Thread by @Zathras3

The United States passed a quarter of a million offically reported #COVID19 deaths today. Counting people who died at home, and others who died from other causes because #COVID19 cases were swamping local hospitals, we actually passed that milestone weeks ago. [a thread]

At this moment, the President is preoccupied with watching TV, plotting to overturn the results of the election he lost by millions of votes, and making transition to a new administration as difficult as possible. He hasn't met with his White House #COVID19 task force in months.

This may be just as well, as the Trump administration's preference is to let states fight the nationwide pandemic and take the blame for necessary restrictions, while not coordinating anything. The one really useful thing task force members could do -- provide regular televised

....briefings to the public with official information on #COVID19 and recommendations as to preventive measures -- Trump will not allow them to do, as such briefings would put other people in the spotlight he is sure belongs to him.

Trump has the full support of his party in the despicable course of action he is following. Republican members of the House and Senate will not call for him to resign (which he really ought to do), concede (which anyone else who lost an election would already have done)....

....or cease his barrage of frivolous lawsuits and transparently false conspiracy theories. They've taken no more responsibility for fighting the pandemic than Trump has; the voters rewarded them for it two weeks ago, so Republicans in Congress are feeling pretty good.

The federal government is mere weeks away from having to shut down because Congress has not passed appropriations bills -- Republicans in the Senate didn't want to act on those before the election. Economic relief to individuals, businesses, and state/local governments....

.....battered by the pandemic is nowhere in sight either -- Republicans in the Senate didn't want to act on Democratic demands for relief before the election, and don't want to act on them now, because they think a collapsed economy will damage the new Biden administration.

Senate Republicans are still anxious to put more white, conservative, Trump-loving lawyers on the federal bench -- it would be too much to say they are working hard on this (staff does most of the actual work) but judicial confirmations, unlike legislation, are on the calendar.

Trump appointees throughout the administration are busy seeking out officials who have been disloyal -- to Trump, of course -- for revenge firings. Trump has had an impulse to pull American troops out of Afghanistan: nothing planned or strategic, and absolutely not....

....in consultation with American allies who also have troops in Afghanistan. This is just a bug-out, done so Trump can tell the chumps who go to his next rally that he brought troops home as he promised in 2016.

Ethiopia is sliding toward civil war. Central America has been ravaged by two monster hurricanes in as many weeks. China is snuffing out the last remnants of freedom in Hong Kong. The American government is silent about all of this, but the Secretary of State has time for....

....visiting the West Bank to celebrate Israeli settlements there, and sitting down with Middle Eastern clerics friendly with Russia to plug "religious freedom" for what he knows will be a gullible audience of white evangelicals back home.

Trump administration officials in the Interior Department are scrambling to get drilling permits issued for the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge; there is an oil glut, so there's little sense to be drilling there now. But it will upset the liberals. That's so important.

So this is a bit of the landscape as America passes the official milestone of a quarter million #COVID19 dead. Can you imagine what you would have thought, if you'd been told a year ago where we'd be today?

I would have thought the irresponsibility, pettiness, and malice of Trump administration officials unsurprising. I'd have thought a historic national disaster, met with such ineptitude by a President and dull-witted indifference by his party, would have produced.....

....a politically transformative election. It didn't, not even close. This was shocking to me -- grateful though I am that Joe Biden will be the new President. Finally, I think my heart would have frozen at the thought of a quarter million dead. I mean, my God.

A quarter million dead is more than America suffered in any of its wars but two, in all its history. 250,000 is almost as many people as live in Madison, or in Ft. Wayne, IN. More than a thousand more Americans die from #COVID19 every day.

I don't mean to overlook the tremendous economic damage done by the pandemic, its disruption to Americans' daily lives and work and families, or the suffering of the many infected by the virus but not killed. The number of #COVID19 dead is many things.

One of them is a kind of symbol for this tremendous national disaster: one that other developed countries avoided and America didn't, because other countries have political leaders committed to the public welfare and we do not.

It's a bitter thing to contemplate. It looks as if we'll be contemplating it for some time. A year from now we may stand among a largely vaccinated, immunized population, gradually repairing the damage done in 2020. I hope we never forget how 250,000 dead feels. [end]

Addendum: @COVID19Tracking reports an additional 1,971 Americans died of #COVID19 just today. Meanwhile, the President on whose watch this happened is preoccupied with trying to subvert the election he lost two whole weeks ago.

https://twitter.com/COVID19Tracking/status/1329593966212296705?s=20