Thread by @kurteichenwald

1. 2.5 weeks ago, when Trump, GOP & Fox began lying & laughing about COVID-19, I knew we were screwed. First time I heard GOPr here say "Hoax!'" I called my kids & said, go into 90% isolation. No travel, no restaurants, try to work at home, get 2 weeks of non-perishable food....

2...& keep it on reserve. Dont eat supply unless absolutely necessary. No travel. Wife & I stopped going out except for groceries; no one else allowed in our house. Had everyone buy thermometers, soap, other medical-related supplies. Taught everyone how to wash hands properly...

3...when I went to vote (one time I have gone out other than grocery shopping) I saw GOPrs taking licenses from people, wearing no gloves. I told them, these elderly people, they were endangering themselves. They gave a pompous smile and said "oh, everything's fine." ...

4...when I saw someone who looked like the typical Texan Fox watcher screaming at people not to buy even one bottle of disinfecting cleaner because COVID-19 was all a lie, I upped our isolation.

My wife and I wash hands 10X a day, kids and one's fiancé told to do same....

5..people thought I was being ridiculous. But there was one thing I knew: Republicans were going to kill an ungodly number of people because, at the very time we were supposed to be taking mild precautions, they were essentially urging their supporters to take none. Trump...

6..people were on TV actually *ridiculing* Biden for taking the actions health experts are telling everyone to take. Responsibility is cause for ridicule.

GOPrs and Fox and people like Giuliani are still desperately trying to tell people this is not so serious.....

7...I can't comprehend it. What I do know is this - the GOP has exacerbated the oncoming spread of disease through irresponsible focus on short-term politics. Had they not been doing this, had Trump been putting out message telling people how to help control the spread...

8...I wouldn't have drawn in so quickly, or adopted so many rules for my wife and urged my kids to adopt them (they did) as if we were in an epidemic. The reason: No one knew how many people were sick. No one was trying to find out. People were being encouraged to be reckless...

9...I advised people that, if they encountered any Republicans, to ask them what they thought of COVID-19 before going near them. If they laughed and said any form of "hoax, not dangerous" I told them to stay away, that they were a potential dangerous source of disease....

10...at one point early on, my wife asked me, "Why are you going so far on this now?"

I replied: "The President is lying. The GOP is incompetent. People are being told by Fox to ignore it. There is criminal negligence going on that is likely going to cause this epidemic....

11...to explode in the USA. If we had a real president, someone who was focusing on management, and not lying that everything was contained, if he was telling people how to be safe instead of telling them there was nothing to fear, if GOP encouraged personal protection instead...

12...of demeaning it, I wouldn't have done any of this but start washing hands. But half the people in this country are being told to unknowingly take risks. It's like to 'own the libs' they are all going to start licking doorknobs. This will be out of control very soon. And....

13...there is absolutely no reason to believe that, when things are bad and there are really hard choices to make, that Trump, the GOP and Fox will be willing to say they were wrong, that this is dangerous, that people are going to die. Which means that, when all of these....

14...people who believed it was unimportant and a hoax or the common cold (or now that it is just the seasonal flu) got infected, it would be too late. I have no faith in a government that cant even bother to get testing right so we can know what is going on. I hope I'm wrong...

15...but because of Trump, the GOP and Fox's immaturity and refusal to listen to experts or address this seriously, this is going to the worst respiratory outbreak since 1918. Again, I could be wrong. I hope Im wrong. But when people have no leadership, or are led off a cliff....

16...you have to prepare for the worst when it involves an infectious disease. And by the time GOP & Trump stop seeing this as a PR or spin issue, it will be too late. If I'm wrong, we lost nothing. If I'm right, many, many people could die."

I now firmly believe I was right...

17...what the Republican Part and Donald John Trump and Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh and Fox News will, I fear, prove to have been nothing less than manslaughter on a national scale.

We COULD have managed this, if we had the proper testing and willingness to act on the...

18...severity of what was going on. Before this is all over, absent extreme action by Trump, GOP & Fox will be back, spinning & spinning, trying to wash the blood off their hands.

But if Trump doesnt act tonight, my last doubts as to whether it is too late will be gone.

fin