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| We Need to Flatten the Curve. Trump and Fox Are Behind It. | We Need to Flatten the Curve. Trump and Fox Are Behind It. |
| (about 5 hours later) | |
| Donald Trump’s speech from the Oval Office Wednesday night was horrifying for many reasons: It seemed barely thought through, containing three misstatements that had to be clarified (two about international trade, sowing more confusion in an already volatile market); he spoke without humanity, when humanity is precisely what this first-order crisis requires (peel off his back, and I’m convinced all we’ll see are coils and springs); he blew a racist dog whistle while discussing a global health emergency (a “foreign” virus); he humped the same notes of self-congratulation — that his early decision to impose restrictions on travel to China was bold, that America is superbly prepared — when the latter point is obviously untrue, and the former point is moot. | Donald Trump’s speech from the Oval Office Wednesday night was horrifying for many reasons: It seemed barely thought through, containing three misstatements that had to be clarified (two about international trade, sowing more confusion in an already volatile market); he spoke without humanity, when humanity is precisely what this first-order crisis requires (peel off his back, and I’m convinced all we’ll see are coils and springs); he blew a racist dog whistle while discussing a global health emergency (a “foreign” virus); he humped the same notes of self-congratulation — that his early decision to impose restrictions on travel to China was bold, that America is superbly prepared — when the latter point is obviously untrue, and the former point is moot. |
| But Trump’s biggest crime Wednesday night was the short shrift he gave to what should have been his core message: Keep your distance. Yes, he mentioned it in passing, but only on the way to rah-rahing himself, denigrating foreigners, and announcing policies that terrified the markets. This was an opportunity to drive home, over and over again, the one message that practically every public health expert says is essential to stemming community spread, lest the pandemic overwhelm our hospitals. He had the command of all the big networks. Yet he didn’t. | But Trump’s biggest crime Wednesday night was the short shrift he gave to what should have been his core message: Keep your distance. Yes, he mentioned it in passing, but only on the way to rah-rahing himself, denigrating foreigners, and announcing policies that terrified the markets. This was an opportunity to drive home, over and over again, the one message that practically every public health expert says is essential to stemming community spread, lest the pandemic overwhelm our hospitals. He had the command of all the big networks. Yet he didn’t. |
| Then again, it’s hardly a surprise. For Trump, the whole strategy of social distancing is a nightmare. It’s inimical to his political interests. | Then again, it’s hardly a surprise. For Trump, the whole strategy of social distancing is a nightmare. It’s inimical to his political interests. |
| What last night’s address made clear is that Donald J. Trump is no one — and I mean no one, a naked-emperor nullity — without a crowd. Audiences are what energize him, give him his confidence, his king-size certainty; it’s at rallies that he A/B tests his ideas in real time. Without a press corps to troll or an adoring crowd to feed off, the man is a shell. | What last night’s address made clear is that Donald J. Trump is no one — and I mean no one, a naked-emperor nullity — without a crowd. Audiences are what energize him, give him his confidence, his king-size certainty; it’s at rallies that he A/B tests his ideas in real time. Without a press corps to troll or an adoring crowd to feed off, the man is a shell. |
| No wonder that he was leaning on aides not to cancel recently scheduled campaign events in Colorado, Wisconsin and Nevada until the very last minute, and that his advisers had to prevail on him not to announce another rally in Florida, tentatively scheduled for the end of the month. As we saw Wednesday night, if you put him in a room with only a teleprompter and a camera, he can barely make it out of a sentence alive. | |
| And Trump has, as always, his enablers. Some of Trump’s boosters on talk radio and Fox News may slowly be conceding that the coronavirus is a greater public health threat than the garden-variety flu. (Not all, but some.) But immediately following his speech, Laura Ingraham was quick to challenge the wisdom of those who were preaching social distancing, implying, more or less, that it was an overreaction. | And Trump has, as always, his enablers. Some of Trump’s boosters on talk radio and Fox News may slowly be conceding that the coronavirus is a greater public health threat than the garden-variety flu. (Not all, but some.) But immediately following his speech, Laura Ingraham was quick to challenge the wisdom of those who were preaching social distancing, implying, more or less, that it was an overreaction. |
| What about the small business owner, she asked, who’d get pummeled by it? What about our right to assemble? What if the cure is worse than the disease? “Where the risk is minimal, the business of America must go on,” she said, adding that closing down business “could end up being more catastrophic for America in the long term than this virus itself.” | |
| Look: I’m not a doctor, and neither is Laura Ingraham. But public health experts are largely in agreement about this. If we don’t “flatten the curve” — which is to say, make sure our coronavirus patients come to our hospitals in manageable waves, rather than all at once — then we will soon become Italy, where doctors are now facing the possibility of wartime triage, which would require making choices about who lives and who dies based on a patient’s age, because there aren’t enough beds and ventilators to go around. (If you haven’t read Yascha Mounk’s vivid, data-driven piece in The Atlantic, do so, now.) | Look: I’m not a doctor, and neither is Laura Ingraham. But public health experts are largely in agreement about this. If we don’t “flatten the curve” — which is to say, make sure our coronavirus patients come to our hospitals in manageable waves, rather than all at once — then we will soon become Italy, where doctors are now facing the possibility of wartime triage, which would require making choices about who lives and who dies based on a patient’s age, because there aren’t enough beds and ventilators to go around. (If you haven’t read Yascha Mounk’s vivid, data-driven piece in The Atlantic, do so, now.) |
| But rather than flattening the curve, Fox is behind the curve. Each and every time. | But rather than flattening the curve, Fox is behind the curve. Each and every time. |
| It is of course legitimate to worry about the fate of American businesses, large and small, and to fear for the short- and long-term security of American workers. But this swagger about carrying on business as usual goes beyond reflexive pro-Trump and pro-market reflexes. | It is of course legitimate to worry about the fate of American businesses, large and small, and to fear for the short- and long-term security of American workers. But this swagger about carrying on business as usual goes beyond reflexive pro-Trump and pro-market reflexes. |
| I am guessing that something about “remote work” strikes the Trump and Fox base — possibly correctly — as an option for the pampered. It’s what the tech geeks of Twitter and Google do. It’s what the writers and editors of The New York Times do. It’s what the rich kids in Ivy League schools do, as do their comfortably tenured professors. | I am guessing that something about “remote work” strikes the Trump and Fox base — possibly correctly — as an option for the pampered. It’s what the tech geeks of Twitter and Google do. It’s what the writers and editors of The New York Times do. It’s what the rich kids in Ivy League schools do, as do their comfortably tenured professors. |
| Motoring on through adversity seems, at this moment, like the macho thing to do. Social distancing is seen as cowardly and weak, rather than what it truly is, which is altruistic and courageous. A real leader, one who’s secure in his own skin and intellect, could explain the paradox of aggression through isolation. He could encourage cooperation through isolation too, explaining that the two needn’t be incompatible. | Motoring on through adversity seems, at this moment, like the macho thing to do. Social distancing is seen as cowardly and weak, rather than what it truly is, which is altruistic and courageous. A real leader, one who’s secure in his own skin and intellect, could explain the paradox of aggression through isolation. He could encourage cooperation through isolation too, explaining that the two needn’t be incompatible. |
| But we don’t have a real leader. We have Trump. | But we don’t have a real leader. We have Trump. |
| And we have Fox, whose relentless message is the same as that of Sept. 11: Go about your daily lives or the terrorists win. But pandemics aren’t terrorists. Go about your daily lives and the virus wins. Viruses need crowds. True leadership means telling those crowds to disperse. | And we have Fox, whose relentless message is the same as that of Sept. 11: Go about your daily lives or the terrorists win. But pandemics aren’t terrorists. Go about your daily lives and the virus wins. Viruses need crowds. True leadership means telling those crowds to disperse. |
| We are finally starting to do that. The National Basketball Association has suspended its season; Major League Baseball has delayed its own opening day; St. Patrick’s Day parades are being canceled in cities across the country and Broadway has shut down through April 12. | We are finally starting to do that. The National Basketball Association has suspended its season; Major League Baseball has delayed its own opening day; St. Patrick’s Day parades are being canceled in cities across the country and Broadway has shut down through April 12. |
| But these changes are not happening because of Trump. They’re happening in spite of him. He should applaud them from afar — and find someone in his administration to explain why it was, in fact, an act of kindness and solidarity, a sign of strength. | But these changes are not happening because of Trump. They’re happening in spite of him. He should applaud them from afar — and find someone in his administration to explain why it was, in fact, an act of kindness and solidarity, a sign of strength. |
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