28 April 2020

Frum: TRUMP Strategy is to 'Take the Punch',
Allow COVID to Rip thru the Population, Shrug-off
100-200K Casualities as 'Price of a 2nd TRUMP Term'

All talk of testing, isolation, etc is just propaganda-
they're not going to do anything


Last night on MSNBC's The Beat, David Frum offered some insight on how the Trump White House is pursuing a 'two track' strategy re. COVID-19.

The rhetorical strategy pays lip-service to testing, tracing, quarantines, and/or any expert advice regarding dealing with the coronavirus crisis. 
But that's entirely disingenuous- Trump doesn't mean a word of it.

Actually, these opportunities & options have already passed- we've missed the deadline for testing, missed the deadlines for tracing, no plan for quarantining whatsoever. It's already too late to do what they really should have been doing weeks ago-- these doors have closed.

The REAL strategy is to 'muscle through' the crisis, 'take the punch' and accept that the infection is going to 'race through the population', thus making bringing back the economy -and Trump's re-election- the only actual priority. 

'Unless the economy begins to rocket-upward sometime in the early part of summer, the president has no hope of being re-elected. He needs 
-in his mind- to show economic recovery, beginning rapidly' said Frum.

'That means that it is the economy -which he separates from human life- 
that is going to take priority.'

'Let it rip, take the punch, hope for rapid economic recovery, and 
hope that it will re-elect the president... AND if the casualties go above 
100,000 or 200,000-- that's the price of a 2nd Trump term.'

In this light, one can better understand the premature 'Re-open America' schtick, lack of effort in managing the crisis, Bill Barr's 'lockdown patrol', 
idiotic 'Liberate Virginia' tweets, Trump cheering-on astroturf protesters toting
AR-15's in lockdown states, lack of empathy for the victims, etc.