It's time for Guess the Midnight Tweeter!
Yeah, I don't even have to spell the answer out.
By the way, let's talk about "Don’t they understand that they are destroying themselves?" for a minute. Because Trump wasn't done.
Yep. That's an all-caps tweet, right there.
Now,
this Axios analysis -- remember the days when major news organizations
didn't have to analyze late-night all-caps tweets, because they weren't being sent by the man running the country? Pepperidge Farm remembers -- comes to the conclusion that, at the end of March (15 days from March 16, "
I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic") Trump and his loyalists will start ordering the US to defy his own doctors' advice. That he'll be sick of a low stock market and high unemployment and will order people to leave their houses and get back to work.
And Pence is already on board.
By the way, something else Trump has said recently needs to be called into question:
That's Trump, talking about the DPA. Now, I'm not necessarily for or against nationalization in this context, because quite frankly, it's a grey ethical area and I'm not an expert. But even my non-expertness has three things to say.
1) The DPA is an emergency measure. It is intended to be short-term. Venezuela is not doing that, they are just flat-out keeping everything. Trump's argument is a lot like saying "There is no global warming because it snowed yesterday."
2) The call for more life-saving supplies is increasing in severity. For example:
-- Rick Pollack, head of the AHA
3) Most importantly, the DPA does not nationalize businesses. It forces a business to make what the government says. Considering the great demand for medical supplies, I would hope that some of these companies wouldn't mind so much, but that part's secondary. Trump just flat-out doesn't know what the DPA does.
The US govt is no strange to nationalization. The GM and AIG bailouts, for example, gave the government/taxpayers a substantial share. The DPA doesn't do that. For more information about the DPA,
this Military Times article spells it out. You'll note it says the govt uses things like loans and purchase contracts (see also, "bailout") but does
not say "the government runs the show and takes everything".
Trump has claimed recently that some companies have already swapped to making requested goods. Fine. But there's also been calls by hospitals and states saying
that's not enough. I admit I'm a capitalist, and I admit I don't know why more companies aren't making these things. Nor do I know if nationalization is called for at this time. Flat-out admit ignorance there. But that doesn't mean lying to the American people about the DPA's effect is called for, either, especially when it looks like an excuse for Trump's lack of action.
Again.
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Wait, what are you...
(checks source)
Oh, dear God. Holy shit. That lines up with
everything I just posted.