1/ This is obviously racist, but it’s also an opportunistic gimmick to change the subject away from Trump’s massive managerial failures on corona. The Trump GOP has already discounted the costs of racist signaling; this stuff won't lose them any voters they haven't already lost.
2/ So using race-baiting to shift the debate towards China/race/xenophobia/foreign threats - traditional Trump areas of trouble-making and controversy - has little new downside but does helpfully muddy the waters about Trump’s presidency-breaking failures on corona.
3/ So commenters are suggesting I am overlooking China’s role; I am not:
a) The CCP is the most responsible actor for this disaster, obviously. It repressed front-line medical information back when it really mattered late last year; it blocked the WHO from entering China; it
a) The CCP is the most responsible actor for this disaster, obviously. It repressed front-line medical information back when it really mattered late last year; it blocked the WHO from entering China; it
4/ fought travel bans. All this helped conrona spread and muddied information about it. China is now lying about all this, because the CCP, like Trump, instinctively, blame-shifts. @brianklaas has called corona Trump’s Chernobyl. That is an even more accurate description of the
5/ CCP.
b) The CCP is happy to play the race game with Trump. The more all of us are talking about race, the more we are not focusing on the gross managerial irresponsibility of both the CCP and the Trump administration.That’s what all this stuff – calling it the 'kung-flu,'
b) The CCP is happy to play the race game with Trump. The more all of us are talking about race, the more we are not focusing on the gross managerial irresponsibility of both the CCP and the Trump administration.That’s what all this stuff – calling it the 'kung-flu,'
6/ criticizing Americans as racist for discussing its origins in China – is about. It is a massive misdirection effort, playing respectively on the racism of Trump voters and the antiracism of his opponents.
c) The CCP is itself grossly racist and reactionary. Its belaboring of
c) The CCP is itself grossly racist and reactionary. Its belaboring of
7/ racism in the West is entirely self-serving. As the party’s ideology shifted after Tiananmen Square from communism to nationalism, that has been accompanied by the inevitable supremacist thinking (just go watch ‘American Factory’) and the party has engaged in extraordinary,
8/ overt systemic racism – internal colonialism really – in Tibet and Xinjiang.
d) Calling it the ‘China virus’ plays into the hands of both these actors – GOP and CCP – trying to change the subject from their scandalous, death toll-worsening incompetence. Both would prefer a
d) Calling it the ‘China virus’ plays into the hands of both these actors – GOP and CCP – trying to change the subject from their scandalous, death toll-worsening incompetence. Both would prefer a
9/ contentious, angry race debate in the West instead of a focus on the mitigation failures, avoidable deaths, and lunatic conspiracy theories both have worsened through their instinctive a**-covering antics. Don’t be manipulated. Just call it corona like everybody else.
10/ If ur curious just how little Trump is doing, literally right now, read this: nymag.com/intelligencer/…. The negligence right there in front of you. And I gotta say that the most absurd MAGA responses to this thread are that swine flu & MERS came from CN too. Good grief, people
11/ So the latest MAGA critique of this thread is that I’m a ‘shill’ for the CCP, bc I’m ‘parroting’ its media organs’ talking points.
No:
a) Propagandists prefer truth to lies, bc truth is easier to defend, and ideologues desperately want ideology to comport with reality.
No:
a) Propagandists prefer truth to lies, bc truth is easier to defend, and ideologues desperately want ideology to comport with reality.
12/ The CCP will lie if it must for politics - as it is on corona’s origins - but truth is optimal.
b) In this case, it’s transparently obvious that Trump/Fox/the GOP are using race to change the subject from Trump’s managerial failures on corona. T has been race-baiting for
b) In this case, it’s transparently obvious that Trump/Fox/the GOP are using race to change the subject from Trump’s managerial failures on corona. T has been race-baiting for
13/ attention and to dissemble for decades, as both a biz man & POTUS. This hardly some stellar new insight by me. @gcaw points out other analysts who also identify Trump’s race-baiting-to-change-the-subject gimmick. Are we all tools of the CCP?
c) If you look at my writing on
c) If you look at my writing on
14/ the topic I know best - North Korea - I have a decade-long record criticizing China’s callous instrumentalization of NK orwellianism for minor geopolitical gain, as well as its flim-flaming on NK’s nuke & missile programs. (Read here: asiansecurityblog.wordpress.com.) I’m not a full-
15/ blown China hawk. I still think we can avoid a Cold War repeat out here. But there’s little in all that writing to suggest I’m some hack for China.
