A Simple Plan

[NanceGreggs]

It could have been handled so simply.

As soon as Covid-19 and its consequences were understood, Trump could have handled it by appointing the most highly respected doctors, scientists, and experts in the field – and then stood back and allowed them to run the show.

He could have given them free rein to oversee every aspect of the response – from securing PPEs, to setting up efficient, easily-accessible testing – and then claimed their successes as his own.

He could have bragged about his incredible wisdom in having chosen ‘the best people’ to do what was best for the country, and told his ‘base’ that they were acting under his supervision and guidance. And of course, they would have believed exactly that.

He could have let competent people contain this virus – and then taken credit for its containment.

But instead he chose to insinuate himself into the discussion by contradicting known science, and helpful suggestions about injecting bleach. Instead of praising the known experts, he chose to ignore their advice.

So the question is WHY? Why would you promote the spread of Covid-19 instead of promoting its containment via masks and social distancing? Why would you dismiss the advice of experts – knowing you could turn any victory against this plague into a PR victory for yourself in an election year?

Why would any ‘pResident’ choose between saving American lives and deliberately allowing them to die?

This is beyond the usual “because he’s an incompetent idiot” argument. This is not a matter of “he’s revving-up his base”, because they’re dying at the same rate as those determined to vote against him.

This is a deliberate and wilful act against the citizenry. It has no political upside; it has no political gain. In fact, it is having the opposite affect on voters.

So why is it happening? Why is the "pResident" willing to DO what is not only detrimental to the welfare of the nation, but the welfare of his own chances of being re-elected?

Why?

[SouthernCal_Dem]

1. Why? Excellent question.

A normal President would be doing their best to fight the virus as it would actually help them look like a real leader and win reelection.

Trump isn't doing any of that.

It almost seems like he's deliberately trying to kill Americans.

One thing we know for sure is that Putin is very happy with his guy.

[certainot]

29. if dems paid attention to limbaugh they would see he's the collusion - all putin has

to do is feed it to limbaugh and the 1500 radio stations that follow his lead, reaching 50 mil a week, and it all makes sense

trump is an empty bucket, has no brain, and his golf and dinner partner limbaugh is relaying putin instructions right in front of everyone

republicans won 9 senate seats by hyping ebola in 2014. then the new 2019 ebola died and covid came. the dumbshits thought they could control it for their benefit in november

now this dipshit will go all out. the way to end it is to destroy rw talk radio

[sprinkleeninow]

2. puppet

[intrepidity]

3. Good Fucking Question

All I've got is: because he's a malignant narcissist.

[gab13by13]

10. Yes, Mary explained it in her book,

he is a sociopath. He has no empathy and no conscience, the worst combination for a leader of our country to have. He looks upon the virus as a threat to him and him alone. He does not care if Americans die. He does not care if Americans die. He only knows that the virus is messing up his economy, is messing up his talking points, is messing up the political ads he has about his best economy ever that he can't run.

What is scarier is another theory that someone proposed; he now doesn't look upon the virus as his enemy but he is going to use the virus to rig the election, to suppress the vote or whatever. The man is sick mentally, we can't understand why he does things if we don't acknowledge that he is mentally ill.

[2naSalit]

14. She also implied that he would

just burn it all down if he can't have things his way, like losing the election. I could see it coming when the pandemic was declared, when it was first coming public, we were in the throes of an impeachment trial. For the impeachment and all the investigations show him that we don't love him and in his mind, we should die. He sees the pandemic as a mechanism to destroy his enemies, he thinks we think like he does and that we're al part of the scenery on the set.

He will do everything he can to destroy us, he has declared war on we the people and we must understand it as just that, act accordingly. So far, we're resisting well but it's going to heat up in the 115 days ahead.

[smirkymonkey]

23. I honestly believe there only one solution to this problem, or at least it would be a partial

solution, however I can't say what it is on this board. He is evil and homicidal. We haven't seen the worst of what he is capable of.

[Cha]

4. "Why would you promote the spread of Covid-19 instead of promoting its containment via masks and

social distancing?"

The big mystery.. will time tell? We've read he's been on the phone 6 times with Putin(that we know about).. over the last few months. So I would think trump wasn't doing anything Putin didn't approve of.

Only now trump has worn a damn mask to do a Photo Op at the Vets' hospital.. AFTER his polls have SUNK.. so are the "geniuses" in the WH rethinking their campaign strategy After so many have Died from COVID?

There was an msnbc "analyst" who gave him "Presidential" props for that and she got properly Scorched.

Link to tweet

Maybe trump wanted his rallies so badly he didn't want to give anyone any authority that could get in the way of that.. like Dr Fauci!

[Nevilledog]

17. +1

[griloco]

5. President Hillary would have been atop the virus from jump.

Nothing further need be said.

[tiptonic]

6. Putin

Putin wants to destroy the USA. Putin has trump by the throat. Simple enough!!

[vlyons]

7. Because he can't tolerate anyone outshining himself

being smarter, more knowledgeable, more experienced. In his world, there's only a finite amount of sunshine, and it must always only shine on himself.

His envy at others' accomplishments runs strong. It's why he's always trying to insult, minimize, and knock down others.

[NanceGreggs]

11. But he could have ...

... and would have - "outshone" everyone by claiming it was HIS expertise that put the perfect team together and that under HIS guidance and supervision, they did what he wanted done.

He needn't have lifted a finger. He could have golfed and tweeted to his heart's content, and merely showed up at the press conferences long enough to take credit for the accomplishments of others - a tack he is no stranger to.

But he didn't.

Why didn't he take the easy way out, when the 'easy way' was not only politically advantageous, but the one thing that might turn those plummeting poll numbers around?

[Cha]

25. Because trump is his own worst enemy.

[Richard58]

33. That's all quite true but---

----as we know Trump is a complete imbecile. A smart man would have done what you said, let the experts handle it and then take credit for it. But Trump is not smart enough to have figured that out. When first informed of the disease his first instinct was to wonder how this will effect his Presidency. He was smart enough to realize this would not look good in an election year. But then he screwed it up by thinking that he could deny the reality of it. You know, his "fake news" spiel. When that didn't work he said the virus was no big deal and would go away by April. When April came and went he then said it would just go away one day "like a miracle". Or that injecting lysol was a good idea. At every step along the way he made matters worse due to his arrogance and ignorance. Now he has come up with a "brilliant" way to stop the rising number of Covid cases----don't count them! Problem solved! This is going to get worse and worse because he is an inept, flaming idiot. Many more people are going to die because of him. That is my answer to your question.
By the way I LOVE your posts!

[smirkymonkey]

24. +1000

This! Absolutely.

[Dios Mio]

8. Sociopath

[bluestateboomer]

9. He must be so damaged that

He can't make the right choice even when it's simple and is obviously to his advantage. Whatever frame of reference he has is so transactional it wouldn't occur to him to cede power to someone who could do a job he couldn't. Mary Trump would probably have a lot to say on this subject.

[mercuryblues]

13. Even an idiot accidently makes the right choice, by accident on occassion

This is deliberate.

[Ms. Toad]

12. All you have to do to answer that question is to look at Ohio

Where DeWine did essentially that.

Once people got bored with the pandemic, they started threatening the experts to the point where Dr Acton resigned, started rooting for the right to go drinking with their buddies, assaulting proper wearing masks, etc.

These are the same idiots he panders to.

Now we're closing back up again, with 12 counties under mandatory mask orders, and the of them close to stay at home orders due to the dramatic increase in cases.

[Mr.Bill]

15. Because the first thing that came to his mind

was how can I make money on this? I gotta call Jared.

[tclambert]

16. Hundreds of thousands of average Americans' dying, or important people losing a little money.

such a tough moral choice. Not really. Republicans immediately choose A.

[lunatica]

18. He is only doing the exact same thing he's always done

His modus operandi means he’s fighting to win against the virus as if it were a human enemy. If you notice he first thought he could just belittle it by saying it was a hoax. Then when it didn’t go slinking off in defeat he blamed it on the Democrats. Then he deciding this was the perfect opportunity to have his rallies so he got up there on a daily basis and espoused what a great leader he was in fighting the virus. On a daily basis he read the same long list about what he had done and he expected all the experts behind him on stage would nod their heads in agreement. When they didn’t he sidelined them and/or just contradicted them with his lies.

Eventually, as the numbers of infected and deaths kept rising and the pesky reporters kept asking questions instead of acting like his base he started running away, especially when the female reporters refused to be insulted into silence.

Then he decided to just ignore the facts and simply lie because he was still trying to reprise his rallies, but that didn’t work so he just quit and decided to ignore the entire issue and act as if it was all taken care of and all was nicely business as usual. But just in case people kept blaming him he blamed it all on the WHO and quit them and decided to create rising tensions with the Chinese by blaming them.

Problem solved. He’s moved on to opening America now that it’s all behind him. In his mind all he has to do to win against his enemies is to eventually just ignore them.

[Nevilledog]

19. [phone]

[flibbitygiblets]

20. I think the short answer is the economy

Also because they f-ed up initially and then doubled down

-First they dismantled the pandemic response team (because Obama)
-Then they refused WHO COVID tests (because they wanted to make $ on their own tests, I'm guessing)
-From from there they tried to downplay the threat (because incompetence)

When that didn't work, and the shutdowns happened, and the stock market convulsed, trump realized his only claim to fame was slipping away. So he decided "people are going to have to die" (because the economy)

He also realized that this was impacting the poor and people of color disproportionately and decided that most people who'd die would be expendable to his base (because racism)

The children are next, in a couple of months.

[Tbear]

21. Why? Excellent Question and

I am eagerly waiting for the Part II. I appreciate you Nance Greggs.
My theory (developed from reading here on the DU) is that he is bleeding money from his real estate investments.
He is deeply in debt, directly or indirectly, to Putin and China and he is freaking out.
Add that to his fragile ego and we have the perfect storm to test our democracy.
My question to your "Why?" is "Will we stand ?"

[ladym55]

22. All roads lead to Putin

Donny is Putin's bitch. That is made clear over and over. What could be better? Sit back and watch Americans sicken and die--watch the economy crash--and feed the cultural divisions. I keep picturing Vlad sitting with his feet up and smiling. Donny may be stupid and annoying, but he has turned out to be a pretty good investment.

It doesn't help that Donny is a malignant narcissist, and for him, the point is the cruelty.

For me, the hardest thing is the craven and complicit Rethuglican party. Apparently, they WANT to be the pro-Covid Party. They are okay with their constituents dying and the economy tanking.

[BarbD]

26. Great question. Simple answer: He's nuts.

The next question I have is why is the Republican party enabling him? Are they all beholden to Putin?

[Pobeka]

27. Why is it *still* happening? Boggles the mind.

He'd be a frigging hero if he shut down the USA and starved the virus of hosts, and we could actually go back to nearly normal with contact tracing/testing.

But, ya know, the economy is the stock market, not the people who go to work for a living. Kill the workers, save the market.

This is what idiots in charge are actually thinking. I think they are incapable acquiescing to actual logic that challenges their world view.

That's the strategy until it eventually kills both a lot more americans and the stock market too.

[EleanorR]

28. Because authoritarians use crises to consolidate power not to help citizens

And that consolidation helps them steal the next election. Brazil, Poland, Hungary, Russia, now the US.

[certainot]

30. and talk radio was key and still is

bolsanaro credited the 'brazilian limbaugh' for his success - a guy who lives iives in virginia - broadcasting to brazil

and like after katrina dems will let all those radio stations attack their candidates until they lose

[NanceGreggs]

31. I'm not understanding ...

... how plummeting poll numbers for Trump and the Republicans puts them in a position to steal an election.

[hadEnuf]

35. THIS

Trump is trying to make things worse in order to lock in his power. Civil unrest, mass arrests of the "boogeymen", chaos. All the things that could likely cause a crack down using police and / or troops. He already tried it with the BLM protests.

The GOP will continue to go along with him as they are aspiring authoritarians at heart anyway. He is their means to an end.

[OverBurn]

32. Putin's Bitch

[Lock him up.]

34. +1 THIS

BRING JUSTICE BACK AGAIN
RICO TRUMPs & ACCOMPLICES
THEN LOCK 'EM ALL UP!*&1%*!!