Then,"[o]n April 27, Trump stepped to a podium in the Rose Garden, flanked by members of his coronavirus task force and leaders of America's big commercial testing laboratories, Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp, and finally announced a testing plan: It bore almost no resemblance to the one that had been forged" [under Kushner's plan] in late March, and shifted the problem of diagnostic testing almost entirely to individual states." (Katherine Eban, "How Jared Kushner's Secret Testing Plan 'Went Poof into Thin Air,'" Vanity Fair, July 30, 2020)
(In early August, the Washington Post reported that seven governors have banded together with the Rockefeller Foundation to foster large scale production and acquisition of rapid screening tests.)
Kushner's plan "went poof," according to Katherine Eban, due to Trump's need to downplay the virus, his belief that increased tests would reveal increased cases, and the cold political calculation that, "because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically." He could deflect attention by blaming Democratic governors. In addition, "Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House's coronavirus response coordinator, was reportedly sharing models with senior staff that optimistically-and erroneously, it would turn out-predicted the virus would soon fade away" (Ibid.).
Thus, "Despite warnings from state officials and other public health experts, Mr. Trump stuck to a deliberate strategy of pushing responsibility onto the states almost immediately after introducing reopening guidelines. Then he quickly undermined the guidelines by urging Democratic governors to 'liberate' their states from those very restrictions." (Michael D. Shear, "Inside the Failure: 5 Takeaways on Trump's Effort to Shift Responsibility" July 18, 2020).
As Mr. Shear reports, Dr. Birx's optimistic model "failed to account for a vital variable: how Mr. Trump's rush to urge a return to normal would undercut the social distancing and other measures that were holding down the numbers" (Ibid.).
The consequences have been disastrous. A new surge of the virus ravaged much of the South and Southwest, but especially Florida, Texas, and Arizona. California also experienced a new surge. Thus, thanks to this new huge surge, the U.S. has gone from having a total of some 68,500 cases on April 1st, to having more than 65,000 per day, by mid-July.
The political jeopardy and isolation threatening Trump during this new surge explain his need to seek reassurance from a (sparsely attended) political rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma on June 20th, where he admitted to telling his people to "slow the testing down."
Sagging poll numbers, due to his inability to flatten the coronavirus when other countries had, and persuasion by some staffers that the virus is now hitting his voters, appear to have persuaded Trump to pay greater attention to the pandemic - largely through the resumption of his excuse-making and lie-spreading Task Force briefings.
In the renewed briefings, Trump has morphed into America's "Baghdad Bob." On July 28, Baghdad Bob falsely asserted that "large portions of our country" were "corona-free." On August 6th, Baghdad Bob suggested that a vaccine for the coronavirus could be ready by election-day.
But as the Washington Post's Ashley Parker and Philip Rucker write, "One question still dogs Trump: Why not try harder to solve the coronavirus crisis?" They report, "The president's inability to wholly address the crisis is due to his almost pathological unwillingness to admit error; a positive feedback loop of overly rosy assessments and data from advisers and Fox News; and a penchant for magical thinking that prevented him from fully engaging with the pandemic." (Ashley Parker and Philip Rucker, "One question still dogs Trump: Why not try harder to solve the coronavirus crisis?" Washington Post, July 27, 2020). Instead, he prefers to whine about the bad luck the pandemic inflicted upon him.Perhaps it is useful, at this point to revisit Mary Trump's diagnosis of Donald's "dependent personality disorder." Recall that she asserted the "hallmarks" of dependent personality disorder "include an inability to make decisions or take responsibility, discomfort with being alone, and going to extreme lengths to obtain support from others."
Wishful thinking, refusal to admit failure, and positive feedback from political allies go far to explain Trump's "inability to make decisions" to combat the pandemic. Finton O'Toole highlighted this inability when he seized upon Trump's misspelling of "unprecedented." to claim that America, during this pandemic, is simply "unpresidented."
Trump obviously goes "to great lengths to obtain support from others," witness his need for large political rallies. Thus, what remains to be substantiated is the final element of Mary Trump's diagnosis - Donald's inability "to take responsibility."
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