Donald Trump is undoubtedly - & by far - the worst President in US history.
Despite his bitter, fanatical & delusional supporters, the whole world - & most Americans - know this to be true.
It is now beyond a shadow of any doubt.
During the Great Recession of 2007-9, the US economy lost approximately 9 million jobs.
By April, the pandemic recession had seen nearly 10 million unemployment claims in just two weeks, & the unemployment rate was 13% - the highest since the Great Depression ended 80 years ago.
Far worse is the human carnage.
The richest nation on earth has more confirmed #coronavirus cases than anywhere else.
Trump claimed on February 26th: “Within a couple of days, it’s going to be down to close to zero. That’s a pretty good job we’ve done.”
In April he argued that if the death toll was 100,000 to 200,000 — higher than the combined US fatalities in all of its wars since 1945 — it would be proof that he’d done “a very good job.”
279,000 Americans have died - so far - from #COVID19. A number which could still double.
His handling of the pandemic has been an abject fiasco because the #coronavirus was the most foreseeable catastrophe in US history.
9/11 caused 2,606 deaths in the World Trade Center & surrounding area.
2,777 #COVID19-related deaths in the #USA is the single-day record.
The warnings about the Pearl Harbor & 9/11 were obvious only in retrospect.
With #coronavirus, it didn’t require any top-secret intelligence to see what was coming.
The alarm was sounded in January by his own advisors, by experts in the media, & by Democrat Joe Biden:
The Trump administration received its first formal notification of the outbreak of the #coronavirus in China on January 3rd.
Within days, US spy agencies were signaling the seriousness of the threat to America in the President’s Daily Brief.
But Trump wasn’t listening.
Health & Human Services Secretary Alex Azar briefed Trump on January 18th, telling colleagues that Trump believed he was ‘alarmist’: he couldn't get Trump to focus on #COVID19.
On January 22nd, Trump lied “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China.”
In the days and weeks after Azar alerted him about the virus, Trump spoke at eight rallies and golfed six times as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
Trump’s failure to focus sowed significant public confusion & contradicted the urgent messages of public health experts.”
His inaction also allowed critical failures in rolling out enough tests or stockpiling sufficient protective equipment & ventilators.
South Korea & the United States discovered their first #cornavirus cases on the same day.
South Korea now has just 540 dead, the #USA, 279,012.
This fiasco is monumental.
Inevitably, he blamed others for his abject failure, including China, the media, governors, Barack Obama & the impeachment managers.
His mantra is: “I don’t take responsibility at all.”
He's a corrupt liar, & his presidency has been cataclysmic.
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A THREAD on disturbing fascist tendencies in Britain, which should concern us all.
Cosmopolitan conservatives often support international cooperation & admired elite culture in other countries, but throughout history, Fascists espouse extreme nationalism & cultural parochialism.
Fascist ideologues teach that national identity is the foundation of individual identity & should not be corrupted by foreign influences, especially if they are left-wing.
For example, Nazism condemned Marxist & liberal internationalisms as threats to German national unity.
Fascists in general want to replace internationalist class solidarity with nationalist class collaboration.
Unlike democratic conservatives, fascists accuse their political opponents of being less “patriotic” than they, sometimes even labeling them “traitors.”
Results of elections over the last five years signal to Progressives that we cannot simply continue thinking in traditional ways, proposing the usual, conventional solutions & hoping the pendulum could shift in their favour.
As a result of growing socio-economic inequality; the acceleration of economic, social & technological changes; changes in the voter base of social democratic parties; as well as numerous other global trends, many liberal democracies are led by populist politicians.
What to do?
In the EU, roughly a quarter of likely voters vote for populist politicians, whose actions centre on fighting against some outside enemy, the rejection of political pluralism & the irreconcilable conflict between the “people” & the elites - all very reminiscent of 1930s Germany.
Fascinating, wide-ranging analysis by @jemgilbert on the strengths, weaknesses & challenges facing the contemporary Left, on both sides of the Atlantic.
The professional political class, & the interests it represents (finance capital/Big Tech) have fought off a democratic assault by convincing affluent professionals that the Left is a threat to their most cherished values: meritocratic, individualistic, cosmopolitan liberalism.
"The world-view of older voters with low-education is heavily shaped by the power of the tabloid press & its ideological allies online in the UK; by the media constellation organised around Fox News in the US."
It's never been more obvious that many if not most of the accounts liking & amplifying controversial views & disinformation are accounts that have either been dormant then suddenly started puking out conspiracies, or they're brand new accounts.
My tweet is NOT about ignoring legitimate concerns, it's about the fact that a key objective of British people's enemies (within & outside Britain) is to stir up division & fear. Disinformation IS being amplified. A scared & divided population is easy to exploit & hard to handle.
Here in the UK most people aren't familiar with Trump-fanatic 'Dan Bongini', but he regularly features in lists of top-performing link posts on @Facebook. Which given FB's reach, is terrifying.
In 2018, he said "My entire life right now is about owning the libs. That's it."
Bongino has called the investigation of the Russian interference in the 2016 US elections a "total scam," and is a proponent of the Spygate conspiracy theory.