A recipe for more chaos

In September of last year, Hurricane Dorian was heading toward the Atlantic coast.  Most Americans have probably forgotten about this hurricane, because it didn’t turn into one of those major catastrophic hurricane hits on the United States.  However, Dorian does provide a clear historical template for how America’s partisan spin warriors (including the vast numbers of media spin warriors, who pose as “objective journalists) fight their petty spin battles in a potential national emergency situation.

The Dems and mainstream media spin warriors and Trump with his FOX News and Twitter spin commandos, are repeating their same stupid spin battles as this corona virus threat escalates.  Of course, it’s too early to know if, like Hurricane Dorian, America will receive only grazing coastal type damage with the corona virus or if it will turn into a Cat 5 level national emergency, but it’s clear that our president, a large number of our politicians, and our media remain more committed to their scorched earth spin war than to putting the welfare of the American people first.

During that Sharpiegate fiasco, I wrote:

“What’s so disturbing to me about this situation is that Trump decided to engage in fighting the media and demanding an apology from the media, all while Hurricane Dorian is still barreling up the Atlantic coast and thousands of Americans are in the path.  This is a weather emergency situation and the POTUS is obsessed, not with providing the most accurate and timely information to Americans affected by this storm, nope he’s fixated on winning a spin battle against the media.  The truth is Trump’s spin fight isn’t part of his DUTIES as president, especially during a weather emergency involving numerous states.

It’s easy to just blow this off as another Trump vs. media spin battle and brush it off as trivial, but here’s why it matters,

The executive branch owns our national emergency response and information, so the President has a duty to manage emergency services and information.  A large part of that information responsibility centers on providing the most accurate and timely information available.  Credibility is crucial.  The president scribbling on an official weather map with a sharpie destroyed the Office of President’s credibility.  Trump’s staff sitting silently throughout this destroyed their credibility too.”

https://libertybellediaries.com/2019/09/06/sharpiegate-matters/

This corona virus spin battle shows every sign of becoming a repeat of the Hurricane Dorian spin battle.  The media launched into attacks that Trump was failing to respond appropriately to the corona virus crisis.  Trump countered by appointing Vice President, Mike Pence, as the administration’s point man on dealing with the crisis.  Dems and the mainstream media responded within minutes launching a massive smear campaign against Pence, to undercut his credibility immediately.  Trump, his Fox news mouthpieces and his Twitter spin commandos jumped into action attacking Dems and the media, but as usual, Trump can’t be quiet and let the government’s medical experts or his point man speak to the corona virus situation.  Trump jumped right into more attacks on the media, more bs statements about the stock market, discounting the danger the virus poses, and he blabbered on about the media creating a “hoax” at a Trump rally.

Yesterday, Michael Brendan Dougherty at National Review wrote:

“The wrong Donald Trump has shown up to deal with the coronavirus. One might have expected Donald Trump, a germophobe who spent much of his campaign lambasting the Chinese, to take an aggressive approach on the Wuhan virus. You’d expect the Trump who breaks taboos and shuts things down until “our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”

As the spread of the new and still somewhat mysterious virus ramps up in Italy and Iran, and a few more cases emerge in the United States, maybe that’s the Trump we’ve needed. But we’re getting Trump the market whisperer. We’re getting a Trump who is obviously bothered by the drop in the Dow Jones. We’re getting a Trump who plans to campaign on the conventional measures of success favored by his predecessors. We’re getting a Trump who is downplaying the seriousness of this disease, who is probably acting too late, and who is making promises he can’t keep.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/02/coronavirus-president-trump-takes-wrong-approach-to-threat/#slide-1

Trump seems  determined to downplay the virus, all to counter the Dems and mainstream media hysteria about of the virus.  This is becoming the Trump Sharpie map level spin effort during Hurricane Dorian, where Trump insisted Alabama was in the direct path of the storm and he drew a black line, which included Alabama, on an official weather map.  While Trump dug in on his Alabama claim, the media ramped up attacks on Trump’s altered map antic.

During the Hurricane Dorian map situation, Trump was also spinning (lying) about job numbers, which is very similar to the unfolding stock market decline this past week, as fear and uncertainty about the corona virus grew:

“The day after he shared the Sharpie-doctored hurricane map to justify his belated suggestion that Hurricane Dorian was headed for Alabama, Trump tried to spin the state of the US economy, which has emerged as his chief concern heading into the 2020 campaign. “Really Good Jobs Numbers!” he tweeted on Thursday.”

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/06/politics/sharpie-logic-trump-hurricane-economy/index.html

Before this blog post has even been completed, there’s a new twist.  Trump gave a corona virus update on the situation this afternoon.  The first US citizen has died from the corona virus.  The media peppered Trump with questions about Trump’s previous “hoax” comment and Trump-centered matters, not about the actual corona virus situation.  As usual, it appears to be a media determined to take down Trump and Trump determined to bolster Trump, when what America really needs is selfless leadership from our elected officials and a news media, who could step back from wallowing in victim hood and Trump derangement syndrome.

Trump running the Office of the President like a reality TV show comes at a serious cost to not only President Trump’s credibility, but it comes at a cost to the welfare of the American people.  Trump coming out and doing another briefing, trying to erase his mistakes and acting like this is just a Hollywood second take, erodes trust in both Trump and the entire executive branch.

This corona virus seems likely to spread in America and that assuredly will increase the death toll, all while America remains held hostage to a scorched earth partisan spin information war being fought out across American media and on Twitter.

It’s just a recipe for more chaos.