by Wendell Barnhouse
Never have I felt worse about being right.
The last week of February I tweeted to two national college basketball writers asking if the NCAA had any contingency plans regarding the NCAA Tournament and potential problems posed by the coronavirus.
Two weeks ago (seems like two years), as sports began to shut down and the NCAA Tournament was postponed for the first time in its history, I tweeted that the impact of COVID-19 would get worse before it gets better. That was when many were reacting to cancellations and postponements by hoping there would be a pause of maybe a few weeks, maybe just two months.
Is 18 months a “pause?”
The following planning assumptions assisted in the development of an operational environment for this plan. … A pandemic will last 18 months or longer and could include multiple waves of illness.
That is from the U.S. Government COVID-19 Response Plan dated March 13 and obtained by The New York Times.
I’m 66, retired and spend waaaay too much time on Twitter – even more now. I treat Twitter as a news service. That’s why when I saw tweets Tuesday night regarding a COVID-19 report compiled by the Imperial College London group I further realized that my “worse” assessment was mild. Potentially millions dead is not mild.
Which brings me to my point. How and why did a retired sportswriter see the potentially terrible, awful, bad, no-good, horrific impact of COVID-19 weeks before “President” Donald John Trump would even admit that we had a, ahem, problem? (Editor: Maybe sportswriters are smarter than we think… or maybe this is just a self-serving editorial note)
This crisis likely would have been serious had action been taken in mid-January. Had Trump and his half-assed “advisors” woken up and smelled the coffee even a month ago, it would have been border-line too late. Now, it appears we’ll get daily news conferences and tweets from The Orange Menace with an emphasis on racism (“Chinese virus”) and gaslighting (his response has been “perfect,” and he “always knew” it was a pandemic).
(Side note: Trump has been gaslighting for over three years, but this current level has far surpassed previous levels. Maybe that’s because oil prices have tanked – hey, yet another major problem we’re not currently equipped to handle – and gas is cheap.)
This is the kind of “leadership” borne out of a perfect-storm 2016 election that put a narcissistic con man game-show host in the Oval Office. The Trump transition team did a 3-hour table-top exercise about possible crises The New Guys could face. Yep. Oneof those was a pandemic. Two years later, Trump disbanded the pandemic response team established by Obama, the man Trump loves to hate
It’s becoming obvious that after being “acquitted” and not impeached, Trump thought he could win another four years buttressed by a healthy economy and a record-setting stock market. As COVID-19 became the monster in the closet, Trump tried a lie-away plan.
And, of course, any reputable reporting about the dangers of a pending pandemic were merely Fake News attempts to damage Trump’s sterling reputation and spot-on rhetoric.
At the same time, Trump’s circle of trust had closed to just a few incompetent fools. Garbage in, garbage out. “You’re right, boss.” “They’re all out to get you, boss.” “Keep up the good work, boss.”
Trump, as usual, had a strong ally to help disseminate his message. FOX News was more than eager to blast “fake news” and “left-wing, liberal media” reports that were hyping fear and loathing. Somewhere down in Hell, Joseph Goebbels was smiling.
(Trish Regan is not available for comment.)
In an 8-hour period Tuesday, https://worldometers.info/coronavirus, which is tracking COVID-19 in countries around the world, indicated that cases in the U.S. increased by 776.That’s a pace of 2,300 per day.
Our “government” response?
– A “president” who must realize that it’s game over. Biden has the nomination and Trump’s re-election becomes more doubtful by the day as the nation careens into a never-before-experienced crisis.
— A dysfunctional Congress where GOP members like Rand Paul and Louie
Gohmert continue to put country over party.
– An infrastructure of agencies that could respond to help but are mired in red tape and lacking central leadership. Vice-president Mike Pence is in charge of a task force that can’t focus on tasks and has little power. (Pence, though, is a World-
Class ass kisser.)
Every time Trump opens his mouth (without engaging any of the stripped gears in his brain) he makes this crisis worse. (See: Wednesday’s news conference.) At this point, almost all government responses will be too late. The analogy is the process of turning an aircraft carrier steaming at full speed.
If this national crisis results in 18 months of closed businesses, lost jobs, empty grocery shelves, overwhelmed hospitals and millions of deaths, how responsible is Trump? It will be difficult to draw a direct line of responsibility to a POTUS who has already shirked responsibility.
Trump’s high crimes and misdemeanors should be obvious and will be exposed when historians assess this era. And here comes another prediction from Your Humble Scribe that will, I fear, also come true.
While a Trump Crimes Commission should be assembled and empowered in the next year or so, it won’t be. If Joe Biden is the next president, he’ll be cleaning up the biggest mess in U.S. history. We’re facing a combination of the Spanish Flu outbreak of 1918- 20 (which killed an estimated 675,000 in the U.S.) and the Great Depression.
The next administration and Congress will be so busy dealing with the aftermath –unemployment, a tanked economy, a wrecked health care system – that spending time investigating Trump will be viewed as partisan time wasting. Countering that argument will be difficult.
Most citizens will be more concerned about a new normal than holding Trump accountable. He’ll skate. He might face legal challenges but he’ll either flee to Russia –hey, folks, remember that it’s still a formidable enemy – or his lawyers will deflect and delay – hey, folks, remember, the judicial system has been packed all the way to the Supreme Court.
I hope I’m wrong.