Joe Conason: There Is Nobody Else To Blame

[babylonsister]

https://www.nationalmemo.com/there-is-nobody-else-to-blame

There Is Nobody Else To Blame
Joe Conason
April 18 | 2020


When he isn't watching Fox News or tweeting insults at his perceived enemies, President Donald Trump spends a lot of time hunting scapegoats. Always preoccupied with escaping responsibility, Trump's lifelong delinquency is suddenly a matter of life and death, as coronavirus claims thousands of American lives on his presidential watch. And as it becomes clearer that the United States might have easily avoided the worst consequences of the pandemic — and failed because of federal inaction — it is Trump whose historic reputation will plummet.

So will his chances of reelection. The latest Gallup poll shows his approval rating, now mired in the low 40s, has slid six points during the past month.

Trump's peripatetic search for someone else to blame has taken him from Beijing to Capitol Hill to Manhattan to Geneva as well as various state capitals. He complains about the Chinese government, the Democrats in Congress, the New York Times and CNN; the governors of Washington state, Illinois and Michigan; and, most recently, the World Health Organization, whose vital funding he has threatened in one of the most misguided acts ever perpetrated by an American president.

He has misused the bully pulpit provided by his Coronavirus Task Force "briefings" — which impart almost no useful information — to launch broadsides against all of those targets. Meanwhile, the government he supposedly leads still has no substantive plan for testing enough citizens to ensure their safe emergence from isolation. His proclamation of a business council to prepare for economic reopening was an embarrassment, showing that his rapacity is exceeded only by his incompetence. The corporate and labor leaders whose names he droned were evidently not told of their expected participation — and they warned him that without sufficient testing, they won't join his reopening scheme.

What is even worse for Trump than the daily tableau of federal failure is his unflattering contrast with the state governors — from Andrew Cuomo in New York to Gavin Newsom in California and so many others — who have deployed their limited resources to great effect in combating the pandemic. With courage and consistency, governors of both parties are summoning the best from their public and private health systems, protecting their constituents and defending democracy from the authoritarians in the White House.

snip//

Trump's search for scapegoats will end in frustration, like so many of his angry compulsions. There is nobody else to blame.

[Bluepinky]

1. Have always loved Joe Conason, always spot on.

Yep, sorry Trump, the buck stops with you. You’re to blame for the worst effects of this crisis.

[mazzarro]

12. Yes indeed - n/t

[2naSalit]

2. All fingers point to the orangeanus.

[pandr32]

3. We are watching a captured rat try to save himself

He is as low and vile as they come.

[dalton99a]

4. Trump will blame the dead victims.

"They should have avoided the infection"

Just watch

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

10. +1000

He'll probably restructure the reporting of cases so dead people are listed as "recovered." The government of Bolivia does this. The argument is that since the people are dead they're no long infected, and therefore shouldn't be on that list.

[flying_wahini]

5. When he removed the real brains behind Govt. Dept.& put his stooges in place it all but sealed

The deal for anyone capable of making good decisions to be proactive.

So, yes. it IS all tRumps fault and the people who whisper in his ear.
[link:https://images.app.goo.gl/XBkYeY27J1YaWM6S6|

[ffr]

6. Joe Biden's campaign ads are probably making a dent too. Ouch!

[gratuitous]

7. I don't know that countermeasures early on would have been easy

But the irreducible fact of the matter is that the man in the big chair has to make the call, make the decisions. You hope he listens to the best advice, and heeds what experts are saying, rather than depending on his sycophants and cronies to determine the best course of action. Sadly, we had a leader in place who did none of that. He didn't make the tough call, he didn't listen to the medical and epidemiological experts. He's so obsessed with money that he tried to cut corners at every turn. He's so impatient that he fed the worst impulses of his true believers into taking to the streets to cluster and parade their fear and ignorance.

As much as Trump would like to dodge his responsibility, we have only one president at any one time. He's the man in the big chair, and this is on him, aided and abetted by the Senate Republicans, who decided to dump their imperiled stock rather than remove this incompetent from office when they had the chance.

[grantcart]

8. Well the people that still support him share the blame

[Brother Mythos]

9. There's no doubt history will place the blame for the high US body count on Trump.

Unfortunately, many of his individual enablers may be able to dodge their well deserved infamy.

[Eyeball_Kid]

11. If Trumpy wins a second term, HE'LL be writing the history, not historians. n/t

[Blue Owl]

13. Double K&R

[oasis]

14. No way Trump bounces back after his mismanagement of this crisis. nt

[Cha]

15. trump FUBARED himself.. just like he Impeached

himself

[Amaryllis]

16. Wrong. McTurtle and the GOP are to blame. Trump couldn't be doing any of this is they were not

enabling it. THey could stop it in a heartbeat if they wanted to.