19 March 2020

Change of Heart

You may have noticed Donald Trump's public stance on the coronavirus crisis changed markedly last week. Before last Monday, Trump endless scoffed and downplayed the threat.

For instance, in late January, he said, "we have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. It’s going to be just fine." A month later, he was saying "the coronavirus is very much under control in the USA.... Stock Market starting to look very good to me."

Now he's holding press conferences every day. He's actually doing something to address the crisis.

So what changed?

It wasn't all the experts in senior levels of government warning him, whom he ignored. It wasn't all the of public health experts from around the world, who he ignored.

It was only when Trump was watching television — something he does for hours every day — that Tucker Carlson on Fox finally scared the shit out of him and he was moved to act (details here).

It's a sad commentary on the state of America where the only thing that seems to reach the President is a daytime TV show.

Of course, this does not absolve Trump of what he did before Carlson finally got the President's head out of his ass. He needs to answer for why he turned down millions of diagnostic tests that were offered to the United States (details here).

He still needs to be defeated in November's election. But at least he's given us greater clarity on why he allowed this disaster to fester while doing almost nothing. And because of that clarity, it's even more obvious now why he must not be reelected.

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