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Trump Says Reopening Economy More Important Than Human Life

In his continuing effort to write his own Onion articles, Donald Trump trod dopily around an Arizona mask factory without wearing a mask yesterday while “Live and Let Die” played in the background:

During his campaign stop, Trump explicitly shrugged at the deaths he will cause by reopening the economy too early:

“There’ll be more death, that the virus will pass, with or without a vaccine. And I think we’re doing very well on the vaccines but, with or without a vaccine, it’s going to pass, and we’re going to be back to normal,” Trump said.

There is no evidence so far that, in the absence of a vaccine, the virus “will pass” in a way that allows the country to return to a pre-coronavirus “normal.” In fact, it’s the opposite. Trump’s own top scientists say they believe the virus will come back in the fall and may even prove to come back every season like the flu.

But the president argued that not reopening businesses also costs people their lives, in the form of drug overdoses and suicides.

“People are dying the other way, too.” said Trump. “When you look at what’s happened with drugs, it goes up. When you look at suicides, I mean, take a look at what’s going on. People are losing their jobs. We have to bring it back and that’s what we’re doing.”

There is currently no documented epidemic of suicide, although experts say it’s likely that a mental health crisis is looming.

…“The people of our country are warriors,” Trump said during a roundtable earlier in the day. “I’m not saying anything is perfect. Yes, will some people be affected? Yes. Will some people be affected badly? Yes. But we have to get our country opened and we have to get it open soon.”

…Trump’s acknowledgement that reopening the country would likely cost lives represents a shifting White House calculus about risk and reward, given the economic hardship that the closure of most businesses in most states has caused over the past month [Christina Wilkie, “Trump Says ‘There’ll Be More Death’ from Coronavirus, But Reopening Is Worth It,” CNBC, 2020.05.05].

Among all the ways we can read this stunning hypocrisy, Trump is apparently ceding the pro-life argument that aborting a pregnancy because one can’t afford to miss work and raise another child should be illegal. Just live and let die, says Donald.

Donald Trump has moved beyond shooting someone on Fifth Avenue and seeing if anyone cares. He’s graduated to testing his followers by killing tens of thousands of Americans with his pro-business policy.

24 Comments

  1. Donald Pay

    The armchair General in the war on coronavirus has decided to send up the orange flag of babble-d-flog and misdirection. When Trump comes on the TV these days, I switch the channel. He never says anything that approaches intelligence or useful information. There are better uses of my time than listening to the unstable idiot yammer on and on. I guess I understand why we have to critique his verbal vomit, but I no longer spend a lot of time on it. At some point you are playing the game that a mentally ill person wants you to play.

    I’m sure Trump has been coached to express empathy in order to make him seem, you know “normal,” but empathy is not a value of the Nazi branch of the Republican Party. Like all Nazis, Trump and his supporters really do think certain “inferior” people need to die. I don’t think this is about the economy so much as about the death cult’s need to see more dead bodies. It’s a kind of necrophilia, combined with lots and lots of racial animosity.

  2. mike from iowa

    As for the economy, experts say look for double digit unemployment figures tomorrow, possibly as high as 20% and the GDP was -4.8% (drumpf’s first 4% growth) first quarter and expected to double that in the second quarter.

    Texas guv allegedly said on an open mike he knew deaths would increase with reopening state and he did it anyway.( not confirmed)

  3. Stop worrying !!! Come April the heat will kill it. No problem!

  4. mike from iowa

    drumpf did say the virus would just disappear, vaccine or no. Someday we will rid the country of right wing nutjobs, just not in time to save the sane people.

  5. John Kennedy Claussen, Sr.,

    Republicans are finally showing their true colors.

  6. Loren

    Yes, JKC, YELLOW!

  7. John Kennedy Claussen, Sr.,

    But out of fairness, Loren, one is more orange. ;-)

  8. Eve Fisher

    At least the GOP has finally given up any pretense at being pro-life (except they haven’t). And the hot topic these days is Sweden – that theirs is the model to follow, and (according to the Argus Leader) that’s what we’re following here in SD.

    One slight problem with that: Sweden, that great success story of no lockdowns, but letting the people do their thing, currently has a death rate of 12%. (23,918 cases, 2,941 deaths) Sounds kinda high to me. But hey, I do get the message: we should all be happy to be the sacrifices to enable Trump’s reelection.

  9. John Kennedy Claussen, Sr.,

    Who would have ever thought a conservative Republican governor from the northern palins, I mean plains, would have looked to a socialistic Sweden on how to possibly save a capitalistic economy? Or, are we more similar, then we want to admit?

  10. Kristi likes Sweden?? You mean we’re going to get universal healthcare, family leave, child care …… etc???

  11. mike from iowa

    58% of Tyson workers at Perry, iowa pork plant test positive for covid. From Yahoo News.

  12. Debbo

    Bumbling Bloviator can’t wear a mask because it’s not *manly.* Yep, that’s the white male argument going around. Real men don’t “live in fear” of a killer virus either, so they don’t social distance.

    Of course BB has to get the economy back to win the election, stepping over piles of dead bodies on the way.

    The ever wise Sheila Kennedy has an article about white male grievance as the underlying thread of BB’s cult.
    is.gd/d9mDWs

  13. bearcreekbat

    Great reference Debbo, but your link was to a different (but also interesting) website. Here is the link I used to get to Kennedy’s article:

    https://www.sheilakennedy.net/

    Today the piece on white male grievance is at the top of Kennedy’s web page, and will likely be there until she posts a new piece. Her take is thought provoking and worth considering. Thanks!

  14. leslie

    Who was it that was so pissed here at our out of state friends? The SARGES come and go-ATA).It is plain. Every comment above is exactly right. Sad a couple Senators couldn’t convict Trump. I still fear the non apparent positives and the very high infection rate mentioned on TRMS. (60-80% of pop. ??) Sen SCHUMER was inspiring this AM. Anyone hear if any rats are deserting?

  15. mike from iowa

    On Friday, the April employment report is expected to show a shocking 21.5 million jobs were lost in April and unemployment climbed to 16%, according to Dow Jones. The unprecedented one-month job losses dwarf the decline of 701,000 in March, when unemployment rose to 4.4% from a decades low 3.5%.

  16. jerry

    Death by quackery, how trumpian. Great link.

  17. Debbo

    Thanks BCB. Sorry for the mix up everyone.

    Pulitzer Prize winning Politico outlines just how badly Incompetent Ignoramus is bungling this by disclosing conference calls with real experts who still exist in his deministration.
    is.gd/lGPFOd

  18. mike from iowa

    Last updated: May 06, 2020, 23:13 GMT
    United States
    Coronavirus Cases:
    1,258,051
    Deaths:
    74,190

  19. mike from iowa

    Last updated: May 06, 2020, 23:13 GMT
    United States
    Coronavirus Cases:
    1,258,051
    Deaths:
    74,190

    bcb’s link was interesting and informative as are all of Ms Kennedy’s posts. Thanks to Debbo, bcb, Cory and others for providing continuing educational opportunities for flyed by iowan, me.

  20. grudznick

    Out-of-state name-callers tend to confuse the issues with ignorance.

  21. Debbo

    It’s incredible what individual patriotic Americans are doing to make up for the complete and total incompetence of the Heartless and Heedless deministration. This New Yorker article describes the volunteer networks that have sprung up to provide for healthcare people much better than Idiotic Imbecile. (What a low bar, I know.)

    The Underground Efforts to Get Masks to Doctors
    https://flip.it/7CubTs

  22. Debbo

    Looking at the headline for this post reminds me of how far Churlish Child is out of step with the USA. Poll after poll has shown that one place where Americans are united is our support for the shutdown.

    “A poll from The Washington Post and the University of Maryland released yesterday finds that eight in 10 Americans oppose reopening movie theaters and gyms; three-quarters don’t support letting sit-down restaurants and nail salons reopen; and a third or less would allow barber shops, gun stores, and retail stores to operate. An NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll last week found similar numbers: Nine in 10 Americans don’t think sporting events should have crowds without more testing; 85 percent would keep schools closed, and 80 percent would keep dine-in restaurants shut. There is no significant difference in views between residents of states that have begun loosening restrictions and those that have not.”
    The Atlantic
    is.gd/bUv0JV

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