Thread by @richardhine

1M US dead didn’t have to happen

The US having a higher death-rate-per-capita than any other wealthy nation didn’t have to happen

Trump was the worst possible President to lead America through a pandemic

By March 2020, he had already botched the nation’s #Covid19 response...🧵

February 2020 was the month in which Covid-19 “seeded” in NY, leading to a devastating first wave.

Trump spent the month golfing, holding MAGA rallies, visiting his own resorts, attending GOP fundraisers, and taking an election-year ego-stroking trip to India. (2/)

Trump lied us into a pandemic.

His failure to take Covid seriously, his failure to test, his failure to invoke the Defense Production Act, and his frequent promotion of “fairy tale” cures guaranteed that the pandemic would hit America harder than any other wealthy nation. (3/)

We should #NeverForget that Donald “Stable Genius” Trump and Jared “Boy Wonder” Kushner would have gladly transformed the #Covid_19 pandemic into a “Blue State Genocide” if they could have. (4/) gregolear.substack.com/p/blue-state-g…

On 8 March 2020, I began compiling a list of the most idiotic things Trump had said about the #coronavirus. The list quickly got turned into a popular meme. And things only got more idiotic from there: thedailyedge.substack.com/p/american-idi…

From the start, Rupert Murdoch went to great lengths to protect himself and his family from the real pandemic.

Meanwhile, Fox News viewers were fed a diet of alternative facts and Trump-inspired stupidity.

The Daily Show soon dubbed it a #Pandumbic (6/)

Thanks to the deadly lies pushed by #BloodOnHisHandsHannity, @JudgeJeanine, @IngrahamAngle and other Fox News hosts, the number of Republicans taking #COVID19 seriously plummeted from 72% to 40% between February and March 2020. (7/)

29 April 2020: With more than 1 million US cases and more than 59,000 dead, Jared Kushner declared victory over the virus, stating confidently that we were on the “other side of the medical aspect” and it’s all been a huge success. (8/)

In June 2020, with 128,000 Americans dead, I highlighted research showing Fox News viewers—& Hannity viewers in particular—had a delusional belief in Trump’s intelligence, combined with very low concern for protecting “others” beyond their own family. (9/) thedailyedge.substack.com/p/fox-news-and…

Trump’s relentless incompetence and psychopathic recklessness—aided and abetted by Fox News—turned Year One of the #COVID19 pandemic into an unmitigated disaster for America.

After Trump’s 2020 election defeat, any thought of stopping the spread was out the window. (10/)

Between Election Day and Inauguration Day, #COVID19 cases in the US multiplied 2.5X, from under 10M to more than 25M. Meanwhile, the death toll soared by 79%, from 243,530 to a previously unimaginable 435,809, more deaths from Covid than America’s combat fatalities in WWII. (11/)

Trump made sure Biden was inheriting a situation in which the virus was spreading out of control in a Covid-weary population containing millions of angry anti-masking, Big-Lie-believing Americans who had been thoroughly dumbed-down by misinformation. (12/) thedailyedge.substack.com/p/a-trump-crea…

Early in the pandemic, it became apparent Covid was disproportionately killing people in low-income jobs who didn’t have the privilege of working from home & Black people, whose health had long been impoverished through centuries of structural racism theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/… (13/)

The elderly were also at extreme risk.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick didn’t even wait for us to get through Trump’s “15 Days to Slow the Spread” in March 2020 before telling us we should be willing to sacrifice our grandparents for the sake of Wall St. (14/) thedailyedge.substack.com/p/pro-life-now…

With 614,000+ grandparents dead from #COVID19, the “Sacrifice Grandma” wing of the GOP has gotten its wish.

Millions of grandchildren have lost "a precious piece of their birthright: the feeling that they are totally and unconditionally adored." 💔 (15/) scientificamerican.com/article/the-de…

Clearly, the realization that the virus was disproportionately killing “older, sicker, poorer, Blacker or browner” Americans affected Trump’s political calculations in the first year of Covid—and the GOP’s calculations in the pandemic’s second year. (16/) theatlantic.com/health/archive…

Then—plot twist— Fox News disinfo and reckless GOP Governors began causing white #MAGA voters to start dying in higher and higher numbers.

The GOP/Fox leadership was literally sacrificing voters they could "afford to lose" in deep Red counties. (17/)
thedailyedge.substack.com/p/the-pro-life…

‼️ Before October 2021, whites represented a lower share of #COVID19 deaths vs. their population share.

But between Oct. 2021 and Feb. 2022, in a stunning shift, the % of white deaths soared to 63%, despite whites representing only 60% of the US population.

Chart via @KFF:

It’s clear that the anti-science, pro-death policies of many GOP Governors, particularly #Abbott in Texas and #DeSantis in Florida, the 2 largest Red States, played an enormous part in encouraging the spread of the virus even in the age of vaccines. (19/) thedailyedge.substack.com/p/covid-crimin…

On 11 March 2022, new research from @axios and @ipsosus revealed the other cause of #MAGA America’s staggering #COVID19 death toll—and why gullible Trump voters were particularly susceptible to catching and dying from the virus... (20/) thedailyedge.substack.com/p/an-incalcula…

22 months ago, The New York Times described 100,000 deaths as “an incalculable loss.”

#COVID19 has now claimed 1,000,000 US victims, a death toll that represents “an incalculable loss” times ten... (21/)

How many of the 82 million cases and one million US deaths could have been prevented if Fox News had simply presented the facts about the virus?

How different would the past two years have been if the GOP had put public health ahead of politics?
thedailyedge.substack.com/p/an-incalcula… (22/)