Trump and the Coronavirus

This post is informed by the book by Brian Stelter, HOAX: Donald Trump, Fox and and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth. Trump threw away the detailed plan that the Obama Administration had produced for dealing with the Coronavirus. The Coronavirus was another hoax by the Democrats and was created by the Chinese presumably for chemical warfare. Early on he said he was the general who was leading this fight. But he was no general and quickly defaulted from that role. So rather than leading courses of action against the coronavirus he left it up to the states and had them fighting each other for resources. This was both less effective and more expensive. But different states were more or less effective. Blue states have been and are being more effective than Red states. The states where there are lower levels are those whose citizens wear masks. Rather then referring to Red states and Blue states it might be more accurate to refer to mask wearing states and states that are resistant to mask wearing.

“Trump spoke about the coronavirus in the past tense and told Sean Hannity the virus was “fading away” even as U.S. cases surged and the death toll climbed well above one hundred thousand. Trump resumed public events and refused to wear a mask in public in defiance of his own government’s recommendations. He contradicted what Fox was doing too: At Fox News HQ in late June, staffers who weren’t able to work from home were reminded to don a mask whenever they were in shared office spaces. The company’s plans for a fuller return to work were postponed again and again due to safety concerns. Fox’s anchors knew all this but rarely challenged Trump’s irresponsible and ignorant conduct on the air. Profits over principle—that was the priority of the Trump years.”

The current and final strategy is “Herd Immunity.” When a virus infects a large enough majority of the population it is infecting, spreading stops because there are too few new subjects to infect to spread the virus. It is important to note that the term “Herd Immunity” refers to animals. Except perhaps for certain totalitarian dictatorships, it has never been used for human populations.

This strategy of Herd Immunity, should be the last nail in Trump’s coffin. Any national leader advocating such a strategy should be immediately removed from office, but it is not surprising that Fox News has made no such call.

Happy Fourth of July 2020

Understand that this title is a wish, not a statement bearing on the reality of the current situation. For HM, this is by far the least happy July 4 he has ever experienced. A large part of this unhappiness is with the Coronavirus pandemic, or more specifically, with the manner in which the President and some of his supporters have responded to this pandemic. He has called it a hoax, a claim he periodically returns to. Very early he said that there was a perfect test for the virus that was readily available. This test was neither perfect nor available.

This pandemic required an intelligent response and intelligent leadership from the country’s chief executive. Neither was forthcoming. Fortunately, there were governors, medical personnel, and scientists who did their best to fill in this vacuum. Governor Cuomo of New York, in particular, turned a nightmare scenario into a manageable state, although the pandemic still exists and is dangerous. It was governors who led the responses, with responsible governors producing manageable solutions. Unfortunately, too many other governors did little and the pandemic spread.

As a nation, the United States has suffered more deaths than any other nation. Two competitors, Russia and Brazil, are managed by autocratic leaders. But as far as HM knows, the United States along with Russia and Brazil are the only countries that have not produced some initial containment of the virus, as the virus is rapidly spreading in certain parts of the United States. Social distancing and the wearing of masks are two practices that should be followed by everyone. But Trump does not wear a mask. And they hold rallies violating the practices of wearing masks and social distancing. Pence claims that the right to assemble is guaranteed in the Constitution. But only morons argue that these assemblies should not include practices that would safeguard the health of the participants.

There are lessons to be learned from this pandemic, and these lessons should not be ignored. The economic health of the country should not depend on rampant materialism led by narcissists. We are running on treadmills, when there is no need. Rather than fearing the loss of jobs from technology, technology should be employed to reduce the work hours and improve the quality of life for all citizens. There should not be a minimum wage; there needs to be a livable wage.

Changes need to be made in our economy so that we do not need to be put on life support systems when there are tragedies that reduce employment. There will likely be a second wave, and perhaps a third wave of this pandemic. People should not be forced to perform dangerous jobs to live under this pandemic. And there is a need to be prepared for future pandemics. There are also likely disruptions from the weather and global warming. We need to care for everyone in our society, and if we do so, we’ll all benefit.

Currently the one shining light on our county is the movement for racial harmony. Unfortunately, this required a video of a police officer murdering a minority for attempting to pass a counterfeit bill. Many other murders committed by law enforcement officers were brought to light. Fortunately, there were many demonstrations and continuing demonstrations for civil rights that had large components of non-colored participants.

This country needs to be drawn together, but Trump is pandering to his base of white supremacists and nazis. Unfortunately, this base seems to consist of a hard 40% of the population. This basis will constitute a serious problem, even if we somehow manage to get Trump out of the White House.

© Douglas Griffith and healthymemory.wordpress.com, 2020. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Douglas Griffith and healthymemory.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Conspiracy Theories

This is the seventh post in a series of posts on a highly relevant book by Steven Taylor, Ph.D., The Psychology of Pandemics. The subtitle of this book is Preparing for the Next Global Outbreak of Infectious Disease. The title of this post is identical to the title of a chapter in that book.

What is unique and ironic about the coronavirus epidemic is that it was spread the President of the United States, Donald Trump, and echoed by his propaganda network, Fox News. The claim was that the coronavirus pandemic was a hoax, false news, being spread by the Democrats to defeat Trump in the November election. Doing this plus not doing the activities that needed to be done to defeat the virus, did inestimable damage not just to the health of the country, but to the entire country. So the conspiracy was caused by a narcissistic President, who is paranoid, and is rarely in touch with reality.

As for typical conspiracies, Dr. Taylor offers the following possibilities:

Suspiciousness, magical thinking, and the tendency to believe in the paranormal.
Narcissism (an inflated view of oneself that requires external validation) and the need to feel unique that can be fulfilled by believing that one has special knowledge about conspiracies.
Worry about one’s health and mortality, for people who believe in medical conspiracy theories.
Gullibility, lower media literacy (poorer ability to critically analyze the source and contents of news stories as indicated, for example, by the tendency to believe in fake news), lower intelligence, lower education, and poorer skills in analytical thinking.
Rejection of conventional scientific findings or theories (the theory of evolution) in favor of pseudoscience (the belief that prayer is effective in curing terminal disease).