Those of us who have had the time – and those of us paid to observe and analyze these things, for the love of god! – have picked up on an obvious aspect of these daily pressers.
Interestingly, the person who speaks the most, each day, and takes the most questions, is “surprise!” Donald Trump. Let me simply assure you of what you already know. Every day, Trump talks about the same things because he doesn’t know enough about anything else. He is not the one giving out numbers of this or that. He is not the one summarizing what the government has done. There’s none of that. He actually has experts that talk briefly about such critical information.
Donald Trump uses the majority of the press conference time to repeat the same things every day; “The CHINESE virus is very serious, and he’s known that all along.” This is, of course, insane. Do recall Dem Hoax.
He says: “We have repaired a medical system that was broken …” and you just see Barack Obama bang his head against a wall and revise his book.
He says “We have done a great job testing and acting on this danger …” Well, “we” might have some meaning.
Every day Trump emphasizes that 120 countries are blameless. It is China that caused all this shit because they didn’t nuke the city, people and area within a week of discovering it. (or something like that).
He always, always, always, says that he saved so damned many lives by closing the borders to China – which meant no planes direct from China. He did indeed make a big difference and it was a good call. But because of his failures afterward, he has not saved one life, he’s set up a situation where far more will die.
You get the picture. He uses the opportunity to sing praises of himself on TV. He is perfect once again. Then the media questions start, each challenging question gets a comment about how most reporters are fcking evil spirits sent straight from hell to make him – personally – and no one else, look bad. Some questions are simply answered by reiterating how he’s done it perfectly. Other questions lead him to talk about how close we are to absolute victory, maybe by next Tuesday. (Exaggerating slightly).
This is all a lonnnng summary to underscore the point that Trump uses these televised press conferences watched by millions of people sitting in their homes as a substitute for rallies. He can’t go out into arenas twice a week and congratulate himself on his perfection. So he just does it from his house, and does it every day, knowing he gets to blast his enemies – the media, and they can’t blast back. He knows every expert on that stage WILL comment a bit on how one hundred and fifty million would already be dead if we did not have the perfect president who must be clairvoyant given his perfect calls, and Trump gets to brag and huff and puff.
Pretty straightforward, huh?
I am not the only one that’s noticed:
Also: It's become clear to me and many others that the daily briefings on the virus are morphing into substitutes for the rallies Trump cannot hold under social distancing rules. Now imagine if at one of those rallies there was a Q & A session with reporters in the media pen. 13/
— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) March 20, 2020 [1]
Yep
Trump is holding these press conferences because he can’t hold rallies. Public health is not the point. He needs praise like he needs oxygen. His sycophants talk more than experts. Nothing about tests. It’s all about what Trump wants to hear, not what we need to know.
— Windsor Mann (@WindsorMann) March 20, 2020 [2]
Pathetic that our press needs this. Sick man.
****
Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected] and on Twitter @MiciakZoom