Trump may not be interested in Covid-19, . . .

. . . but Covid-19 is interested in Trump.

It seems that Trump has gotten bored with the whole Covid-19 thing:

President Donald Trump’s failure to contain the coronavirus outbreak and his refusal to promote clear public-health guidelines have left many senior Republicans despairing that he will ever play a constructive role in addressing the crisis, with some concluding they must work around Trump and ignore or even contradict his pronouncements.

In recent days, some of the most prominent figures in the GOP outside the White House have broken with Trump over issues like the value of wearing a mask in public and heeding the advice of health experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci, whom the president and other hard-right figures within the administration have subjected to caustic personal criticism.

They appear to be spurred by several overlapping forces, including deteriorating conditions in their own states, Trump’s seeming indifference to the problem and the approach of a presidential election in which Trump is badly lagging his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, in the polls.

Once-reticent Republican governors are now issuing orders on mask-wearing and business restrictions that run counter to Trump’s demands. Some of those governors have been holding late-night phone calls among themselves to trade ideas and grievances; they have sought out partners in the administration other than the president, including Vice President Mike Pence, who, despite echoing Trump in public, is seen by governors as far more attentive to the continuing disaster.

“The president got bored with it,” David Carney, an adviser to the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, a Republican, said of the pandemic. He noted that Abbott directs his requests to Pence, with whom he speaks two to three times a week.

Playing golf in Palm Beach is so much more fun.

Question for those of you who laughed when I said Trump was the worst president in US history. Be honest. Could imagine any other president showing such total disinterest in doing anything at all about one of the greatest crises of the 21st century? Seriously?

PS. In case you don’t know, this is a reference to Trotsky’s famous remark:

You may not be interested in warbut war is interested in you


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30 Responses to “Trump may not be interested in Covid-19, . . .”

  1. Gravatar of msgkings msgkings
    20. July 2020 at 10:37

    It’s increasingly clear Trump doesn’t really care if he wins again. He already did that, trolled the libs, showed the haters he could do it.

    He’s 74 years old and likely tired of having to deal with all the baloney of the job. Can’t be much fun when every headline is Covid Covid Covid. Time to get back to living Trump style, and get a weekly show on Fox (or OAN?) to yell about the rigged election.

  2. Gravatar of pcash pcash
    20. July 2020 at 11:35

    We have become a specialized society. We expect experience, training, expertise and specialization in almost every other field of any importance…and yet…with our politicians, we want “outsiders” to shake things up. Our economy/political system, like everything else in society, has become a labyrinth of complexity. We need “expert” politicians to navigate it successfully.

  3. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    20. July 2020 at 12:53

    msgkings, I see why you say that, but he did recently fire his campaign director.

  4. Gravatar of msgkings msgkings
    20. July 2020 at 13:48

    @ssumner:

    Yeah I saw that, he’s just winging it now, doing whatever to see if his polls improve. He won’t just quit, but he seems to be just going through the motions.

  5. Gravatar of Carl Carl
    20. July 2020 at 15:31

    Question for those of you who laughed when I said Trump was the worst president in US history. Be honest. Could imagine any other president showing such total disinterest in doing anything at all about one of the greatest crises of the 21st century?

    He may be the worst president in US history, but I don’t think that doing nothing at all in the face of a crisis necessarily makes you worse than a President who does the wrong thing in the face of a crisis. For example, what would have happened had Bush done nothing after 9/11? What if Hoover had done nothing in the face of the onset of the Great Depression?

  6. Gravatar of Benjamin Cole Benjamin Cole
    20. July 2020 at 16:24

    “President Donald Trump’s failure to contain the coronavirus outbreak”–Scott Sumner, quoting NYT lead sentence on a “news” aericle.

    Interesting premise for a “news” story. You wouldn’t know from this woke-version of events that in the US it is state and local governments that control lockdowns and other restrictive public health measures.

    Trump had the authority to ban international travel, and did so relatively early in the game. My complaint is that Trump is unable to intelligently articulate a better policy, such as that followed by Sweden.

    It is said Americans forget history within weeks. That Trump is the worst president ever is simply a laughable proposition; he is merely the worst president since Bush jr.

    Bush jr., in addition to wearing a military costumes, entangled the us into apparently permanent yet counterproductive wars featuring copious carnage and six trillion dollars of outlays and incurred liabilities.

    Nixon and LBJ prosecuted a war in Southeast Asia that has been credited with leading to 6 million deaths and again was counterproductive. Look up topics such as Operation Phoenix or cluster bombs in Laos if you want to ruin the rest of your day.

    Trump looks like Peter Pan next to a Nixon and LBJ or a Bush jr.

    Or a Xi or Putin for that matter.

    in any event, as public health medicine lockdowns are weak, but they are strong poison for the US economy.

    Interesting side question: Were the New York Times “reporters” required to put a woke-version lead to their story for fear of losing their jobs?

  7. Gravatar of Sergey Sergey
    20. July 2020 at 19:57

    @Benjamin Cole
    Trump’s COVID inaction will cost US more than Iraq war and damage economy more than great depression. How do you put price on debasing country morals, squandering country reputation and dismantling democratic institutions ?

  8. Gravatar of Postkey Postkey
    21. July 2020 at 00:20

    He may be the worst president in US history, but, at least, ‘we’ are around to witness it.

    ‘One of many truths lost within this discourse is the reality that the creation of a no-fly zone would, in the words of the most senior general in the US Armed Forces, {probably?} mean the US going to war “against Syria and Russia”. ‘
    https://mronline.org/2016/12/13/allday131216-html/

    During the election campaign H.R.C., three times, {stupidly?} threatened to impose a ‘no fly zone’ in Syria – confronting a nuclear armed country.

    The Interstate Crosscheck program: every cloud has a silver lining?
    https://www.gregpalast.com/how-trump-stole-2020-2/

  9. Gravatar of Benjamin Cole Benjamin Cole
    21. July 2020 at 02:49

    Sergey:

    Trump was “inactive” on COVID-19…but he had no authority to do anything.

    Remember, it is state and local governments that have remarkably extensive authority to shutter and minutely regulate businesses and public gatherings, if public health is cited.

    Trump banned international travel. Most countries did also, about the same time.

    That Trump has debased US morals…well, not so fast.

    The NBA and the multi-nationals want to do business with China no matter what Beijing does to Chinese residents, including concentration camps.

    The Trump Administration may actually be showing some shreds of morality this topic and eschewing corporate donations to do do. AG Barr said Disney is kowtowing to Beijing/CCP. Well, that’s the truth.

    When was the last time anyone spoke truthfully in DC?

    NBA=No Balls Association.

    I am unaware of Trump “dismantling” any democratic institutions.

    Joe Biden says the era of “shareholder capitalism” is over. That will be interesting to watch.

    Yes, Trump is the Orange Ogre, the TV Reality Show host who became President of the US. In so many ways, he is perfectly awful.

    Is he worse than the establishment Donks and ‘Phants?

    Of that, I am not sure.

  10. Gravatar of Postkey Postkey
    21. July 2020 at 04:42

    ” . . . dismantling democratic institutions ?” ?

    “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens
    Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page
    Each of four theoretical traditions in the study of American politics—which can be characterized as theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy, Economic-Elite Domination, and two types of interest-group pluralism, Majoritarian Pluralism and Biased Pluralism—offers different predictions about which sets of actors have how much influence over public policy: average citizens; economic elites; and organized interest groups, mass-based or business-oriented. A great deal of empirical research speaks to the policy influence of one or another set of actors, but until recently it has not been possible to test these contrasting theoretical predictions against each other within a single statistical model. We report on an effort to do so, using a unique data set that includes measures of the key variables for 1,779 policy issues. Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism. “
    https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf

  11. Gravatar of bb bb
    21. July 2020 at 06:11

    @Benjamin,
    “Trump was “inactive” on COVID-19…but he had no authority to do anything.”
    – Come on. There was plenty he could have done:
    Data gathering should have been more robust. Now that we are 6 months into this, we should be sitting on a mountain of data. We’ve had 3 million cases and we are still speculating on what’s safe and what isn’t. Second, the data should have been shared. NYT had to take CDC to court to make their data public. And now Trump is trying to hide the data by diverting it from the CDC to Homeland.
    He could have hired a Census-type army of contact tracers.
    PPE could have been managed much better and probably still could.
    There was much that the President could have and still can do to ramp up testing, and we appear to have reached a second shortage.
    He could have led the international response. Previous administrations would have had people on the ground at all the hotspots gathering information and providing support to contain the pandemic before it hit our shores. And we could have helped developing countries avoid disasters. It’s our fault that China was able to withhold information to the degree that they did.
    A competent president from either party would have put someone in charge of each initiative and would have asked for daily updates. Knowing that your project is briefed to the president daily is motivating.
    The public health message could not have been worse. The president of the United States deliberately started and continues to perpetuate a partisan fight over whether to follow the advice of public health officials. Masks are the most visible symbol, but ignoring the advice of public health officials is widespread, and likely contributed to the current surge. And it probably triggered some unhelpful behavior on the left as well.
    He should have attended the briefings when he became president.
    He should not have thrown away the playbook that Obama left him (btw, GW left a playbook to Obama too. He shouldn’t have eliminated the pandemic response team in the NSC. He should have maintained the PPE stockpile.

    Germany has a Federal system but Merkel has managed to remain relevant.

    You just like Trump.

    You said:
    -“ Joe Biden says the era of “shareholder capitalism” is over. That will be interesting to watch.”

    That has a very specific meaning. He is referring to a concern on the left that share price has become the only driver for corporations, at the expense of any concern for contributing to society, employee well being, and other worthwhile goals. He won the Democratic Nomination by being the guy who is not a socialist. Let’s have some perspective.

    Also, the NBA saves us from Corona. Before Adam Silver woke us all up, we were heading for a cliff.

  12. Gravatar of bb bb
    21. July 2020 at 06:14

    Scott,
    I’m I the only “libertarian” on this sight who is concerned about secret police detaining people in Portland?

  13. Gravatar of raja_r raja_r
    21. July 2020 at 07:38

    Worst president in US history?

    Worse than the salve-owners? Worse than the leader who drove desperate people off their own lands? Worse than the guy who dropped nukes on civilians? Worse than the eugenicist? Worse than lying the country into war(s)?

    I’ll take a golf playing, do-nothing ignoramus any day.

  14. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    21. July 2020 at 07:58

    Carl, I agree. But I’d add that Trump has at various times actually discouraged mask wearing, and actually discouraged testing. So it’s not just doing nothing.

    bb, Don’t equate silence on a particular example as lack of concern. Every day my news feed is overwhelmed with dozens of examples of how the entire world is sliding toward authoritarianism. Nationalism, communism, fascism, militarism, racism, protectionism, xenophobia, censorship, the war on drugs, etc.
    I’ve spoken out against these trends more than almost any other commentator on either the left or the right.

  15. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    21. July 2020 at 08:00

    bb, BTW, Good points about Trump. But when you respond to Ben you’ll find you are talking to a wall.

  16. Gravatar of bb bb
    21. July 2020 at 08:53

    @scott,
    I don’t doubt that you are concerned by the stormtroopers. Most “libertarians” I’ve met are really just republicans, but I believe you are an actual libertarian.

    Quick and sad prediction:

    August is going to be bad. Back of the envelope, deaths trail cases by about a month:
    – Two weeks from diagnosis until actual death
    – Up to a week to report the death
    – Add a week because the initial infection is likely a healthy person who infects a vulnerable person some days later.
    – Up to one week to be diagnosed and/or become infectious after exposure

    It’s a muddy/rounded estimate, but data seems to back it up.
    Case mortality rate seems to have settled at 3% after the initial surge. I’m surprised that it has been this steady as I expected greater gains from better treatment and vulnerable people being more cautious.

    If this is true, we will be looking at 2k deaths per day when the Republican convention rolls around. I hope I’m wrong.

  17. Gravatar of Carl Carl
    21. July 2020 at 09:35

    Every day my news feed is overwhelmed with dozens of examples of how the entire world is sliding toward authoritarianism…I’ve spoken out against these trends more than almost any other commentator on either the left or the right.

    . That’s something I greatly appreciate about your blog.
    What do you attribute the rise of nationalism to? A loss of confidence in the Western liberal order due to recent mistakes (Iraq War, Great Recession, coronavirus…) plus the rise of China? An increase in social spending as a percentage of GDP (Friedman’s observation that you can’t have a welfare state and open borders)? Economic dislocation caused by technological developments? Other things?

  18. Gravatar of bb bb
    21. July 2020 at 10:40

    @carl,
    I would add the lack of a true adversary. It seems like we have trouble motivating ourselves without the USSR.
    But your list is pretty good.

  19. Gravatar of Benjamin “the Wall” Cole Benjamin "the Wall" Cole
    21. July 2020 at 15:17

    Also, the NBA saves us from Corona. Before Adam Silver woke us all up, we were heading for a cliff.—bb

    This is what you want to say about the No Balls Association (NBA)? They perfected the art of cancel culture. Express a point of view, even a valid point of view, and lose your job.

    Also, is economic obliteration really an answer to Covid-19? The NBA and its players are rich, they can afford a one-year hiatus. Is that really an option for the rest of us?

    Despite what you may have heard, I am actually very open to discussion and ideas. That is because I do not subscribe to any macroeconomic orthodoxy, dogma, theory, or theology.

    I never met Trump and I do not like or dislike him. The media probably characterizes Trump.

    As for publicly held corporations, they have fiduciary obligations to shareholders that trump all other concerns, other than complying with law.

    If you embrace the idea that the era of “shareholder capitalism” is over, then you should also embrace the idea that the next president, possibly Biden, can order the No Balls Association and Disney out of China for good.

  20. Gravatar of Benjamin Cole Benjamin Cole
    21. July 2020 at 15:17

    Also, the NBA saves us from Corona. Before Adam Silver woke us all up, we were heading for a cliff.—bb

    This is what you want to say about the No Balls Association (NBA)? They perfected the art of cancel culture. Express a point of view, even a valid point of view, and lose your job.

    Also, is economic obliteration really an answer to Covid-19? The NBA and its players are rich, they can afford a one-year hiatus. Is that really an option for the rest of us?

    Despite what you may have heard, I am actually very open to discussion and ideas. That is because I do not subscribe to any macroeconomic orthodoxy, dogma, theory, or theology.

    I never met Trump and I do not like or dislike him. The media probably characterizes Trump.

    As for publicly held corporations, they have fiduciary obligations to shareholders that trump all other concerns, other than complying with law.

    If you embrace the idea that the era of “shareholder capitalism” is over, then you should also embrace the idea that the next president, possibly Biden, can order the No Balls Association and Disney out of China for good.

  21. Gravatar of Benjamin Cole Benjamin Cole
    21. July 2020 at 16:17

    bb–

    BTW, about 300,000 Americans have died from the start of C19 epidemic in America—but they died from cancer.

    About 600,000 people a year in the US die from cancer, often triggered by environmental carcinogens.

    C19 must have a terrific press agent. Mr. C19 gets way more ink than other bigger and badder actors.

    (Yes, I am showing my age. “Ink” does not matter anymore. Pixels, and clicks.)

  22. Gravatar of Mark Z Mark Z
    21. July 2020 at 17:26

    I’m not sure why that would make him the worst president in history. Geoge W. Bush and Lyndon Johnson would I’m sure take a more proactive role if they were president now; they both also *actively* killed way more people than Trump even if one attributed all the US’s covid deaths to Trump; for that I rank them both lower. And are you demanding that Trump ‘do something’ or just criticizing his character? Because if the former, would Trump’s action be better than his inaction? That seems doubtful and I imagine you might agree, in which case this kind of sounds like, “the food here is terrible, and what’s more, the portions are so small!”

  23. Gravatar of bb bb
    21. July 2020 at 17:36

    @ben,
    An example of ending shareholder… would be to have an employee representative on the board. May or may not be a good idea, but it is not the end of capitalism.
    As for Covid, if you still think the risk is overstated I probably won’t persuade you.

  24. Gravatar of Benjamin Cole Benjamin Cole
    21. July 2020 at 19:12

    bb–

    OK, we will wait and see about the Biden’s “end of shareholder capitalism” and what that means in practice.

    Yes, I think the risk from C19 is overstated, except for the elderly.

    Voluntary sequestration of the elderly seems like the right policy. I would happy to spend billions, even trillions for “Meals of Wheels,” portable recreational facilities, clearing out bowling alleys or card clubs for “Old People’s Nights” or “Thursday is Grocery Shopping for 65+ Only”.

    Lockdowns for everybody? You end up with a novel virus and a naive population….and a wrecked economy and 50 million unemployed.

    Pray for the vaccine, and thank you for your civil discourse.

  25. Gravatar of Thomas Hutcheson Thomas Hutcheson
    21. July 2020 at 19:23

    @ Mark Z
    While there are many good tings that Trump could have done with his rapport with his 40% — promoting immigration reform, racial/ethnic/religious/gender/sexual orientation tolerance, a progressive consumption tax, a revenue neutral tax on CO2 emissions, trade liberalization, mask-wearing–in fact it would have been better if he had spent all his time playing golf than governing as he did.

  26. Gravatar of Matthias Görgens Matthias Görgens
    21. July 2020 at 19:33

    Biden can’t end shareholder capitalism, because we haven’t really tried shareholder capitalism, yet.

    What we tried, and what we will probably get more of is companies being run for the benefit of high ranking insiders. Typically that’s management, but new laws and regulations might give more power to union apparatchiks or other officials.

    Of course, all these distinctions are not binary. We have a degree of shareholder capitalism. But I want to emphasize that it has been and mostly is management calling the shots.

    Look at any shareholder activism campaign by your favourite hedge fund, and you can see that they are mostly fighting uphill battles. Sometimes they win them, when they overcome the odds.

    As long as eg ‘poison pills’ are the norm, management will remain firmly in charge.

    In the end, it doesn’t really matter too much whether shareholders or management gain relatively more influence, if markets are open enough to new entrants, both upstarts and foreign competition, to preserve the influence of customers and ordinary workers voting with their wallets and feet.

    Matt Levine’s column Money Stuff sometimes talks about how stakeholder capitalism usually just means that management gets more power.

  27. Gravatar of bb bb
    22. July 2020 at 06:28

    @mathias,
    I agree and I particularly like your points on barriers to entry. Hardly a system without flaws.
    @ben
    on both points we’ll probably find out. Stay safe.

  28. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    22. July 2020 at 08:16

    bb, Well, after calling Trump despicable in about 100 posts, I think I’ve pretty well established that I’m not a “Republican”. So that’s good. But woke people would still consider me far too right wing to be allowed into polite society. We all know that ‘classical liberal’ is just a polite term for racist.

    I agree with your comment about how we are lost without an enemy like the USSR, which is why were are currently trying to pretend China is such an enemy.

    The real problem is not that I don’t talk enough about Portland, it’s that I don’t talk enough on Yemen and Burma and North Korea. That’s truly shameful on my part.

  29. Gravatar of Michael Rulle Michael Rulle
    23. July 2020 at 10:35

    It is easy to say Trump wants out. Most 2nd termers feel the same—but obligation keeps then fighting. Trump has been out maneuvered of late—and anyone with half a brain can understand how difficult it was for him to prevent it. Even with hinsight, I have a very hard time figuring out what he ashouldhave been doing. of course, I mean Covid. All the other garbage is easy to at least be credible, But this is about Covid. He has been caught in a spider web. I caution him to remain patient—luck is likely to come back his way as this wave should start declining and get to somthing like the Norh east recent levels-but lower beciase their peaks are lower.

    Scott likes to believe Trump is “extra stupid”—all president are extra stupid when you do not like them. It is all about Covid. He needs to stay focused–even though there is little he can do. If we peak at cases and deaths declcline back to 500—he can focus on the marxist, interenally incorherent Dem party, and the sad sack which is Biden.

    Again, it is all about Covid. And while no one will want to hear it, and I urge Trump to hold off on it—the real death rate is some weighted average of all the comorbidiies—-as we count the flu—not the numbers we show.

    And Trump’s ecomomy mat have been “lucky”—-was Hoover’s economy unlucky or bad.

    Trump is hated by Scott because he thinks he is a random troll—nothing is that simple

  30. Gravatar of Michael Rulle Michael Rulle
    23. July 2020 at 10:38

    sorryfor typos–in a rush

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