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Friday, March 13, 2020

UPDATED: Come In Off The Ledge: The Panic Is Over

Don Surber--The corona virus panic is over. Read it all.

This morning, The Atlantic declared, "The Trump Presidency Is Over." Never Trumper Peter Wehner wrote, "Donald Trump is shrinking before our eyes. 
"The corona virus is quite likely to be the Trump presidency’s inflection point, when everything changed, when the bluster and ignorance and shallowness of America’s 45th president became undeniable, an empirical reality, as indisputable as the laws of science or a mathematical equation. 
... 
5 hours later, the only thing dead was the premise of the article.
President Donald John Trump this afternoon took ownership of corona virus at a press conference. In so doing, he restored America's faith in itself and its ability to conquer an illness.

The stock market, which had been upbeat all day ahead of his announcement of a payroll tax holiday, shot up. 
... 
States and hospitals will prepare for the worst. The federal government will give them information and money. 
UPI also reported, "He also announced broad new authority for Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, allowing him to waive certain regulations and requirements to allow 'all hospitals maximum flexibility to respond to the virus and care for patients.' 
"Under this new authority, Azar will be able to waive requirements and allow doctors to practice at out-of-state hospitals, and allow hospitals to increase bed capacity and length of stay for patients. 
"Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, said the declaration will allow healthcare facilities to do everything they possibly can to contain and mitigate the virus." 
... 
The press conference worked because it showed President Donald John Trump as large and in charge. He was ordering people around, and shoving back at the press. While salesmanship is important, a president must be a leader in times of crisis. President Trump led. 
The reviews were positive. Mayor Bill de Blasio said, "Directionally, certainly a lot of good new initiatives in the president’s state of emergency." 
David Axelrod tweeted, "But at least it can be said that the president, who as late as yesterday was minimizing the impact or the virus, reacted with appropriate seriousness today and laid out some meaningful steps." 
... 
But the fever has broken on the panic, which was the worse of the two evils. 
The Atlantic was wrong. The Trump presidency isn't over. The panic is.

UPDATE 1: For a slightly, but not too much, different perspective here are 8 points that John Hinderaker makes. Follow the link for his full explanation of each point. I certainly don't agree with everything he says, but I do find his argument regarding The Politics of Coronavirus persuasive--as also Surber's.

1) The Democrats’ effort to blame coronavirus on Trump is doomed to fail. ... 
2) On the contrary, the pandemic shows that Trump was right all along about China. ... 
3) So far, voters are entirely indifferent to the Democrats’ attempts to gain political advantage from coronavirus. ... 
4) One of the Democrats’ problems with coronavirus is that it isn’t a very threatening disease. ... 
5) The stock market has taken a hit, but it is certain to rebound, and soon. ... 
6) Early on, President Trump did the right thing: he tried to damp down the panic, while at the same time taking the measures that would have practical effect, in particular, banning China travel. As press hysteria mounted, he shifted toward visible activism. Today, he declared a national emergency ... 
7) Long before November, it will be obvious to everyone that fear of coronavirus was vastly overblown. ... 
8) Then again, maybe I am wrong. Maybe by November coronavirus hasn’t dissipated and people are worried about it. What then? In a crisis of any kind–war, depression, epidemic–most people want a strong executive. ...

Biden's dementia will only become more apparent.

UPDATE 2: NY Governor Cuomo on Mobile Coronavirus Testing: “I Want to Thank the Vice President and Especially the President who Facilitated This and Moved Quickly”.

14 comments:

  1. Best defense against Coronavirus bar of soap, lysol, bottle of Corona beer.


    Rob S

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    1. The Atlantic isn't even a shadow of what it was from 1857 to 1970 or so. Occasionally, it has a terrific, reasoned piece, but more often than not, it pushes absurd left wing nonsense. I've given up on it.

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    2. When a man like Cuomo, who is utterly vile, says something like that, and there have been others tooting along the same lines elsewhere, it suggests to me they've realized they have another five years of the Orange Man in their lives.

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    3. They must know something, or strongly suspect.

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  2. Or maybe when they finally had to work directly with Trump, what they found was in such stark contrast to their preconceived notions of the man that they felt obligated to tell the truth.

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    1. In a crisis like this, even Dems want a real leader. The idea of putting the Dem in dementia and then into the WH has to be very, very scary at this point.

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  3. Now it has been noticed that Zeke Emmanuel, the architect of Obamacare and proponent of no one’s living past 75, starting with himself, is a prominent member of Biden’s health advisory cadre. Didn’t he say he was working with “real scientists”? As recently as 2019, Zeke still held that there was no useful life after 75, so pffffft…

    A doctor and medical ethicist argues life after 75 is not worth living

    https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614156/a-doctor-and-medical-ethicist-argues-life-after-75-is-not-worth-living/

    Wouldn’t you think he’d give Quid Pro Joe a queasy feeling?

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    1. Only if you think that Slow Joe understands what Zeke is saying.

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  4. Mark--I think Hinderaker is responding to the Dem strategy that I call "Lather, rinse, repeat." With an emphasis on "lather."

    Suggestion and projection are powerful tools in human psychology--and politics. Dems believe by constantly associating Trump with whatever ill-effect they identify, then Trump can permanently be associated with the reaction to those ill-effects.

    The challenge/problem, of course, that an outrage at every turn is exhausting, and is near-impossible to keep up the intensity and enthusiasm--much less the public's attention and interest. The general public has their own lives and interests to focus on. Politics, much less Orange Man Bad, 24/7/365 is not that interesting.

    If Trump were as bad as media promotes, we'd be up to our ears with victims of his travesties--all we have are complaining Dems with hair on fire. DDSOS.

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    1. Didn't that used to be described as crying "Wolf!" too often?

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    2. Of course, ain't no wolf coming. But people are tuning the Establishment out, based on their own observations.

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  5. First of all, when will mature people understand that stuff happens? As much as we prepare, we can't control nature. We can, and should, prepare. Don't get me wrong. But, we are not in control of this world.

    Donald Trump was magnificent at yesterday's press conference. I said to myself that he just put the nail on the coffin to rumors of his demise.

    The bonus was reading Wehner's stupid column. When will these chumps ever learn? I guess that pride goeth before a fall.

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    1. Joe--Three years in is ample time demonstrating that some (Wehner, et al.) are impervious to facts, or changing their mind once their opinion has been formed. There's really no helping these folks.

      I know a number of people (including a brother) who can't help themselves but to interject at times, "Trump is still an idiot," as if reciting a mantra or a catechism--expressions providing psychological comfort as an answer for the source of a mysterious phenomena.

      These sorts of Queensberry Rules Republicans have become indistinguishable from Democrats digging a hole--don't interrupt them.

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  6. Are CDC et al still wasting precious time trying to develop a vaccine? Good grief, just connect a syringe to a 50-gallon drum full of the most potent strain of covid-19 and inject Chuck Norris.

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