New York coronavirus cases eclipsed 30,000 today. Just like fashion trends, and boutique financial packages, New York is first. The fads spread out to the country from there. We are in for a reckoning like no other because we’re not even close to the top of the wave – even in New York, the crest hasn’t hit.
And yet Donald Trump is sick of all this. He seems to miss his playtime. He is definitely missing his rallies – the best part of being president, beyond the endless golf. His adrenaline needs the daily press briefings, just to get the blood pumping and – it would seem – get out of the house once in a while. It seems like he’s doled out the work to everyone else.
The only way for him to communicate beyond the now intolerable press conferences – which the media should stop broadcasting, and just cut-in as needed if some news is made – is through Twitter, his lifeline to the world. We have always speculated how dangerous the man can be, inciting riots, getting the country into a war, well – we’re here now. Even though the virus hasn’t reached peak danger, Trump is getting closer to his peak:
The LameStream Media is the dominant force in trying to get me to keep our Country closed as long as possible in the hope that it will be detrimental to my election success. The real people want to get back to work ASAP. We will be stronger than ever before!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 25, 2020 [1]
It is the “media” that is trying to get Trump to keep the country closed. It isn’t the doctors or friggin’ common sense. No, without the media, Trump could “open-up” the country and there’d be no disease, no worries, just – you know, be careful. It is the media.
And it’s personal. The media is doing it to him, personally. They want to see him, personally, fail. So the media has taken it upon themselves to personally wage a war against his personal political fortunes. Wars get started when leaders make things personal. A war against the media, one far beyond what we’ve seen to this point, might be coming.
He is going to do it. He is going to “encourage” people to get back to work. He can’t order it, because he’d have had to previously order everyone to quarantine through some sort of national emergency powers to release that order. Quarantining is a gubernatorial and mayoral decision. But he can damned well encourage people to go back to work, and we’ve already seen Hobby Lobby, Liberty University, and states like mine – Mississippi, downplay the hazard with economic concerns winning out over medical and common-sense decisions. All it takes is a few businesses opening back-up, and then the rest will near have to if they want to survive.
He is also setting up a storyline. That line will be that the economy would be better if his hands weren’t tied.
But mostly, he is once again attempting to get people to distrust what they hear through the media. Certainly, wingers have hated the media since the early Clinton days. Hating the “lamestream” media is mothers’ milk to the Right-wing. But in the same way that Trump has been able to manipulate the Wingers into hating every career government employee, they are now going to see media reporting on the health care (not even political coverage) with a dubious eye, thinking that this must be the new way to get Trump.
He is going to get more dangerous as the virus gets more dangerous. The economy got a shot of Adderall with the Senate bill passing and an agreement getting some money out to consumers and businesses. It was needed. Trump sure needed it. But Wall Street and the American worker still don’t know how this will play out long term. No one does. There is a lot of danger out there that this could truly sink the economy for years.
Trump feels it, and by god, he’s not about to let the media pass along bad news without hearing about it from him. He wants people back to work. He desperately wants to be like Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick. Patrick came out and said he’s “all in” on saving the economy by getting going, deaths be damned, so to speak. Trump would give anything to be able to call for just that. But not yet …
Until then, he’ll blame the media for even making it sound bad.
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Peace, y’all
Jason