Dumb as a stick
Aaron Rupar watched the Fox News segment where they talked to Trump on the phone so that we won’t have to.
Americans on Friday awoke to the worst jobs report in recorded history, one that showed the unemployment rate surging up to 14.7 percent. The main driver of that, of course, is the coronavirus pandemic, which resulted in more than 2,500 Americans dying in a 24-hour period ending late Thursday, pushing the death toll above 76,000, with no end in sight.
2500. Normal is 8000 so yes, that’s massive for a single new disease.
Those are huge, interrelated problems that are causing people a lot of pain and anxiety. But President Donald Trump’s nearly hour-long call into Fox & Friends Friday morning was a window into an alternate world where the biggest story going is the Obama-era FBI’s purported bias against Trump, and the interrelated public health and economic crises are minor inconveniences.
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“Comey, who is a sick man,” Trump said, referring to former FBI Director James Comey. “He’s just a stupid guy. He’s dumb as a stick. And he’s a sick guy — there’s something wrong with him.”
No you’re the one who’s stupid and fucked up, you are, I’m not, you are.
Trump had been talking for more than 20 minutes before the word “coronavirus” was even mentioned. And while the pandemic is at the forefront of consciousness for most Americans, it was a topic the president and Fox & Friends hosts discussed in passing. Trump used it as an opportunity to attack blue state governors for not moving quicker to reopen their economies, and described the Americans he wants to get back to work in the teeth of a pandemic as “warriors.”
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About halfway through the interview, the US Department of Labor released a jobs report that showed the country shedding 20.5 million jobs in April. The optics of Trump’s real-time response weren’t great.
Alongside a graphic of the 14.7 unemployment rate, Trump boasted about how strong the economy was as recently as three months ago, and proclaimed, “those jobs will all be back, and they’ll be back very soon” — contradicting forecasts from his own government that foresee double-digit unemployment lingering into next year.
MAGA!
I hate how the word “warrior” gets tossed around in the US. It’s bad enough when it’s applied to members of the military (sorry, but for the most part you’re not heroes, you’re just cogs in the machine), but those of us who are doing our best to isolate ourselves, barely venturing out of our home, masking ourselves and doing our best to keep our distance when we can’t avoid going out, we are most definitely not warriors.
“we are most definitely not warriors.”
I think “victims” is a better word. Victims of an illness, and of a totally incompetent response. What was that about the cure being worse than the disease? Or to go back to the “warrior” analogy for a moment, the White House response could be considered aiding and abetting the enemy.
Yes, our office was using the term “homebound heroes”, and giving awards for the “home office of the week’, given to people who apparently have time to take pictures of themselves working at home (in perfectly tidy spaces with no sign of actual work), and write a long treatise on the special features of their home office.
We are not heroes. We are people trying to do our ordinary job in the midst of extraordinary circumstances, and for the most part, making it work with some glitches. That isn’t heroic. That’s just people working.
I’m just hoping to get through this as a survivor. And by “this” I don’t just mean the pandemic.
So Trump has re-instituted the draft. You’re all “warriors” now. Victims of the virus now magically become heroic casualties in the battle against the invisible enemy instead of the result of negligent homicide. Except that it will soon be submerged as sea-levels rise, I like the idea of Mar-a-Lago being confiscated and becoming a National Cemetary, just as Lee’s property of Arlington was confiscated and turned into a graveyard for those he helped to their deaths through his own traitorous action.
He was on the phone for FOUR HOURS?! Good thing he didn’t have any hamberders or Cokes to call him away from this vital task.
I am as dumb as a stick.
I don’t get how, if 8000 is normal, 2500 is “massive.”
maddog @6, it’s an over 30% increase in deaths – normally 8,000 die each day; the 2,500 is on top of that.
Karen R, yeah, I got that, but I do think it isn’t really clear in the post.
Oooohhhhhh.
So it’s 10,500, not 2,500; 2,500 are just the coronavirus on top?
I guess I really am as dumb as a stick.
Ya that’s what I meant but you’re not dumb as a stick – I just didn’t make it clear! I knew what I meant and I forgot that it wasn’t obvious. Other minds problem again.
In other words, every other possible cause of death = 8000
One tiny virus = 2500.
Yeah, numbers for the virus pretty impressive…it has the biggliest death toll. It must be the greatest virus, the absolute winner among a bunch of losers!
Oh, please, stop me before I begin to actually think like Trump.