It was a bit surprising to hear President Trump announce that he would pitch the first ball in a New York Yankees game next month, now that the delayed and shortened season of Major League Baseball is underway as he has refused to do so. since he became president. But since Dr. Anthony Fauci was getting so much good press in anticipation of his season-opening foray into the mound in Washington, Trump was clearly jealous, and certainly pleased to know that there would be no crowd at Yankee Stadium to boo him. But then, Fauci was ruthlessly attacked in the press for his wild pitch, and Trump was perhaps reminded that perhaps he couldn’t do much better. So over the weekend he announced to the nation that he was too busy.
Our very busy president played golf on Saturday and spent most of Sunday retweeting images of his Portland paramilitary attack, rando sh ** posters, and conspiracy theories. He even retweeted a plaintive wail about the greatness of hydroxychloroquine, an old gold at this point. So I’m sure the country is greatly relieved by Trump’s “new tone” that the media is still talking about, and the catastrophic collapse of his already lukewarm poll numbers will no doubt be reversed immediately.
Meanwhile, COVID-19 continues to devastate the nation, and no matter how hard new campaign manager Bill Stepien and the rest of his team try to take him seriously, Trump simply can’t do it. Reluctantly, he had to cancel his big convention show in Jacksonville, which had been moved from Charlotte at his insistence, mainly because even Republican fans didn’t want to travel to the epicenter of America’s massive surge in cases.
Trump’s fatuous turn that this was another of his “strong” decisions to keep the country safe at all costs collapsed, as there are countless clips of him expressing disdain for anyone who thought organizing a crowded political convention in Amidst a raging pandemic It won’t be a great idea. It has never shown interest in keeping the country safe from this pandemic. He just wants to keep “his numbers” low, and that’s not the same.
This news especially had to hit Ron DeSantis, the Republican Governor of Florida. He had pushed hard for the convention when Trump had a tantrum last month over North Carolina’s refusal to ensure his fans could attend speeches at the indoor event center without wearing masks or practicing social distancing. DeSantis was more than happy to guarantee the Trumpers a good time without all those nasty COVID guidelines. But even then, the clock kept ticking in the Florida case explosion
If you want to see the perfect realization of the Trump administration’s pandemic policy, look at Florida. It is certainly true that the virus has increased in several other states, including Texas, Arizona, and California. The first two, like Florida, were prompted to open too quickly by Republican governors, while California’s rise appears to be related to general overconfidence: People did not observe safe guidelines once orders were lifted. closing. Florida is not alone in this surge and will not be the last state to experience one.
But only in Florida did the governor appear on television and had a big Trump complaint festival in May because he wasn’t getting enough credit for keeping cases lower in Florida than in New York:
DeSantis spoke too early and opened his state too quickly. Florida is now one of the global epicenters of this virus and will not improve soon. Every day since July 10, the state has averaged more than 10,000 new cases per day. According to the New York Times, the state has had 423,800 cases and 5,854 deaths from the virus so far.
DeSantis bears the brunt of the blame for all of this. His main concern from the beginning was to reopen his businesses at all costs, in the apparent conviction that people would forget about the virus as soon as they could return to shopping malls, and the results are in full view. Throughout the crisis he has been belligerent, stubborn, unfriendly, arrogant and self-centered. It issues orders, but refuses to offer state support to make them work. He is, in short, exactly like Trump.
The Washington Post published an in-depth look at the DeSantis administration’s response to the pandemic, and it is devastating. Just as Trump refuses to listen to experts, Desantis brushed aside his scientists and completely stopped public health briefings. He refutes models if they don’t fit his purpose and spins the data to make it sound better than it is. Some of the state’s top experts have left in the midst of the crisis.
As the virus spread out of control in Florida, decision-making became increasingly shaped by politics and divorced from scientific evidence., According to interviews with 64 current and former state and administrative officials, health administrators, epidemiologists, political agents, and hospital executives. The crisis in Florida, these observers say, has revealed the shortcomings of a response based on changing metrics, influenced by a small group of advisers and tied at every stage to the Trump administration, which does not have a unified plan to address the health emergency. national, but has pushed for states to reopen.
When DeSantis insisted on reopening Florida’s economy early, Trump encouraged him. In fact, the Post reports that Trump cheerfully told advisers that Florida’s alleged success gave other states the validation to open too early. DeSantis returned the favor by backing Trump’s game to the end, refusing to enact measures such as wearing masks that could have helped mitigate the increase. The Post reports that Trump administration officials “regularly sent DeSantis reports and clips boasting that Florida had no cases at the start of the outbreak, arguing that many states were overreacting and sometimes that seasonal heat could cure the virus “
Like his hero and mentor, DeSantis cannot find time to speak to his experts, but he does have time to speak to Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, which he has done on numerous occasions as the virus exploded in his state.
DeSantis was a backbench congressman who won the 2018 gubernatorial election in large part due to Trump’s backing and has been a faithful henchman from the start. It was assumed all along that he could help deliver Florida to Trump in November and that his future could include an address on Pennsylvania Avenue. (Yes, he is so ambitious).
But attacking the Trump Train was a risky move from the start, and it doesn’t seem worth it. Quinnipiac’s latest poll has Biden leading Trump by 13 points in the Sunshine State, 51% to 38%. DeSantis is not better. In April, 50% of Florida voters approved of their handling of the pandemic. That has now dropped to 38%, the same number supporting Trump’s reelection.
Florida chose a mini Trump in 2018 and got a mega disaster from Trump in 2020. Now the whole country is paying the price.
