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catbyte

(34,415 posts) Wed May 13, 2020, 10:44 AM May 2020

Obamagate! Trump is peddling a new fake scandal -- but reality is causing him big problems

Sure, Bill Barr and Fox News will play along with this latest distraction. But there's no way around 83,000 deaths

Heather Digby Parton
May 13, 2020 1:40PM (UTC)

On Monday afternoon, President Trump tried once again to declare victory in the fight against what he calls "the invisible enemy" by holding one of his so-called briefings in the Rose Garden to celebrate America's allegedly successful testing program. As one would expect, trying to sell the assembled press on such a blatant lie did not go well. At best, the testing program has been "anemic and spotty," as former President Obama has put it, and the long delays and dithering in the response have led to the deaths of 83,000 people, and counting, within just a couple of months.

It was a sad and perfunctory performance, ending with a racist attack on an Asian-American reporter, after which Trump flounced off the stage like a disappointed second runner-up at one of his sleazy pageants.

He is clearly very upset that the medical community hasn't devised a magic cure and that the virus isn't succumbing to his repeated exhortations to "just go away." The grand reopening of the economy is a chaotic mess and the "numbers" he's so obsessed with keep going in the wrong direction. But his friends in the media and his top henchman at the Department of Justice, Attorney General Bill Barr, have come up with something thrilling to distract him from his troubles and make the pain go away.

snip

Trump knows he has failed. But he doesn't know what to do. So he's gone back to nursing his grievances and stoking the resentments of his base. There still seem to be people who are happy to follow him down that rabbit hole. But as the bodies pile up and the food lines grow longer, the old Trump sideshows like "Obamagate" may not seem quite so amusing to the American people. As the rising reputations of numerous state governors show, in a crisis people look for competence and leadership. Trump's antics can't hide the fact that he is entirely lacking either of those qualities.

On edit: Sorry! I forgot the link:

https://www.salon.com/2020/05/13/obamagate-trump-is-peddling-a-new-fake-scandal--but-reality-is-causing-him-big-problems/