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Excellent article by @davidfrum that details the timeline of Trump’s incompetence and dereliction of duty. Let’s dive into some of his most important points: 1/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/americans-are-paying-the-price-for-trumps-failures/609532/
"Throughout the crisis, the top priority of the president, everyone who works for him, & his surrogates/propagandists, has been protecting his ego....this psychological deformity has mutated into a deadly strategic vulnerability for the United States." 2/ https://twitter.com/Nick_Carmody/status/1194586898334793730
"Denial became the unofficial policy of the administration’s propagandists...
(Limbaugh): "The coronavirus is being weaponized as yet another element to bring down Trump,...the truth…Yeah, I’m dead right on this...[it] is the common cold”...
3/ https://twitter.com/Nick_Carmody/status/1233769142970269696
(Limbaugh): "The coronavirus is being weaponized as yet another element to bring down Trump,...the truth…Yeah, I’m dead right on this...[it] is the common cold”...
3/ https://twitter.com/Nick_Carmody/status/1233769142970269696
Reminder.....Limbaugh is not a scientist, he’s a disc jockey :....7/.... https://twitter.com/Nick_Carmody/status/1233769144312451077
At this stage of his short, miserable life, Limbaugh is essentially a WWII era Japanese fighter pilot who, instead of flying a plane into the “USS St. Lo” (aircraft carrier sunk in WWII), he's flying a propaganda/disinformation Kamikaze mission into the USS "objective reality" 8/
An unintended consequences of Trump’s/Right Wing Media's lying is that...
Frum:“The people most victimized by [Trump’s] lies/fantasies are the people who trusted him, the more conservative Americans who harmed themselves to prove their loyalty to Trump.”9/ https://twitter.com/Nick_Carmody/status/1244273701664759811
Frum:“The people most victimized by [Trump’s] lies/fantasies are the people who trusted him, the more conservative Americans who harmed themselves to prove their loyalty to Trump.”9/ https://twitter.com/Nick_Carmody/status/1244273701664759811
More Frum: "Trump & his supporters now say he was distracted from responding to the crisis by his impeachment. Even if...true, pleading that the defense of your past egregious misconduct led to your present gross failures is not much of an excuse"...10/ https://twitter.com/Nick_Carmody/status/1245001107396530176
But perhaps the most important observation by Frum are comments made by Trump during the 3/28 speech where he made the "Hoax" comment. Trump: “You hear 35 and 40,000 people and we’ve lost nobody and you wonder, the press is in hysteria mode.” 11/
This is important because as Frum points out: "On Feb 28, very few Americans had heard of an estimated death toll of 35,000 to 40,000, but Trump had heard it."
This means that as of February 28th,Trump was already aware that tens of thousand would die. 12/
This means that as of February 28th,Trump was already aware that tens of thousand would die. 12/
The crucial take away in all of this is that the benchmark for success in fighting Covid-19 should have been 35,000-40,000 deaths….and that revised 100,000-240,000 estimate was revised to account for Trump’s dereliction of duty. 13/
The current model of 64,000 dead Americans is not a victory for Trump, it’s an indictment that hangs 25,000-30,000 needless deaths around Trump’s neck (64,000 minus 35-40K).....14/
So don’t fall for the propaganda, the revisionist history, and the alternate reality....because the “people saying to do nothing”…..were the voices in Trump’s head that directed him to do exactly that for 70 days…..15/ https://twitter.com/Nick_Carmody/status/1245117008796168197
The fact that the death toll will come in under 100,000 isn’t something that is miraculously occurring b/c of Trump……it’s something that is occurring in spite of him…..because states didn’t listen to his lies, and took early preventative actions. 16/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/04/07/coronavirus-california-crosses-16000-cases-new-study-cuts-projected-death-total/
It has been suggested by @glennkirschner2 that Trump could have criminal exposure for homicide or manslaughter.
17/ https://twitter.com/glennkirschner2/status/1239848289912184832
17/ https://twitter.com/glennkirschner2/status/1239848289912184832
I’m a non-practicing attorney who identifies more as a psychologist so I’ll defer to his expertise. But my original thought was that it would be difficult to attribute causation to any one individual death. 18/ https://twitter.com/Nick_Carmody/status/1239906467362287616
Other attorneys have suggested there could be civil liability. Trump’s statement about the potential 35-40K deaths is a “material fact” that shows an awareness/notice of the existence of a danger that either he knew or should have known about. This created a legal duty to act.19/
Trump not only failed to act, he engaged in behavior that exacerbated the risk of that danger occurring. And based on his own statements, Trump’s negligent/reckless failure to act very well could make him responsible for 25,000-30,000 deaths.
20/
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Other Coronavirus threads: https://twitter.com/Nick_Carmody/status/1239863489570766854
