referendum on Trump. Joe Biden is nearly irrelevant.
For the moment, Trump holds a commanding lead among Republicans. Seven months from now, we will learn if party loyalty is enough to secure a second term.
Title = 'Trump is killing his own supporters' – even White House insiders know it
by Lloyd Green
That's why the crew was cheering. They felt safer with crozier being removed.
They were cheering, because he attempted to get the 100 sailors medical attention that they needed.
That's something addressed at the top levels only.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
In Canada, a country of 37 million, there were some 2,100 cases and 24 deaths as of early Tuesday. The system is holding, for now. Hospitals have enough masks and respirators, for now. The prime minister appears in public every day, alone, outside his residence. He speaks sensibly, with authority, without hyperbole. This has been his finest hour.
Canadians trust him. They may not have voted for him – only about one-third did – but that doesn’t matter now. Nor do we question the competence of his ministers who are the other faces of the crisis – Chrystia Freeland, Marc Garneau, Patty Hajdu, Bill Blair. All are calm, competent and professional. This is what we want.
Reading up on supplies, it seems like most of ours have been outsourced for a long time and shipped in to us. That's a big mistake in any country unless it's one of your key exports.
It means that your President knows nothing...he has no business in politics...why bite the hand that feeds you...
In time of unity...Canada has stepped up to the plate...we are one...not divided...
We'll have an over haul of preparedness after this for certain. I've never read up on when so much was shut down across the globe for a pandemic.
I know there have been past travel bans and select countries here and there.
Working together as one...no politics...
They haven't actually done much for the country. they've been too concerned about pandering every where else but not focused here where they're supposed to be.
Where were they when the travel bans were started? That's what we have for a "governing" body. The president has control of foreign policy and anything he can get congress to actually take up in their proceedings.
That's not where they've been. The house has been focused on getting him out, not the country.
It was passed for what it was, a tax bill. A big one.
I can't begin to describe to you what some of my relatives say patients are going with out and at risk of being cut off from because of that bill. Sometimes a couple of them are in tears because of the "laws" and power granted to the companies that provide the "care".
She should finish up next year with honors for administration so she can be more at the top instead of one following orders or having to fight tooth and nail for some of her patients.
Crew are chanting his name and clapping a rhythm in a way I would associate with the social etiquette of personal and directed support.
If the crew wanted to support his removal without booing, or making support for his removal obvious in another way, they could have just clapped randomly as an audience would to show their approval. That would have created an ambiguous message as to whether they were supporting the captain, or his removal.
They clearly haven't created an ambiguous message. They are clearly supporting their captain.
There is a greater, global common enemy at the moment, Dragonaer. It changes things.
The consensus of opinion appears to be that it is so rare that it does not impact upon final election results.
It's rarity might also account for why you've only heard of a few states prosecuting here and there.
One issue that does impact upon election results is declaring that certain government issued identity documents aren't government issued enough.
When government issued identity documentation held by those living in social housing is disallowed and offices issuing driver licences in poor areas are closed in the run up to elections, a stratum of the population is excluded who could potentially have an impact upon outcome. Perhaps one might review the concept of voter fraud.
If an entire population is excluded from voting by a combination of quarantine and withholding remote voting, one might also review the possibility of a wannabe dictator realising his dreams.
He broke laws, not just protocol. The military has it's laws too.
Don't worry jacs I saw some videos already.
Firing him was the right thing to do. They lack for little to nothing on those ships as well as not long. All he needed to do was contact his chain of command. His immediate superior was on board and reports indicate help was already on the way.
You'll have to look those up because they won't be aired much quite yet.They can milk too much junk from it the way it is now.
Even now, peace time or other, the channels and actions that should be taken do not change. Those steps are all consistent. You only go over the head of another if necessary and it's not a bunch of letters to every one and their brother.
So I suppose letting the crew leave the ship during a pandemic, that he's going to skip the chain of command and writer letters all over the place, is a good thing too? I guess it doesn't change enough. Does it?
disgrace.