The First Postmodern Pandemic freebeacon.com/columns/the-fi…
The global economy is far more integrated than in the past. And a worldwide broadcast, digital, and social media exist that would have been fanciful to President Wilson. This system distributes misinformation, incentivizes hysteria and partisanship, ...
....and expects immaculate performance from the government while ignoring, dismissing, and excusing its own failures. Dealing with "community spread" is hard enough. Try doing it while watching Don Lemon.
We were better off when the media focused on impeachment. Now that it is interested in coronavirus, a familiar pattern will set in. Data will be publicized without the slightest sense of proportion.
The most outrageous scenarios will receive the most attention. Speculation will be paraded as fact. And every conceivable negative outcome, from infections to deaths to plunging stock values,...
...from reasonable and warranted travel bans to unanticipated diplomatic and economic fallout, will be related back to the president in an effort to damage his reelection.
Financial journalists who see bears around every corner now point to coronavirus as the irrepressible agent of recession. A columnist for the New York Times says, "Let's Call It Trumpvirus." CNN slams the president's coronavirus task force for its "lack of diversity."
The Washington Post transcribes Democrat talking points when it suggests VP Mike Pence is incapable of overseeing the government's efforts because he opposes needle-sharing programs. Among the reasons Trump is said to have weakened public health? He defunded Planned Parenthood.
The Democrats criticize Trump for budget cuts that never happened. Chuck Schumer plots a campaign to bash the president for a paltry supplemental request, only to have Trump say Congress can appropriate whatever it wants.
Elizabeth Warren introduces a bill to "transfer all funding for @realDonaldTrump's racist border wall" to coronavirus defense. Has she seen her doctor lately?
This isn't a serious response. It's a tantrum.
This isn't a serious response. It's a tantrum.
@realDonaldTrump There are plenty of additional things the Trump administration could do to prepare for an outbreak. My American Enterprise Institute colleague, former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D., has several recommendations, including allowing for more testing.
@realDonaldTrump What the media and Democrats offer instead are dispatches from Resistance Land—that magical place where the border is open, Medicare is for all, the New Deal is Green, and coronavirus isn't the problem, Donald Trump is.
@realDonaldTrump Knowledge of the physical universe has grown exponentially since 1918. So have the means by which we are able to express discontent, fear, blame, and unreason. Which is why I do have one prediction about the weeks ahead:
@realDonaldTrump Our politics will remain nasty, polarized, overheated, and dispiriting. Even as Mother Nature reminds us who's really in charge.
