General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Bob Woodward sat on this audiotape for 7 months [View all]I agree. Look at how people are attacking Woodward now? Does anyone think they would have listened to him back then? He's not a doctor, he's not an expert. People only would have accused him of the same things they are accusing him of now.
Trump and the republicans would not have changed their behavior. They would have gone with exactly the same playbook and their cult would have followed them in exactly the same way. The media would have been acting out the same scenario and I doubt very much anything would have changed much. BECAUSE TRUMP WOULD NOT HAVE DONE ANYTHING DIFFERENTLY! He and Kushner and the rest of them wanted people to die. They wanted to blame the Democratic Governors and use this virus as a political wedge.
TRUMP was the president! He was the one with the power to change the response. Woodward could have screamed at the top of his lungs and I doubt very much it would have made one bit of difference. The same people who would have heeded his warnings are the same people who were likely to take it seriously back then. The media would have done a hatchet job on him and people would have been just as confused.
I don't think the guy (Woodward) is the most ethical person in the world, but I think his motives may have had more than just selling a book. Keep in mind that he did not have knowledge of how this virus was going to progress back then either. I just don't believe he was that prescient.
He is not an epidemiologist and did not have access to a fraction of the info that Trump did, so I am giving him the benefit of the doubt that he did not know how devastating this disease would be at that point. He may just have held on to it as his "trump" card in case things got bad enough in order to expose Trump right before the election in order to finally get rid of him.