Blistering BBC article: What this crisis reveals about the US - and its president.

[Elwood P Dowd]

Coronavirus: What this crisis reveals about US - and its president

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52012049

<snip>

Instead, all the hallmarks of his presidency have been on agitated display. The ridiculous boasts - he has awarded himself a 10 out of 10 for his handling of the crisis. The politicisation of what should be the apolitical - he toured the Centers for Disease Control wearing a campaign cap emblazoned with the slogan "Keep America Great".

The mind-bending truth-twisting - he now claims to have fully appreciated the scale of the pandemic early on, despite dismissing and downplaying the threat for weeks. The attacks on the "fake news" media, including a particularly vicious assault on a White House reporter who asked what was his message to frightened Americans: "I tell them you are a terrible reporter." His pettiness and peevishness - mocking Senator Mitt Romney, the only Republican who voted at the end of the impeachment trial for his removal from office, for going into isolation.

His continued attacks on government institutions in the forefront of confronting the crisis - "the Deep State Department" is how he described the State Department from his presidential podium the morning after it issued its most extreme travel advisory urging Americans to refrain from all international travel. His obsession with ratings, or in this instance, confirmed case numbers - he stopped a cruise ship docking on the West Coast, noting: "I like the numbers where they are. I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn't our fault." His compulsion for hype - declaring the combination of hydroxycholoroquine and azithromycin "one of the biggest game-changers in the history of medicine," even as medical officials warn against offering false hope.

His lack of empathy. Rather than soothing words for relatives of those who have died, or words of encouragement and appreciation for those in the medical trenches, Trump's daily White House briefings commonly start with a shower of self-congratulation. After Trump has spoken, Mike Pence, his loyal deputy, usually delivers a paean of praise to the president in that Pyongyang-on-the-Potomac style he has perfected over the past three years. Trump's narcissistic hunger for adoration seems impossible to sate. Instead of a wartime president, he has sounded at times like a sun king.

<snip>

[MFM008]

1. Boris Johnson?

???

[Me.]

2. "Clearly, a significant majority is not in the mood for the political revolution promised by Bernie"

True

[gibraltar72]

3. Well the world is talking about his handling of Covid 19.

[Elwood P Dowd]

4. The world minus one group of people.....

republican voters in the US. The few I've talked to about it are just pleased as punch.

[Kaiserguy]

6. Republican voters

are an easy mark for any con man. Just feed them a little hate and some racism's and tell them a lot of lies and they will follow you even if it mean destroying there own lives and that of their children and grand children.

[LastDemocratInSC]

21. A truism for the last 50 years I've been paying attention, probably even longer.

[Duppers]

28. Add a bunch of religious hypocrisy

And it's an easy sell.

[FiveGoodMen]

36. They get groomed in church

[smirkymonkey]

5. Pretty brutal.

And entirely spot on. I hope he reads this, but I doubt he will. His lackeys will keep this from the fragile little snowflake for fear of setting off another raging tantrum.

[erronis]

42. him? read this? it doesn't even know how to read. It gets its information from "others"

Buddies at Mar-al-turdo.
Voices from brain implants.
Echo chambers.

[Hekate]

7. Well-deserved shaming of this once-great nation

The only ones who can stop him -- who ever could have stopped him -- are the GOP, and they will not.

There is a special place in Hell for them all -- unfortunately, the rest of us are living there now.

[trocar]

8. Pence is......

A pr**k. His smarmy "Aw Shucks" method of delivering talking points lost any credibility years ago. Resign DF and take your boss with you

[Scarsdale]

16. Pence reminds me of

Nancy Regan. Remember how she would stand gazing adoringly at Ronnie? That is how Pence looks at tRump. Maybe Mother should quit worrying about little Mikey being alone with other women, and worry about the orange blob?

[trocar]

41. You're right, that was the way Nancy looked at him nt

[renate]

9. "Pyongyang on the Potomac" and "Sun King"

Perfection.

[JudyM]

35. +1. "Pyongyang-on-the-Potomac" is art.

[PNW-Dem]

10. I fear that if the stock market roars back

tRump will be seen as a victorious "war president" running into the election. Like Scaramucci said a few days ago. Scary shit.

[brush]

18. Fat chance of that with the infections and death rates still going up exponentially.

The fool wants to send everyone back to work in a few days. Guess how many will get infected from that foolishness.

[Blue_true]

19. The $2 trillion dollar package will not be enough to keep the economy working.

As more people get sick, things change, more people out, less production. Also, the way Trump is handling the response, there is a risk that almost half of the people in this country could be infected, even if only 40 million people get infected, at a 1.4% death rate that is likely to rise toward Italy's 10% rate, that is 560,000 dead people at some point - that is a lot of death cutting across every swath of our country.

[Wednesdays]

34. The stock market isn't "roaring back" any time soon.

Get a load of today's ticker.
And oil futures are really in the crapper.

[flibbitygiblets]

11. Fascinating to hear a non-US citizen's perspective of us

Really good article; thanks for sharing!

[luvallpeeps]

12. The frightened Americans think he's a fake president.

He is the main reason I'm frightened.

[LudwigPastorius]

13. "Sun King"?

More like the Son of a Bitch King. Amirite?

[Scarsdale]

17. Amen!

Spot on.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

14. He uses the power of the office to interfere in a health crisis to our detriment.

The Grotesque Orange Pustule is unfit for any office of trust.

[UTUSN]

15. Note to BBC: Tell us something we don't know and haven't been saying since 2016.

[manhattan123]

23. The BBC reports to the folks in the UK...

...and considering the dotard's astounding unpopularity in the UK, have been doing so for a while. Maybe you should tell American news organizations to do the same? Just a thought.

[UTUSN]

27. Yea, all news organizations abide by my rhetorical dicta on an internet board.

[mr_lebowski]

29. That's handy ... better get on it, then ... ;) (nt)

[ancianita]

20. This doesn't say one thing about the US -- 70% of the US did not vote GOP.

His worst characteristics are not at all representative of those of the US at large.

It's blistering. But it should be obvious to any reader that to equate the US with this president is not responsible journalism.

[Jeroen]

22. Disconnect

The author puts on display the disconnect between the courages spirit of the American people and its dysfunctional politics.

Also, he makes it very clear that the radicalization of the GOP, starting with Reagan, is to blame for the current state of affairs and the Trump presidency.

[Whiskeytide]

32. Just under 50% of those who voted ...

... in 2016 voted for Тяцмр.

Your 70%, I assume, includes all of the people who didn’t vote at all. What makes you think 50% of them are not also raging jagoffs exhibiting heretofore unimaginable levels of ignorance?

2016 taught us that this country is brimming with worthless and irredeemable pieces of shit, stoked by hate radio and Fox propaganda. They gave us Тяцмр. And we allowed it.

To the rest of the world, we are fully responsible for Тяцмр. They’re just calling it like they see it.

[ancianita]

33. Those who didn't vote at all, from what I've learned, are disengaged from politics or otherwise

too busy keeping themselves out of poverty.

The nation might be full of irredeemable people -- I'd still guess that a sizable number of the 63 million who voted for this devil do realize that he's got to go -- either groups is not representative of the nation.

"Just"? "Calling it like they see it"? That sounds like the same justifications of unserious people, the same ones who justified getting fluffed up with Trump's noise.

We are not what we are called. We are only what we answer to.

If you always answer to the worst of what we're called, that's on you.

I refuse.

Someone's got to stand up for the best of this country -- e.g., the millions right now putting their lives on the line to save others' lives; those in the House who drive hard for clean rescue packages -- we can never take them for granted.

Democrats recognize the best of this country. That majority deserve front and center headlines every single day, not all this wallowing and roiling about haters disguised as believers. It borders on tabloid hit piece journalism on the US. The only country that's outright saved other countries.

[Whiskeytide]

39. I agree with most of your sentiment. And ...

... I don’t necessarily agree with everything the OP’s article alleges. But I am profoundly disappointed in many of my fellow Americans. I would have never thought Тяцмр was possible under any scenario. I’ve read a lot of analysis of 2016, and I understand it. But that doesn’t mean I’m not disillusioned that we got where we are because of raging idiocy, racism and a “fuck everyone but me” attitude.

We have to own up to the fact that we let this happen. Whether by disengagement, apathy, poor messaging, failed policies of our own - you name it. Тяцмр arose because we failed to stop him. Our allies around the world believe this -even if they don’t really believe we are a nation of Тяцмрs. Even if we kick him out in November, they will remember that we are forever one election away from handing the keys back to the next Тяцмр.

So - like it or not - he DOES represent us. For some he’s their standard carrier. For us, he’s our failure. We need to do better in 2020.

[ancianita]

40. We don't have to own up to anything this article says "We" are responsible for.

We never "let" anything about this presidency happen. For decades we defaulted to in-good-faith attempts at bipartisanship. "We" walked liberal values in legislation to the extent we weren't obstructed by polluted bills serving our opponents' corporate owners -- and if others were "disengagement, apathy, poor messaging, failed policies of our own" it was not for lack of trying by Democrats.

We are the "trying" part of our government best representing the interests of Americans of all regions. Republicans are the parasitic tools of corporate parasites.

To your next point. If you think you have your hand on the world's pulse, it's a good thing that the world will remember that "we are forever one election away from handing the keys back to the next Тяцмр," because they will have to be positively, fairly engaged with us, as we rebuild a gutted government so that there never is another Trump. Never.

Getting a two-house win is key to that. A two-house win is everything.

A two-house win structurally enables the majority of Americans to get tax credits on their end for green cities and communities; it enables re-regulation of polluting, poisoning corporations; it enables climate crisis agencies to turn energy industries around; to build green infrastructure; ending big fossil's yearly $5 TRILLION subsidy... I could go on, but you already know what can be done.

You can believe he represents us because this hit piece says so. But you amplify the interests of a minority by promoting criticism that rightfully belongs to that minority, not the rest of us.

These broad hit pieces on Americans in general gaslight the rest of us who are left to move on in spite of this reactionary ball and chain.

"WE" need to adhere to that majority of us who are left to rewrite our present, future and an already covered up history.

[Whiskeytide]

44. I think we're talking past each other. I don't ...

... believe the allegations of the “hit piece” because it’s in that article. I believe what I believe because I read as much as I can, and I have my own opinions about what Тяцмр and his administration have done to our standing in world. It sickens me. And it’s worse because to a great extent we deserve it. 63 million voted for this asshole, and most of them will vote for him again.

I know we are not ALL a part of that 63 million. I have served as a voting rights lawyer in at risk precincts in FL the last three election cycles. I and most here are not responsible for electing Тяцмр. But we are a representative democracy that gave him the office. And we put that on the world by letting him become our leader. He may not be MY president, or YOUR president. But he is THE president of the United States.

I’m not prepared to give all of us a pass just because we hate him and didn’t vote for him. There is something seriously wrong with our system that allowed Тяцмр to rise to this office. He’s that fucking bad. It should have NEVER happened. That has to be addressed.

But I agree with virtually everything you said about what we have to do to try and remedy this mess and begin the slow process of healing it - at home and abroad.

[ancianita]

45. Nope. We're talking TO each other.

I never implied we should get a pass. We never get a pass. Agreed.

We never have to own this president, either. He is THE president in name only. He is everything a president is NOT.

We WILL address that ever happening again.

The healing will be fast at home. "We" heal circles around other countries.
Some slink off and wallow in their racist/nazi/believer sickness. They will always be there, but they will never again get a platform. Some of that 63 million will heal, though, come to their senses and never go back.

Healing will take longer abroad. They will watch and see our healing and whether they can trust US leadership again. Not for nothing, they've also learned how to be more self sufficient and resilient themselves.

Onward. To beat this devil down in the hole. We have no choice.

Thanks for your thoughts.

[fierywoman]

24. Can't wait for him to sue the BBC.

[mwooldri]

43. There is a complaint mechanism he needs to follow first.

The UK still has something like the "Fairness Doctrine". I think it's called "Due impartiality" or something like that. He or his minions can file a complaint with OFCOM (the UK's FCC equivalent but on steroids compared to the FCC but nothing like the earlier regulators). RT got hit with a £200k fine for not being impartial with the Novichok poisonings...

[Cha]

25. trumpVirus is a sick MF

TY for this, EPD

[BadGimp]

26. WE are so screwed....

and it's only gonna get worse...

[moondust]

30. Hooked on greed and racism.

As a good part of it has been for 500 years. Even fought a civil war over it.

[Demovictory9]

31. After Trump has spoken, Mike Pence, his loyal deputy, usually delivers a paean of praise to the pres

After Trump has spoken, Mike Pence, his loyal deputy, usually delivers a paean of praise to the president in that Pyongyang-on-the-Potomac style he has perfected over the past three

will Pence look back at this time in his life and feel embarrassed?

[Grins]

37. "Pyongyang-on-the-Potomac..."!!!

I am SO stealing that one.

[Martin Eden]

38. BBC Nails this malignant narcissist

All of which has been painfully obvious for 3+ years.