Today’s Coronapalooza was a complete humiliation for the United States.
It is imperative to the President that you believe he has done a great job, that we’ll be open soon, and everything will be safe. His election to another term is entirely dependent on those three perceptions and he will do anything to make that case.
You have to have some sympathy for him. This is a very, very hard job as all three things are untrue. Fewer and fewer believe that he has done a good job, or even a barely competent one. There is simply too much verfiable evidence to show that he has let every American down at a time of their greatest need. He can keep saying that we will be open soon, but he has no control of that and many of the governors who do control the opening of their states just simply don’t agree that May 1st is a reasonable goal. The lie about safety is tied to opening too soon. No one will be any safer when we come out of hiding than they were at the beginning of all this, except for the fact we know more about what a threat each person we contact is, so we are now encouraged to wear masks, where they were discouraged at the start of the outbreak. We know more about how to protect ourselves, and that is the single way we will be safer. A second wave is a certainty but may be minimized by such precautions, but it will come. There is nothing else that has changed. It is still extremely contagious and you still have no immunity and it will still be out there. Oh, we did flatten the curve some, which only means the infections will be spread out over time, and that is good because it allows the health care system to keep up with the demand.
That’s it.
So he has three distinct but related lies that he has to sell the public on in order to be re-elected. The pressure of that shows every day. Today he turned the lights out in class and showed a video, but the audio/video guy messed up and it got cut off, but in essence it was edited words by the Governor of New York praising the President. The original content made it clear that Cuomo was being very specific in what help he was praising, but the video predictably only showed the edited good stuff, as there was also a scathing take down of the President by the Governor as we documented in yesterday’s blog.
But the press is continuing to get less patient with prevarications from the podium, and the questions are getting more pointed, more focused. It is spreading through the room, less backing off, less accepting of pablum. Oh sure, he has a few plants in the house to toss him the occaisional softball. He was so hammered today that he went back to the same “phone a friend” reporter twice, just to get his breath.
What got him so winded?
A big dust-up with the reporter from CBS, followed by another with a CNN reporter. The details don’t really matter any more, we are stuck in Groundhog Day. Suffice it to say that the journalist asked a question that required him to explain something for which there is no explanation, again, but they aren’t backing down as quickly and even point out inaccuracies in real time. This inevitably descends into name calling by our President and accusations against the individual reporters and the networks they serve. It became almost comical, as he then began each question by asking the reporter who they represented.
So this is now a predictable narrative for each episode. Kind of like Criminal Minds, or Law and Order: SVU. There are certain conventions of each show that you begin to accept and internalize. The scripted opening that is alternately designed to be provocative with a new pronouncement, denial, or accusation that has been deemed important enough to be part of the opening script, or a benign exposition of what’s happened the last 24 hours as if yesterday’s controversy never happened. Then it will go to either a visual aid that may or may not have been edited for political purposes, and then questions. That’s where the movement in the narrative is right now, the nature of the questions and how much the journalists are willing to take. But the rest is very familiar and predictable. The questions get more pointed, the President is off script so it quickly descends into sophmoric name calling and insults hurled by Trump and the press coming up against the ethical wall, preventing them from saying what I’m certain two thirds of the people in the room want to.
My friends refuse to watch it. I watched today’s twice. I have never watched anything so mesmerizing, dumbfounding, implausible and existentially impactful on a global scale, and all on one reality show! Even if he succeeds in suckering the public into allowing him another term to destroy everything we aspired to, even if I am a witness to the beginning of the end, I am having a front row seat to history. Momentous history, rolling out in front of me in real time. Maybe a three second delay, just in case. But pretty damn quick.
But pay attention. Something changed because of this. We don’t know for certain what yet. We all speculate, but mostly we simply reveal ourselves when we do, not the reality. Our version of this moment in time is a mirror that reflects our world view, our needs, our wants, our fears and desires, our weaknesses and our strengths. Many will declare the truth of the matter with great confidence, but it will then be adjusted and edited over time, with new revelations, or less.
All depends who wins.
So this is total political war on a scale that is going to shock people. Nothing will be off the table for this President in his quest for more. He has never played a bigger graft and the payouts have been unreal. With this turndown in business he needs all the advantages he can get. He needs to be President to keep the money moving in the right directions. It’s never been more important for him personally or politically.
The press feels the same kind of imperative. This story is so deep and so wide, so depraved as it is revealed in more and more detail and parried by more and more outrageous deceptions, that the public has to know. Gradually they are pushing back, but they have limits. They work within boundaries, agreed upon lanes. The good ones do.
The bad ones don’t and become a part of the story by supporting an agenda directly, abandoning impartiality altogether.
All of which has tremendous implications for the upcoming elections. Trump has complete control of the narrative right now. He has the bully pulpit and he is using it on a daily basis, he thinks to his advantage. That may not be true. His somewhat inept overexposure may be working against him. His base is his base and will not be moved, but that squishy middle may be seeing through the charade, may be finding the response indefensible in the final reckoning, spelled election.
Joe Biden has no such pulpit and his infrequent appearances from his home are no match for the President’s firepower. There is no mechanism to get on equal footing. If nothing changes, this is Trump’s to win, or lose, unless the logistics of this are reinvented.
There’s a lot at stake on each episode of Coronapalooza. I just can’t miss it.