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Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse
- Thread starter CdnGuy
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That's fake news.
We have lost the window of opportunity that Singapore had, for example, to enact severe measures to test and quarantine infected persons. As The New York Times reports, “Early intervention is key. So are painstaking tracking, enforced quarantines and meticulous social distancing — all coordinated by a leadership willing to act fast and be transparent.” It is not clear whether we were capable of undertaking the swift measures Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong took; but had we begun any efforts at suppressing the virus, the task of now mitigating its damage likely would have been made more manageable. (Singapore acted as swiftly as it did not only because of its invasive surveillance, which might not have been acceptable in the West, but because it “has spent years building a public health system that includes designated clinics for epidemics and official messaging urging the public to wash their hands or sneeze into tissues during flu season.”)
Trump shares the blame for failing to develop an infrastructure to fight pandemics (and removing structures put in place by the Obama administration). But, to borrow a phrase, “he alone” made the crisis infinitely worse by doing nothing for so long when leaders around the world were responding forcefully.
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Last Friday, Representative Andy Levin, a Democrat from Michigan, wrote a letter signed by 56 colleagues urging Donald Trump to invoke a law called the Defense Production Act in the fight against coronavirus. Passed during the Korean War in 1950, the law lets the president direct manufacturers to make supplies necessary for national security. “It very clearly allows the president to use the same powers for a public health emergency,” Levin told me.
At a time when the coronavirus pandemic is leading to a critical shortage of tests, ventilators, respirators, I.C.U. beds and protective gear for medical professionals, it seemed like an obvious move. “He has the power to get what we need,” said Levin. “And this is tens and hundreds of thousands of lives at stake in real time here.”
Finally, on Wednesday, Trump invoked the law, and it briefly looked as if things were going to get moving. But later that day, he tweeted that he’s holding off on actually using the powers the law gives him: “I only signed the Defense Production Act to combat the Chinese Virus should we need to invoke it in a worst case scenario in the future. Hopefully there will be no need, but we are all in this TOGETHER!”
Levin was incredulous. “The worst-case scenario is right now,” he said, adding: “This is something that is completely beyond partisanship. It’s an all-hands-on-deck crisis.”
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It can become tedious to dwell on the fact that the president is a dangerous and ignorant narcissist who has utterly failed as an executive, leaving state governments on their own to confront a generational cataclysm. But no one should ever forget it.
Soon, even if the pandemic is still raging, there will be an election, and the public will be asked to render a verdict on Trump’s leadership. Being clear that people are suffering and dying needlessly because the president can’t do his job isn’t looking backward. It’s the only way to move forward.
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