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Trump’s Failing Coronavirus Response is Standard Issue Republicanism in 2020
Trump’s Failing Coronavirus Response is Standard Issue Republicanism in 2020
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. “He’s got a certain talent for this,” President Donald Trump said of Vice President Mike Pence when entrusting him with the…talkingpointsmemo.com
“He’s got a certain talent for this,” President Donald Trump said of Vice President Mike Pence when entrusting him with the response to the COVID-19 coronavirus crisis. Pence’s perpetual grimace is the new face of the U.S. response to the coronavirus, after a chaotic week when the White House health team’s internecine squabbles and revolving-door corruption got a bit too public for Trump’s comfort. GOP operatives are likely relieved that their “adult in the room” has taken over. After all, Pence may be a fundamentalist zealot, but he is at least an actual “normal” policy-maker.
But a Pence-led response is dangerous, not in spite of, but precisely because he is a typical Republican. His coronavirus task force — which includes several Pence loyalists — is not particularly Trumpian. Its members are long-time political operatives, some of whom even have medical degrees. For the most part, their problem is not incompetence. It’s that they apply their competence and considerable resources in exactly the way a “normal” Republican administration would: protection for the powerful, callousness for the afflicted, and a special disdain for the “other.” In the Pence coronavirus task force, we have a clear window into what a Pence presidency would look like. The answer should scare you.
Trump's stopping the flights from China early on prevented the explosion of infections that the EU has, thank you President Trump.