Trump and the astroturf protests: An ugly, cynical new strategy to divide America

[marmar]

from Salon:


Trump and the astroturf protests: An ugly, cynical new strategy to divide America
Stoking divisions and driving a new explosion in the pandemic: Republicans think they can win through sheer chaos

Heather Digby Parton
April 20, 2020 1:55PM (UTC)


President Trump's daily coronavirus briefing rallies aren't even attempting to be relevant to the ongoing pandemic anymore. To the extent it even comes up, it's entirely Trump bragging about anything that's gone right and blaming others for everything that's gone wrong. If you want to know the latest information about the emergency, you'll need to look elsewhere. These are Trump campaign rallies done for the strict purpose of energizing his base.

If you're reading this, you have probably read and heard vast amounts of reporting revealing the overwhelming failure of the Trump administration in this crisis. Just this weekend we learned that CDC officials were actually embedded with the World Health Organization in January and repeatedly alerted the U.S. government about the coronavirus outbreak, which completely undermines Trump's attack on the organization.

Unfortunately, the foot-dragging and the errors continue. The testing that everyone but Trump acknowledges must be in place before the economy can come back to life is still not available. Hospitals and first responders are still in dire need of medical equipment and protective gear. If the Trump administration pushes people back out of their homes prematurely, there's an excellent chance we'll have another outbreak well before we've recovered from the first one.

It's now obvious that will happen, at least in some places. In Jacksonville, Florida, officials opened the beaches and people flooded back out, with no masks and in close quarters. All over the country there have been small but vocal protests during the last few days, demanding that governors open their states immediately. ............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2020/04/20/trump-and-the-astroturf-protests-an-ugly-cynical-new-strategy-to-divide-america/

[GeorgeGist]

1. Dead or Alive

Quite a division.

[appalachiablue]

2. Funded by gun rts groups, conserv organizations like FreedomWorks

'Reopen, liberate, no quarantine'!!