When I first started this blog, my intention was to explain some of the finer, and not so fine points of the US political system, and have a bit of fun at the same time.
I’m not laughing now.
Today, I sat with tears in my eyes as I watched a mob of violent, radicalised, far-right insurrectionists storm the Capitol building in an attempted coup. One woman is dead, several law enforcement officers were injured, and elected officials fled the chamber in fear for their lives.
Make no mistake, this was incited by Trump.
In a rally earlier in the day, he urged his supporters to march on the Capitol, saying “you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong.”
This is the culmination of weeks and months of seditious speech aimed at promoting conspiracy theories and riling up the base. Of course, the rich irony here is that the “theft” of the election that he attributes to the Democrats is the very crime he himself is perpetrating. And he’s not alone.
Senators and Congresspeople on the right have stood silently and spinelessly by or actively supported his claims of election fraud. To hear Ted Cruz of Texas say that “there are serious allegations of election fraud” is a travesty, because those allegations were created, promulgated and echoed by the Republicans themselves. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle of misinformation, that has now ended in a day of violence and vandalism, unheard of in US history.
And now, only now, are some Republicans coming out to condemn the actions of the Trumpists and to beg Trump to call off the dogs. He waited a full two hours to do so, as windows were smashed, security breached and insurrectionists stormed the building, rifling through desks, stealing property and threatening people with guns and other weapons. An improvised explosive device was found on the grounds, and journalists and law makers huddled together in fear.
So how far must this go? What has happened to integrity, honour, decency and doing what’s right?
Harry Truman said “Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers from which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.”
The pundits have been calling it for a couple of days. Finally, the networks have capitulated to the inevitable. Joseph R Biden Jr will be the 46th President of the United States.
People are flooding the streets, but rather than the violence and riots that were predicted, they’re dancing, jumping in the air, cheering and expressing sheer joy.
Meanwhile, Trump is looking smaller and smaller. His complaining, and efforts to look strong and “fight to the end” more closely resemble the tantrum thrown by a toddler in the lolly aisle of Woolies. His tweets no longer frighten Republican senators and congresspeople. He’s a tiger with no teeth. A dog with no bite.
It’s been a hard slog. But the results are in, and world leaders have been quick to congratulate Biden, cementing his victory on the world stage.
Frankly, I’m exhausted, but it’s blissfully over. Now the real work starts.
Biden has just doubled his lead in Arizona with the latest release of votes. He’s now 22,000 up on Trump. So let’s do a quick breakdown of where the electoral college stands.
306 was exactly how many electoral college votes Trump had in 2016. I do love a good coincidence.
Saturday 4.15am – Vic
All the states are coming in now. In Nevada, Biden has extended his lead, same in Arizona. His lead in Pennsylvania is expanding. This is a done deal now I think.
I should be in bed, but all the good stuff is happening now. Dang!
If Trump decides to fight, good luck, he’ll be out on January 20.
Saturday, 3.57am – Vic
I should not be awake, but a LOT of results are coming in. Biden has just extended his lead in Nevada, and he’s also flipped Pennsylvania. That’s a clear and easy victory for Joe Biden.
In the meantime, Fox news is telling their anchors and journalists to not refer to Biden as “President Elect” which is what you call the elected president before they take office (which happens on January 20), because of the outstanding lawsuits (two of which have already been dismissed for lack of evidence).
Friday, 11.57pm – Vic
Georgia has flipped to Biden. That brings him, if he holds it, to 269 electoral college votes. This is HUGE. If he keeps it, with Arizona, he’s the winner. If he gets Pennsylvania, where the lead there for Trump has gone from 300,000 votes to just over 20,000, he’ll easily win. Or he could hold his lead in Nevada.
I’m hoping to sleep in late tomorrow and wake up to a new brighter future.
Friday, 2.09pm – Vic
Biden is looking like the winner. In Pennsylvania, in the late vote, he’s picking up about 80%, which is what I said way back at the beginning, which seems about three weeks ago.
Arizona is still up in the air, but he’s closing in on Georgia too. There’s a good chance he’ll pick up Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia and Nevada, sealing Trump’s fate.
Thursday, 3.03pm – Vic
Well, like everything Donald J Trump touches, this election has turned into a dumpster fire. While Biden looks on track to win Arizona and Nevada, possibly Philadelphia, and therefore the Presidency, Trump is disingenuously claiming victory and, naturally, voter fraud.
He wants to stop the count of legally cast ballots in states where he’s ahead. But as we all know, you can’t just stop counting when the result favours you. The count has to be completed. Philadelphia, where he currently leads, is a case in point. As he bitches about ballots continuing to be counted after election day, it’s worth noting that the reason they’re still being counted, is because his own Republican Governor wouldn’t allow the electoral officials there to start counting until the polls had closed. So it’s going to take a little while yet.
It’s looking promising for Biden, but we’ve got a day or so to go before all the results are in. Sit tight kids.
11.12pm – Vic
Holy McMoley. So ABC (US) have called Arizona for Biden. And what I’m hearing now, is that as the mail voting comes in on Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, they’re leaning very left. I’m particularly proud of Wisconsin, the home of Laverne and Shirley.
11pm – Vic
Yep, still here. There may be a little bit of time where I fell asleep on the couch. I didn’t sleep well last night. So here’s where we’re at. Biden is ahead in Wisconsin, but Trump is ahead in Michigan.
Truly, we’re not going to have an answer tonight. But good lord, Chris Cuomo is really quite hot.
8.47pm – Vic
Damn gurl! Wisconsin just dropped a whole bunch of stats. Biden is now ahead. And there’s more to come. We’re in the game and it’s going to the mat. Hell, I’ll go to the mat for this.
I once dated a guy called Matt. He was shit.
8.18pm – Vic
We’re waiting on a press conference from Wisconsin. Biden polled pretty well here before the election, so we’ll know a lot more about where the election stands when thats out. It was supposed to start 20 minutes ago.
7.43pm – Vic
The Associated Press have called Arizona for Biden. That brings his chance of winning to 94%. However, it’s all going to come down to the rust belt.
7.06pm – Vic
Okay, so where is it shaking out? Here’s what the map looks like right now.
This is from Five Thirty Eight’s calculator of winner likelihood. As you can see, Biden currently has an 82% chance of victory. There’s still a route for Trump, but it’s pretty bloody unlikely. God, he’s a dickhead.
I’ve been drinking. Can you tell?
6.55pm – Vic
EVERYONE, JUST CALM DOWN.
6.08pm – Vic
Trump is about to make a statement, and all the commentators are doing these huge disclaimers explaining that “the president doesn’t get to call the election, and it’s not being stolen”. Apparently his campaign folks are in a white hot rage because Fox News called Arizona for Biden, even though it’s only at 80% of the count.
Lol.
5.57pm – Vic
Well, things are really heating up. Firstly, the margins in Georgia have tightened up considerably. I’d frankly thought this was gone. But it turns out there’s still a good 30% of postal votes to be counted in VERY blue counties, especially around Atlanta, and Biden might just pull it off yet. Same goes for Pennsylvania Both Nevada and Arizona (which Trump one last year) are looking good for Biden. Don’t give up yet lefties!
4.34pm – Vic
At the moment, Trump voters are going to be looking pretty smug about the Big Three. However, it’s worth noting that the big counties, the ones around Philadelphia, Pittsburg and Scranton are only at 17% of the mail in vote which is largely for Biden. There’s plenty of space for him to close that gap. Look at Virginia. Earlier today they were hugely for Trump, now it’s been called for Biden. With the map as it stands right now, Five Thirty Eight is still giving Biden an 87% chance of winning, and Georgia is now favoured for him on the New York Times election forecast. It’s anyone’s game.
We just have to wait it out. I suspect I may be up all night.
3.23pm – Vic
Right now, Biden is sitting at 192 electoral college votes, with Trump at 114. To win, the candidate needs 270 or more. It looks like it’s all going to come down to the three rust belt states – Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. We probably won’t have an answer until tomorrow or the day after. I’ll keep updating as the swing states are called, but now might be a good time to think about what you’re going to do for dinner tonight.
3pm – Vic
Well, Trump is making a better showing than I expected. But we have a long way to go. There’s a lot of early votes yet to be counted, which we know generally favour Biden. Those states include Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, where Biden has been has been polling well.
In other news, Arizona is looking like it’s heading Biden’s way. We’re still waiting on final numbers from North Carolina too.
It’s going to be a looooong night.
1.36pm – Vic
Hoo GURL! The latest.
1.30pm – Rach
As numbers start coming in, a reminder from your friendly, gorgeous mods here: THIS WILL TAKE A WHILE. The counting may go on days because of the great work organising people to safely vote via mail or in person ahead of time.
Do not jump to conclusions either way. Keep your powder dry.
1.10 – Rach
As polls close in Michigan, now is the time I shamelessly namedrop that the Michigan Secretary of State, Jocelyn Benson, is an old friend of mine from my uni days. Jocelyn went to Wellesley while I was at Boston University, but we met and bonded at the 1996 re-election campaign for Senator John Kerry. Photo as evidence. Just me, Gloria Steinem and the then-future SoS.
Jocelyn is a fierce voting rights advocate, a total expert in election law, and not for nothing, was personally called out by Trump for being a “radical SOS” for having the temerity to take steps to preserve voters’ rights during the pandemic. I urge you to keep an eye on Sec. Benson’s upward trajectory!
12.50 – Rach
As the Ohio returns start coming in, analysts whose opinions I trust are reminding us that the way that north eastern Ohio votes is strongly indicative of how western Pennsylvania is voting, as they are very similar demographics. So if they’re tending Biden Blue in northeastern Ohio, that’s a good bellwether!
12.30pm – Vic
It’s too early to call a lot of states, but early indications show Ohio looking pretty good for the Democrats with 51% of the vote counted. Having said that, it could change in the next hour or so. If Biden wins the Buckeye State, Trump has no way to win. Meanwhile, my chief pollster is keeping a close eye on the blog.
Midday – Vic
Florida is going right down to the wire – the swingiest state of swingers with Trump ahead by just 10,000 votes. The big news is that Texas is looking blue right now but that’s likely to change. Ohio is also headed to Biden right now, but again, it’s too early to call.
Ooh! So exciting! I’m a quivering mess!
11.46am – Vic
Around 70% of the vote has been counted in Florida and it’s neck and neck. The lead has swapped five times in the last half hour. The Sunshine State is a must-win for Trump if he’s to have any hope of retaining the presidency. Biden is ahead by around one point at time of writing, and my heart is pounding out of my chest.
11.06am – Vic
We’re starting to get the first results from Florida, the swingiest of swing states full of swingers. We take a look at the early results and who to watch.
9.19am – Vic
Americans are flocking to the polls in unprecedented numbers. Here’s what you need to know.
There’s a lot of battleground states to watch this cycle. We’ll be posting live updates as the results look likely, but it could be days or weeks before a final winner is called. This is largely due to the walloping early voter and absentee ballot turnout, that has seen more than 100 million Americans already cast their votes.
It’s not looking good for Trump
To win, Trump would need to win Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Ohio, Georgia, Wisconsin and Michigan. Biden is polling ahead in all of these except for Ohio, where trump is ahead by less than two points.
We can expect some results to start coming in at around midday. But for Pennsylvania, a critical tipping point state, results won’t be known for several days.
Be prepared for Republicans to show an early lead as the polling booth votes are counted first. When postal and early votes are compiled, Democrats will close the gap, and we expect, surpass Trump votes as the afternoon progresses.
Rachel and I will be here all day. Brace yourself, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
My eyes snapped open at 6.30 this morning with the mix of hope and anxiety that has been my dominant mood for the past four weeks. I’m currently writing this in between sending batches of texts to potential voters in Ohio, Virginia, South Carolina, and other parts of the world. Textbanking has been a very efficient way for me to plug into volunteering this election. You join an organisation, and use their computer systems to contact thousands of people with automated messages. The messages have evolved over time from calls to mail in ballots for early votes, to dropping ballots off in person, information on how to vote, calls to get people who have voted to encourage three of their friends and family to vote.
Mostly, the texts go unanswered. If people text us to leave them alone, we of course opt them out. A few Trump voters, nobody too disrespectful. But some of the positive responses have been amazing – people telling me they’ve organised three dozen people from their neighbourhood to vote in person. People telling me they voted early, then went back the next day with a parent to vote early. And memorably, when texting someone if we could count on them to vote, this person replied “count on DEEZ NUTS.” To which I responded, “Do deez nuts need to know their polling place?” I am truly 12 years old inside.
Today, the messages are VOTE. Did you vote? Do you need help on finding your voting location? And because this is the election that takes place in a pandemic, reminders to people to please remember to take their masks as well as their ID when they go to vote.
Volunteering in some way or shape has always been my antidote to the anxiety of how the election will turn out. It is easy to feel powerless when you are an American living overseas permanently; I love politics and volunteering my time with elections. Thank goodness for technology, which enables people like me to stay involved, even at so far a remove.
Once polls close, the anxious watch truly begins. I wish I had a bowl of my mother’s Election Night chilli as those returns start flowing in. It’s my family’s ritual to watch elections and eat chilli together, and I miss that comfort food. However, being here with La Vic and you folks is not bad, either. Let’s fucking do this.
The constitution has you covered, but it won’t be pretty.
This week, in another rambling, incoherent interview with Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, Trump refused to commit to accepting the election results if he loses.
This comes as no surprise, as the toddler in chief specialises in petulance and self-servitude, so what happens if he refuses to go, and why would he want to stay in power anyway?
First things first.
The US constitution really is a remarkable document. So here’s the rules. After the election, the incumbent president’s term ends at midday on January 20. The new president is sworn in, and takes over. It’s traditional that the old president leaves a nice letter on the desk in the oval office for the new one, but I can’t see that happening. I don’t reckon Trump would even turn up to the swearing in ceremony or make any kind of concession speech.
So if Trump and Vice President Pence refuse to leave, or say that the election was rigged or some other nonsense, then the third in line is sworn in. And that, my friends, is the Speaker of the House.
Yep, Nancy Pelosi.
Then the army or the national guard or similar will haul Trump’s fat arse out of there without further ceremony.
If the election turns out to be a landslide, which all current indications suggest, then Trump really won’t have a leg to stand on. If it’s very close, and that’s possible, then Pelosi will be sworn in until the whole thing can be sorted out.
And if his cabinet of Republican cronies support him, they can end up in jail for wielding power they no longer have. Delicious, isn’t it?
So what possible reason could Trump have to debase and humiliate himself so thoroughly?
Trump has been in the luxurious position of not being prosecuted because he’s a sitting president. That doesn’t mean he’s above the law, he was impeached after all, but he’s also being investigated by several jurisdictions for a range of criminal activities including, but not limited to:
campaign finance violations
obstruction of justice
witness tampering
emoluments violations
fraud
tax evasion
What’s more, the Supreme Court recently made a ruling that yes, Trump can be prosecuted for crimes and cannot refuse subpoenas from federal and state jurisdictions. And after office, he won’t have Attorney General Bill Barr there to shield him from prosecution.
I’m really, really hoping that Adam Schiff gets the AG gig after November. Just thinking about the sweetness of that justice is making my teeth hurt.
Shit’s getting real for The Don. And it ain’t pretty.
The Campaign is a great movie and you should watch it.
US political campaigns are a spectacular affairs. There’s the ads, the galas, the debates and of course, the closely watched polls. But this year, it’s all going pear-shaped for Trump.
Back in 2016, he won the votes of millions of Americans by being different. An underdog not a politician. A businessman (he said successful, but that’s highly debatable) not a diplomat. Coupled with Clinton’s unpopularity, it won him the electoral college, if not the popular vote.
This time around, however, it’s not looking so rosy, and once again, Trump is the rank outsider, but this time, he’s up against Biden.
The rallies
A mainstay of Trump’s campaigns are the rallies. The thousands of adoring fans (almost exclusively white and uneducated), shouting, cheering, and waving signs. Trump needs these rallies to feed his malignant narcissism, and to reassure him that he really is as good as he thinks he is. But Tulsa was a disaster.
Trump’s campaign manager touted “a million ticket requests” before the rally. I shall refrain from comment on how dangerous that would be in a pandemic. They booked an 19,000 seat stadium and an overflow area for an additional 10,000 people and fully expected a packed house. The house was not packed. In fact, only 6,700 people showed.
Now, there’s unfounded rumours that the purported ticket requests came from Tik Tok users and KPop fans in an effort to derail the rally. That may be true, but then again, it’s just possible that people realised that with coronavirus rampant, shouting in close proximity to other shouters might not be the best idea when it comes to living. The result was devastating. Not just to Trump personally, but to his campaign politically.
People started to realise that perhaps he’s just not that good. That the numbers of like-minded MAGA lovers might be dwindling. That he might just be a bit shit. And the tide is turning against Trump. Oh yes indeed.
The polls
Trump’s polls are disastrous by any measure. He’s losing every swing state – that’s Wisconsin (down by 7.8%), Pennsylvania (down by 7.3%), Michigan (down by 9.4%), North Carolina (down by 3.2%) and, critically, Florida (down by 6%). Worse still, is that some pretty red states have come into play. Not least of which is Texas, where Trump holds the lead by a measly 0.1%. TEXAS, folks. In Georgia, he’s down by 0.9% (BIDEN IS AHEAD IN GEORGIA!), in Iowa, Trump holds a 0.6% lead. These are solidly Republican states. If an election were held today, Trump would be trounced by a whopping 87 electoral college votes, and that’s when I generously give him Iowa, Texas, Arizona and Georgia. None of which are sure things.
So what’s changed?
There’s a couple of things. The handling of Covid-19 has been nothing short of disastrous. With asinine comments like “slow down testing” and there’ll be less cases (nope, same number of cases, you just won’t know about them), and suggesting that people could inject themselves with bleach, Trump did himself no favours.
Add to that the horrific death of George Floyd, the black man murdered by police in Minneapolis, and the subsequent protests which fell on deaf Presidential ears, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. But unlike other politicians, who would perhaps have shown empathy, made an effort to listen to the people they represented, Trump doubled down, unleashing violence on peaceful protesters, and enhancing his divisive, racist rhetoric. It’s not working.
Trump is appealing to his base. But his base is not enough to get him across the line on November 3. It’s all he knows how to do. And he needs it. He needs the adoration, he needs to feel popular. In the meantime, he’s alienating some key voting blocks: working class women, who find his combative style and dismal management of the virus a turn off, and elderly white folk, who are scared out of their freaking minds that coronavirus will kill them. But there’s more.
Republicans for Biden
There’s now at least three Republican super pacs supporting Joe Biden. I never thought I would write those words. A supercpac is an organisation (the PAC stands for political action committee) the collects and raises funds to spend on electoral campaigns. They’re critical to success.
These super pacs are running some devastating ads against Trump. Most notable amongst them is The Lincoln Project, whose ads are utterly chilling. I mean they will literally give you goosebumps they’re so good. Mind you, with so much fodder to work with, they practically write themselves. I was a copywriter for several years, and I can tell you that this is an account I would have loved.
The thing about The Lincoln Project, however, is that one of its founders is George Conway. George Conway is the husband of Kelly Anne Conway, one of Trump’s chief advisors. Let that sink in. Boy, would I like to be a fly on the wall at their family dinners.
And then, of course, there’s Roger.
Roger
Roger Stone is the sixth Trump advisor to be indicted, tried and convicted of a felony related to Trump’s election in 2016. He was sentenced to 40 months in prison. However, this week, Trump commuted that sentence, subverting the rule of law to an unconscionable degree.
This is serious shit. It’s one thing to, say, let some drug dealers out of prison for dealing weed before it was legal, it’s quite another thing to pardon one of your mates who was found guilty by a jury of twelve for helping you steal an election. That’s some straight up dictator shit right there. It’s really upsetting people. And by people, I mean Republican congressmen and senators.
Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse said that “that Roger Stone is a dirty SOB who earned his jail time by lying and trying to intimidate witnesses.” Chris Christie, ex Governor of New Jersey, and Tea Party darling has said “I wouldn’t have done that”.
Even Trump’s personal inside guy at the DOJ, Bill Barr (the Attorney General), told Trump he shouldn’t do it. But naturally, he did.
So here’s what I reckon. Trump knows it’s over. He knows he’s going to lose, so he’s doing everything he can right now while he still has power. He’d never admit that publicly, of course, but it sure is interesting. Then again, maybe he’s just a political idiot.
I love numbers. And I’ve noticed a statistic that no-one in the media, left or right, seems to have picked up on yet – the death rate of Covid-19 in the USA.
When someone contracts the virus, there are two possible outcomes – recovery or death.
Around the world, the percentage of outcomes that result in death stands at around 2%. 98% recover. 2% die.
They’re not testing people who have possibly recovered.
With a shortage of tests, they may be allocating them to new cases, rather than known cases. And once someone recovers, they just send them home. That’s possible, but also really alarming, because if they don’t have enough tests to check whether people are better or not, how do they know they’re not still infectious? And how many other people aren’t getting access to tests? How many people, right now, are walking around on a Florida beach completely oblivious to the fact that they are, in fact, Typhoid Mary. Or Covid Connie?
The actual number is 2%, but the number of known cases is underestimated.
This is even worse, because if the actual number of deaths is 2%, then that means that the number of infected people is actually 8.5 times higher than currently reported. So instead of 1,745,803 people infected, the actual number is 14,839,325. And 13 million of them don’t know it.
Healthcare in America is actually terrible.
Healthcare has been a hot topic in the USA since Obama brought out the Affordable Care Act. Unlike Australia, where if you get sick, you go to the doctor and Medicare covers most or all of the cost, in America you need health insurance. And most health insurance won’t cover everything, because it’s run by private corporations. Medical bankruptcy is a real thing in America. In most years about 250,000 people file for medical bankruptcy. This year is going to suck.
A lot of people can’t afford health insurance. And they can’t afford not to work. So you’ve got people getting sick, not getting diagnosed, and now going to work in their newly reopened states.
This isn’t going to end well.
Of course, it could be a combination of all three. If you’re in America and you’re reading this, wash your hands, wear a mask and stay home. It’s not safe out there, despite what your very stable genius is telling you.
Even plague doctors knew that masks were a good idea.
Today, the United States marks the grim milestone of 100,000 dead to Covid-19.
By the beginning of April, the number of Covid deaths surpassed that of US casualties in the Vietnam War.
At times like these, leaders step up.
Look, I’m no fan of George W Bush, but he’s looking downright magnificent by comparison. He lead the USA through the horror of 9/11. Obama did the same with the Sandy Hook, Charleston and Aurora shootings.
Battling this virus will take a bipartisan effort. It will take people working together to protect each other and their communities. But Trump has a different plan. He’s battling an unwinnable war against an opponent who doesn’t care if you’re white or black, rich or poor, Republican or Democrat. And he’s losing it.
As the red states reopen, infections will grow. During the summer months, perhaps, not quite as much, but come Autumn (or Fall as my American friends call it), it will be devastating. While every other developed country in the world will have contained or even eliminated the virus, in America it will run rampant. It already is.
Americans can look forward to months of lockdown in the year to come if they have any chance of defeating the scourge. There will be no international travel without mandatory quarantine. No holidays, no business trips. As an Australian, I have no desire to reinfect my country with a preventable disease that is currently killing almost one in five Americans who contract it.
Meanwhile Trump demands that the Governor of North Carolina let him hold a rally in August. A rally. Perfect conditions for viral soup if ever there were. If Covid-19 had hands, it’d be rubbing them with glee. But the virus has no consciousness. It’s not even a living thing.
And then there’s a vaccine. Let’s get into a bit of science, shall we?
Coronavirus doesn’t have DNA. It has a thing called RNA (ribonucleic acid). Unlike the familiar DNA helix, RNA is on a single string that folds over on itself. It’s notoriously unstable, which is why it can mutate so quickly. Influenza also has RNA, which is why you should get a flu shot every year, because by the time flu season rolls around again, there are new strains, resistant to last year’s inoculation.
So let’s hypothetically say that Operation Warp Speed (I know, right? Between that and Space Force I think he’s been watching too much Star Trek), develops a vaccine by, say, September. By January, there could be a whole new strain, and the vaccine work starts all over again.
It’s a battle he will never win, in a war he should never have started, against an enemy that doesn’t think. And the casualties will be the American people who voted him into office.
Well it sure has been a long time between drinks. Sorry about that. But let’s talk Coronavirus.
Right now, the USA accounts for fully one third of the cases of Covid-19 in the world. Their cases have exploded to over a million, and Trump, as expected has made it all about him and the sterling job he’s doing leading the country out of crisis (hint: he’s not).
Instead, he’s tried to gain political capital from the devastation, and has failed in spectacular fashion. Let’s have a look at the timeline, shall we?
January 21 – the first case in the USA. Trump says it’s all under control, nothing to see here. We’ve got this. Despite the fact that he disbanded the pandemic task force set up by Obama because, well, Obama set it up.
January 29 – Trump sets up a pandemic task force and takes full credit for it being nothing short of a brilliant idea.
January 31 – Trump calls it the “Chinese virus” and blocks all travel from China, with the glee you only see in truly racist people being able to discriminate against another race with impunity.
February 19 – Trump says “I think it’s going to work out fine. I think when we get into April, in the warmer weather, that has a very negative effect on that and that type of a virus.”
LOL.
February 24 to 26 – the stock market goes into free fall. Trump assures everyone that it’s all fine and will bounce back momentarily, tweeting “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. We are in contact with everyone and all relevant countries. CDC & World Health have been working hard and very smart. Stock Market starting to look very good to me!” There are now 53 cases in the USA, but tests aren’t available to pretty much anyone, so the number was probably a lot higher.
Trump says “The infection seems to have gone down over the last two days. We’re going to be pretty soon at only five people. And we could be at just one or two people over the next short period of time.”
March 11 – Trump bans travel from Europe. Except from the UK and Ireland, he also says that the ban might include imports, which freaks out the markets again. US cases are now at 1,301.
March 13 – A national emergency is declared, although the tangerine nightmare says that there’s no need for you to get tested, this will pass. Cases are up to 2,183.
“When people need a test, they can get a test. When the professionals need a test, when they need tests for people, they can get the test. It’s gone really well.”
They can’t and it hasn’t.
March 17 – Trump tells folks to work from home. He claims he always knew it was a pandemic, even before it was called a pandemic (it was called a pandemic in January). Cases hit 6,357.
March 24 – Trump declares that the country will be open for business by Easter. Cases are now at 55,398.
March 27 to 30 – Trump releases a 2.2 billion dollar relief package for individuals and small businesses, and claims that they inherited “broken tests” from the Obama administration (they didn’t). Testing is way down, and even front line medical staff showing symptoms can’t get a test. Cases soar to 168,177.
April 4 – Hydroxychloroquine makes its first appearance. Trump says it’s a cure, even though it’s untested and any evidence that it might work is purely anecdotal. Turns out it can cause heart attacks and kills more people than it saves. A Florida couple notice that their fish tank cleaner (WTF?) has hydroxychloroquine in it, so they eat some. One of them dies. The other ends up in the ICU. Cases almost double to 317,994. The virus is out of control.
April 14 – Trump declares absolute authority over the states. This is worth unpicking a bit. You see, to the far right, the USA is truly a union of states. States are autonomous, and most services and law is state based – like abortion and taxes. If there’s one thing the tea party folk hate, it’s a king. Claiming absolute power is a really great way to fuck yourself up with your base. It’s also not true, and the Governors are the ones who decide when a state reopens for business. Cases hit 621,593.
April 17 – Anti-lockdown protests start popping up like hives in red and swing states. Trump helps the virus immensely by tweeting that people should “liberate” themselves. Protestors lose their minds and hit the streets with some seriously terrible signs prompting the rest of us to wonder where they learned to spell.
All my Republican friends on Facebook unfriend me. Cases have climbed to 714,822
April 24 – Trump claims, at his daily briefing, that injecting disinfectant might be a good way to stop the virus because it kills it “in a minute”. He looks to Dr Birx, his Covid-19 Response Co-ordinator to ask if that can be done. She looks like she’s about to spew. The next day he says he was joking as calls to Poison Control more than double.
Cases are approaching the one million mark at 925,232.
So now you’re pretty much up to date. Expect some analysis coming your way soon. Maybe even today.
Stars and Strike 