After his Tulsa debacle, a major flop with abysmal involvement and what could still have been a super-spreading event for a deadly virus, Donald Trump needs to set low expectations. Instead, he’s back in the campaign Tuesday, making his third trip in five months to Arizona, a state that on Monday reported another record-breaking day for COVID-19 hospitalizations, to promote what he calls a major milestone in the long run. He was on his way to delivering on his No. 1 campaign promise, building a “beautiful big wall” on the US-Mexico border. Despite what Trump celebrated as the “212th plus mile completion” in a tweet Monday whining About Fox News coverage of his failed border wall, what the president will not admit on his premature victory lap is that there have only been three miles of new border construction since he took office.
Trump’s latest trip to Arizona succinctly illustrates the current state of his failed presidency. Their biggest campaign promise is failure, and the coronavirus continues to spread in a state that appears to have ruined the pandemic almost as badly as the federal government.
The president will visit a portion of the border in Yuma County for the first time, where new cases of coronavirus increased by more than 100 once again on Monday, before heading to a Phoenix megachurch for an indoor rally with youth supporters. He will be joined at both stops by Republican Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, who voted as the lowest ranking executive for his response to the pandemic after he issued an executive order preventing state municipalities from imposing orders to stay home in April. Ducey’s state restrictions expired in mid-May and Arizona now appears to be among the worst places nationwide for the spread of COVID-19. On Sunday, the state topped 50,000 cases of coronavirus.
About 1,992 hospitalizations were reported Sunday among positive or suspected COVID-19 patients, the highest number since April 8, according to the latest figures from the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS). Inpatient beds, ICU beds, ventilators in use and visits to the emergency department also reached their highest numbers on Sunday, according to ADHS. As of Sunday, 82% of current hospital beds and 84% of ICU beds were in use.
For his part, Ducey, like Trump, has ignored the blatant red flags and partially lied about his administration’s testing capabilities.
“Now, if you want proof, get tested. We have proof available. We have more than 120 locations,” Ducey said at his press conference on June 11. But Arizona currently ranks 40th in the nation in per capita testing according to ongoing research by Johns Hopkins University.
At a test drive location in a predominantly Hispanic community in southwest Phoenix, people were forced to wait in line for up to 13 hours in the hot sun on Saturday. Hundreds of people sat in the heat without access to toilets, food, or water, and many were untested in an area with the highest confirmed infection rates in the largest city in Arizona. It’s another microcosm of how underserved communities across the country bear the brunt of this deadly disease due to public health neglect. Report Suggests Arizona Testing Corporations They are now rationing test kits, as Trump and Republicans in Congress delay more federal investments.
As in much of the nation, patients between the ages of 20 and 44 account for the fastest growth in cases in the Grand Canyon state, with that age group now including more than double the cases of any other. So naturally, Trump’s second event is heralded as an address for America’s youth. Before Trump’s arrival, Maricopa County, which with 4.5 million people has more than half of the state’s population, issued a mask mandate on Friday. Days later, the pastor of the megachurch where Trump will speak claimed on a now-deleted Facebook page that special air conditioning units could virtually eliminate the coronavirus in a matter of minutes. “When you walk into our auditorium, 99% of COVID is gone, killed,” said Luke Barnett, senior pastor at Dream City Church.
That succinctly sums up where we are in the last few months before Donald Trump’s final political test. Surrounded by top elected officials and maniacs alike, Trump leads a constantly evaporating minority and tries to sell the objective failure as a success.
A strong majority of Americans surveyed still don’t support the president’s efforts to build a border wall, even as support to allow Central American refugees, a group Trump has repeatedly demonized as violent criminals, to enter the country has increased among all. voting groups. , including Republicans and Independents. Additionally, the number of people supporting the increase in immigration has grown from 21% to a record 30% since Trump took office. That increase also includes Republican voters, who have gone from 11% in favor of increasing immigration in 2016 to 16% at the end of last year.
Shunned even by its most ardent voters in a deeply red state and the conservative-billed highest court on earth in several major cases in recent days, Trump’s only refuge outside the White House and Mar-a-Lago bunker seems to be with Republican flatterers. as Arizona Senator Martha McSally, who faces a grim election battle this fall against former astronaut Mark Kelly, husband of former Rep. Gabby Giffords, who was seriously injured in a 2011 assassination attempt, after completely hooking his wagon to the derailed Trump train.
Trump won Arizona by just three points in 2016, the closest margin of victory in the state since Bill Clinton became the last Democratic presidential candidate to win it in 1992. Only 73% of Arizona Republicans backed McSally in a Fox News poll released earlier this month. . Indeed, McSally can accomplish the rare feat of losing two Senate elections two years apart; After being defeated by Democrat Kyrsten Sinema in 2018, Ducey appointed her to the post previously held by the late Senator John McCain. Trump would like to rescue her, but her magic seems to fade.
