In the quickly developing story of COVID-19 in the United States, there have been a lot of unprecedented events that many of us have never lived through over the past couple of weeks. The crashing of the stock market, taking with it all the gains under the Trump Presidency. Attempts by Congress to pass badly needed legislation and funding to help Americans and combat COVID-19. The surreal nature of Trump’s White House pushing policies such as no-strings-attached checks to every American.
However, there is one major lie that has been pushed upon the public over the past week, that I feel is too much, and the mainstream news media needs to be checked for: the evolution of Trump into a wartime President, who finally understands the gravity of the situation.
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The Press is gifting Trump with the aura of a wartime President, who has so far done nothing to deserve it.
Because he has completely botched this Presidential reboot, just as he has his entire COVID-19 response.
News this week started out with how Trump had promised the send hospital ships to aid hard-hit areas like New York — but these ships will apparently take far longer than he indicated to respond.
There was also news that Trump had invoked the Defense Production Act to signal the federal government directing private industry to work toward national goals. Yet all evidence seems to indicate that he has not actually put the directive to use. As indicated by his tweet, shortly after announcing it, that he was waiting until a “worst-case scenario.” Which, since we are now using wartime analogies, would be like if President Franklin Roosevelt had waited until Nazi Germany had occupied Britain and was mobilizing forces towards the American coats to be like, “OK, now I will order the auto companies to start building some tanks.” You actually want to use those powers to get ahead of the worst-case scenario, people.
Then there is the development of Trump himself appearing and speaking at the COVID-19 press briefings, seemingly as a way to show the country his presence and that he is making the big changes he promised.
However, all he is really using this chance to reach out to Americans for is to work on pushing the blame of his bungling of the COVID-19 response onto China, and again, since this is Trump we are talking about, to further add toxic rhetoric and confusion.
In other words, we were led to believe that we would get a brand new Trump, someone who has finally grasped the severity of the situation, and would set aside his over-the-top persona for a more measured leader that is greatly in need. But once again, we are shown by Trump himself that this is utterly false.
If this pattern seems all too familiar, it is because we were treated to the exact same patterns during Trump’s 2016 Presidential campaign.
Throughout his 2016 campaign, he was one of the most obnoxious, hateful, and dishonest candidates we ever had running for President. Yet it seemed almost every month or so, we were treated to predictions by the Press and assurances from his campaign that he was going to turn over a new leaf - to act every bit the Presidential leader that he was aspiring to be. And we all know how well that turned out.
Except it seems like the Press has no sense of deja vu at all. Once again faced with the scenario of how to frame the narrative of Trump as President, mainstream news media seemingly grasps at any crumb, grasps at any bit of collective solace, that finally, maybe, we would actually get a version of Trump that is unlike 99% of what came before; of someone who is actually going to step up and present themselves as a President fully facing the challenges that await. The only surprising thing here, is just how quickly that false premise came to a crashing end this time around.
To their credit, the mainstream press seems to have wised up a lot sooner than in previous instances
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Still, it seems like it took a new low for Trump’s antics to get this much of a backlash from the media he is so fond of attacking. He had to basically mislead a nation of scared Americans, go to great lengths to offend China and basically every organization that rejects calling it the “China” virus, and irresponsibly berate multiple reporters from their own ranks, before Trump really got any really serious negative coverage.
The man is incompetent, he should resign, and despite numerous opportunities he refuses to change for the better — and the media shares responsibility in Trump’s behavior, because time and time again they present a narrative that Trump is going to become a less Trump version of himself.
That’s just never going to happen.