Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse

[Michael Scally MD]

ACCEPTABLE ANSWERS
Acceptable Answers

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, testified before the U.S. Senate this week and warned about reopening the nation too quickly and stressed the unknown effects the coronavirus could have on children returning to school.

Donald Trump wasn’t pleased. This is an administration trying to downplay the virus. Donald Trump wants to reopen the schools and the rest of the nation as quickly as possible. He tweets at his racist gun-toting followers to “liberate” their states. He refuses to wear a mask because it might give the appearance that we’re not out of the woods yet. In order to declare “mission accomplished,” the White House is publicly defying the guidance given by the White House.

About Dr. Fauci’s answer, Trump said it was an “unacceptable answer.” He said Dr. Fauci, “Wants to play all sides of the equation.” How exactly is Dr. Fauci playing “all sides of the equation?” Did he say kids shouldn’t go back to school and they should go back to school? Has he been as inconsistent and confusing as Donald Trump? No.

The problem here for Donald Trump is the nation trust Dr. Fauci more than they trust Donald Trump. According to a recent poll by the Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (who picked that name? Sheesh!), 45% of Americans trust Dr. Fauci. It stated 35% trusted their governors. And only 20% trusted Donald Trump. Really? That high for Trump?

I would trust a nutless monkey’s advice over that of Donald Trump. Say what you will about primates and sure, they fling poo, but I haven’t heard any nutless monkeys suggest we drink Clorox.

During Dr. Fauci’s testimony, U.S. Senator Rand Paul, who risked exposing his colleagues with the coronavirus between taking a test and testing positive, told Dr. Fauci he wasn’t the “end-all” for information on the coronavirus. There are two things Rand Paul needs to understand. First, there has not been a run on razors and shaving cream. He obviously doesn’t care about school children because that thing on his face is going to scare them to death. Secondly, Dr. Fauci IS the “end-all” on information about the coronavirus, you fucking quack eye doctor. It is no wonder Rand Paul gets physically attacked by his neighbors and a huge wonder why his Senate colleagues, who’ve been socially distancing from him for years, haven’t grabbed him by the beard and flung him out a window.

Rand Paul isn’t the only conservative attempting to discredit Dr. Fauci. Fox News has been going at him with the current talking point being “no one elected Dr. Fauci.” Yeah? For that matter, no one elected Jared Kushner but there he is talking about delaying the general election, which his father-in-law failed to win the popular vote from last time.

Sean Hannity, who once called the coronavirus a “hoax” then said he never called it a “hoax,” said about Fauci, “There is no secret that he, like so many others, have been wrong a lot.” One of those “others” who’s been wrong a lot, in addition to all the idiots on Fox News, is Donald Trump.

Laura Ingraham warned us Democrats are “remaking America under the veil of a virus” and staging “a naked power grab in the middle of a pandemic.” Of course, she also once said face masks were a deep state plot to control Americans.

Tucker Carlson said, “This guy, Fauci, may be even more off-base than your average epidemiologist.” Tucker is more off-base than your average cultist TV host dispensing propaganda disguised as information. He then referred to Fauci as the “Chief buffoon.” Tucker also claimed, “Some people think that he (Fauci) should be dictator for the duration of this crisis.” Yeah. How dare people try to replace our current dictator. But this does beg the question, who is the “Chief Buffoon” on Fox News? Who wins that contest?

And, Donald Trump once retweeted the hashtag #FireFauci.

Since Trump, Fox News, and 4chan began their hostile hate campaign against Dr. Fauci, his personal security has been increased. The Dr., who’s been telling us the truth, has been receiving death threats. You have NOT heard any of these hosts from Fox News or even Donald Trump speak out against threats against Dr. Fauci.

The reason Fauci’s answer warning about reopening school to quickly is unacceptable to Donald Trump is that it wasn’t the kind of answer you’d get from a yes man.

Donald Trump has gone to great lengths to surround himself with yes people. He’s been purging career officials who aren’t “Trump people” or who may appear “disloyal” to him. He calls them “Never Trumpers.” Even Dr. Deborah Birx wouldn’t shoot down the bleach theory.

Dr. Fauci’s answer to Trump was unacceptable because it was truth. In this White House, truth is not acceptable.

There are talking points distributed to every person who works for the government under Trump. The first is, praise Trump. And it must be written in bold and large letters because the wording is always the same when it comes out of their mouths. “Thank you for your leadership.” It’s like a broken record. This is some real Hitler/Stalin/Kim Jong Un shit.

Donald Trump needs fewer yes men, like Mike Pence, and more honest men, like Dr. Fauci. Unfortunately, if Pence is replaced on this ticket, it’ll be with another yes person, like Nikki Haley. If Dr. Fauci is replaced, it’ll be with another yes person, like Nikki Haley.

Donald Trump desperately wants to fire Dr. Fauci and I find that unacceptable.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

When the history is written of how America handled the global era’s first real pandemic, March 6 will leap out of the timeline. That was the day Donald Trump visited the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. His foray to the world’s best disease research body was meant to showcase that America had everything under control. It came midway between the time he was still denying the coronavirus posed a threat and the moment he said he had always known it could ravage America.

Shortly before the CDC visit, Trump said “within a couple of days, [infections are] going to be down to close to zero”. The US then had 15 cases. “One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.” A few days afterwards, he claimed: “I’ve felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.” That afternoon at the CDC provides an X-ray into Trump’s mind at the halfway point between denial and acceptance.

We now know that Covid-19 had already passed the breakout point in the US. The contagion had been spreading for weeks in New York, Washington state and other clusters. The curve was pointing sharply upwards. Trump’s goal in Atlanta was to assert the opposite.

Wearing his “Keep America Great” baseball cap, the US president was flanked by Robert Redfield, head of the CDC, Alex Azar, the US secretary of health and human services, and Brian Kemp, governor of Georgia. In his 47-minute interaction with the press, Trump rattled through his greatest hits.

He dismissed CNN as fake news, boasted about his high Fox News viewership, cited the US stock market’s recent highs, called Washington state’s Democratic governor a “snake” and admitted he hadn’t known that large numbers of people could die from ordinary flu. He also misunderstood a question on whether he should cancel campaign rallies for public health reasons. “I haven’t had any problems filling [the stadiums],” Trump said.

What caught the media’s attention were two comments he made about the disease. There would be four million testing kits available within a week. “The tests are beautiful,” he said. “Anybody that needs a test gets a test.”

Ten weeks later, that is still not close to being true. Fewer than 3 per cent of Americans had been tested by mid-May. Trump also boasted about his grasp of science. He cited a “super genius” uncle, John Trump, who taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and implied he inherited his intellect. “I really get it,” he said. “Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability.” Historians might linger on that observation too.

What the headlines missed was a boast that posterity will take more seriously than Trump’s self-estimated IQ, or the exaggerated test numbers (the true number of CDC kits by March was 75,000). …

What has gone wrong? I interviewed dozens of people, including outsiders who Trump consults regularly, former senior advisers, World Health Organization officials, leading scientists and diplomats, and figures inside the White House. Some spoke off the record.

Again and again, the story that emerged is of a president who ignored increasingly urgent intelligence warnings from January, dismisses anyone who claims to know more than him and trusts no one outside a tiny coterie, led by his daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner – the property developer who Trump has empowered to sideline the best-funded disaster response bureaucracy in the world.

People often observed during Trump’s first three years that he had yet to be tested in a true crisis. Covid-19 is way bigger than that. “Trump’s handling of the pandemic at home and abroad has exposed more painfully than anything since he took office the meaning of America First,” says William Burns, who was the most senior US diplomat, and is now head of the Carnegie Endowment.

“America is first in the world in deaths, first in the world in infections and we stand out as an emblem of global incompetence. The damage to America’s influence and reputation will be very hard to undo.”

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]