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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsChomsky: Trump a 'Sociopathic Megalomaniac' Who Made US 'Singularly Unprepared' for Pandemic
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/05/25/chomsky-says-trump-sociopathic-megalomaniac-who-made-us-singularly-unpreparedChomsky's fresh criticism of the president came in an interview with Agence France-Presse published Monday.
"The White House," said Chomsky, "is in the hands of a sociopathic megalomaniac who's interested in nothing but his own power, electoral prospects."
Trump "doesn't care what happens to the country, the world," though he's still reliant on "his primary constituency, which is great wealth and corporate power," Chomsky said.
The administration has "no coordinated plan" for addressing the pandemic, meaning the nation will see "a lot more" deaths from Covid-19 on top of the nearly 100,000 confirmed fatalities that have already occurred, he added.
Setting the stage for the current situation is that Trump kicked off his administration by moving to take apart "the entire pandemic prevention machinery," including by "canceling programs that were working with Chinese scientists to identify potential viruses," Chomsky said.
Another contributing factor to the flawed response, said Chomsky, is that the nation is "in the stranglehold of private control," an example of which is the lack of a national single-payer healthcare system. "It's the ultimate neoliberal system, actually," he said.
While Chomsky predicted a recovery from the pandemic will come eventually and "at severe cost," the same cannot be said of the climate crisis. "There isn't going to be any recovery from the melting of the polar ice caps and the rising of sea levels," he warned.
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)Nailed it.
localroger
(3,602 posts)His two-step plan to react to any situation:
1. Try to make a buck off it
2. If it turns pear shaped pretend it didn't happen
The problem is COVID-19 isn't going to go away because you ignored it, and unlike global warming it's something people will undeniably notice in a relatively short time frame. Both deaths and new cases were doubling every three days before the stay at home orders went into effect mid-March. Had those happened a month earlier it would have been a factor of about 1,000 less damaging, and we might even really be past it now and able to safely reopen because it never would have gotten such a big hold in the general population.
I know he's hoping it will just stay away long enough for the economy to catch its breath by November, but it won't. Given that some people will continue to stay at home and take precautions I figure we might be looking at a new doubling rate of every 6 or 7 days. That will blow us well through the million death mark by the election.
Some states will shut down again when the numbers become apparent (I have some hope Louisiana will be one of those, thank God we have John Bel Edwards as governor and not one of the R maniacs who ran against him). Other states (*cough* FloriDUH *cough*) will take the Trump approach and try to pretend it isn't happening. That will only work up to a point, since you can't really hide the fact that someone died in the US and even if you try to hide the cause, the simple surplus over the normal death rate will reveal the work of COVID. There's no way it can stay hidden until the election.
Remember Karl Rove arguing with the FOX analysts who were calling the election for Obama in 2008 because he just refused to believe the numbers? That's where we are heading in some of these states.
LizBeth
(9,946 posts)now that we have Trump and Republicans doing so much damage.
I lost a lot of respect for Chomsky voice the last handful of years.
AlexSFCA
(6,137 posts)all idealists are demagogues. He doesnt understand compromise and will never be satisfied with anything. But hey, he made a living off capitalism.
with anything.
LizBeth
(9,946 posts)grantcart
(53,061 posts)Noam Chomsky on Pres. Obama : "He has no discernable principles that I can discern".
Personally I have never found utopian particularly interesting.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,146 posts)He always said Trump would do huge damage.
warmfeet
(3,321 posts)rickyhall
(4,889 posts)Beacool
(30,244 posts)Nailed it!!!
Ford_Prefect
(7,817 posts)It may be what most of us expect from Trump but it is NOT normal nor excusable.