bureaucracybusters

TRUMP AND COVID: COUNTDOWN TO CATASTROPHE: PART FIVE (OF EIGHT)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on November 5, 2021 at 12:35 am

The Trump administration seized vitally-needed medical supplies in at least seven states. FEMA did not publicly report the thefts, despite the outlay of millions of dollars of taxpayer money. Nor did the administration explain how it decided which supplies to seize and where to reroute them.

Richardson County FEMA office open until April 26 - Falls City Journal

SEIZING STATES’ MEDICAL SUPPLIES

The Federal Government did not inform states whose supplies it seized if they would receive the materials they ordered and paid for. That fueled concerns about whether the Trump administration was fairly distributing scarce medical supplies.

“We can’t get any answers,” said a California hospital official who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation from the White House.

President Donald Trump said it was the states’ responsibility to obtain critically-needed medical supplies. But when they weren’t outbid by the Federal Government, hospital systems and states found their shipments of medical supplies seized with no explanation.

Where did those supplies go?

To China?

To Trump’s private warehouses?

To Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, for sale on the black market?

No one as yet knows.

A March 2 Washington Monthly story concluded ominously: “What if the White House simply gives all the masks and ventilators to red states and counties, leaving blue ones to struggle? What mechanisms of accountability are left?

“U.S. democracy wasn’t set up to deal with a president openly behaving like a James Bond villain while being protected by a political party behaving more like a mafia than a civic institution.”     

PROPAGANDA AS “NEWS”

After Easter weekend, Trump began holding daily press briefings at the White House. 

Their official purpose: To update the country on the administration’s ongoing response to the Coronavirus pandemic.

Their real purpose: To serve as a substitute for Trump’s hate-filled political rallies, which resembled those staged by Germany’s Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, at Nuremberg.

These had been temporarily cancelled due to demands for social distancing to stem the rising tide of the COVID-19 pandemic. That had been Trump’s primary reason for seeking to end social distancing.

The White House tried hard to stage-manage these appearances. For example, on April 14, 2020, Trump interrupted the question-and-answer session by cutting to a White House-produced video to try to shame the media for critical coverage of his response to the crisis. 

Symptoms of coronavirus disease 2019 4.0.svg

On April 26, The New York Times ran a story entitled: “Self-praise, hubris and self-pity: Examining 260,000 words about the Coronavirus from President Trump.” Summing up the image that Trump has tried to present of himself to the world, the Times concluded: 

“The self-regard, the credit-taking, the audacious rewriting of recent history to cast himself as the hero of the pandemic rather than the president who was slow to respond: Such have been the defining features of Trump’s use of the bully pulpit during the coronavirus outbreak….

“By far the most recurring utterances from Trump in the [White House] briefings are self-congratulations, roughly 600 of them, which are often predicated on exaggerations and falsehoods….

“Trump’s attempts to display empathy or appeal to national unity (about 160 instances) amount to only a quarter of the number of times he complimented himself or a top member of his team.” 

QUACKERY AS “MEDICINE”

On April 23, Trump ventured into the equivalent of a PR minefield—and stepped on a mine of his own making.

After musing on new government research into how the virus reacts to different temperatures, climates and surfaces, Trump said: “So I asked Bill [William N. Bryan, acting Under Secretary for Science and Technology at the Department of Homeland Security] a question….

“So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous—whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light—and I think you said that that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it.  And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way, and I think you said you’re going to test that too.  It sounds interesting.

“And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute! And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. So, that, you’re going to have to use medical doctors with. But it sounds interesting to me.”

Trump was clearly seeking agreement with his latest medical theory. But Dr. Deborah Birx, the Coronavirus Task Force response coordinator, remained silent.

The Internet—and medical experts—did not.

On Twitter—the social media platform Trump routinely uses to attack everyone he hates—his suggestion that injecting disinfectants could treat Coronavirus drew scorn and ridicule.

One tweet showed Trump as a doctor hovering over a patient and saying: “Once I’ve pumped you full of disinfectant, I’ll zap you with this UV torch until you’re cured.”

Another meme featured Trump as Marie Antoinette saying: “Let them eat Clorox.”

Clorox Disinfecting Bleach, Regular - 121 Ounce Bottle - Walmart ...

Medical experts found Trump’s off-the-cuff remarks no laughing matter. Several doctors warned the public against injecting disinfectant or using UV light.   

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