The Coronavirus Could Be Trump’s KatrinaSchlichter doesn't mean Trump will actually mismanage the crisis -- that would be unthinkable! It's Trump! He means that Trump might be unfairly maligned, because meany liberals always malign innocent, highly competent Republicans like George W. Bush.
This could be Trump’s Katrina.... Understand this, and you probably don’t know because our media is garbage and most media people know nothing, but the federal disaster response to Katrina was amazing. Huge numbers of personnel and vast quantities of supplies poured into the stricken area in an incredibly short time. The incompetence came from – shocker – the Democrat leadership locally, but the media hung it around George W. Bush’s gentlemanly neck. And because he was too gentlemanly to cry “Bull Schiff!,” most everyone thinks what was a logistical miracle was a clusterfark.If you think this sounds like projection on the part of the folks who were itching to blame Barack Obama for an American Ebola epidemic that never happened, come up and claim your prize. (Kurt Schlichter in 2014: "Liberals’ Refusal To Secure Our Borders Invites Ebola ... And Worse." Also "Trusting This Administration On Ebola, Or Anything Else, Is Insanity.")
The media is aching, yearning, begging for the chance to do the same thing to Trump.
And the stage is being set to do that. China is going nuts. The numbers of cases coming into the U.S. are growing. People are confused. The stock market is pitching and heaving. And the impeachment circus is going to end with the Democrats’ humiliation soon, meaning suddenly the media will soon need a new shiny object to chase.
Coronavirus is that shiny object. The media will not be honest or accurate or fair. It will lie, cheat, and give voice to leftist leakers with agendas. That’s why Trump needs to go around the media, straight to us.This is hilarious. Can you actually imagine Trump ceding the limelight this way? Not only that, but ceding it to experts? This is what every other president would do, regardless of party. They'd all know not only that the experts know more, and that the experts would convey a sense of authority and trustworthiness, but that they themselves would look wise and reassuring if they ceded the stage to well-informed doctors and other scientists in lab coats.
Trump needs to go on the air, to the American people, and lay out the situation. Then Team Trump needs to step up the game by arm-twisting the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) into talking to us, at length, in detail. Get those science nerds in their lab coats out there, in front of the camera, every day, bombarding us with info. Talk our ears off.
... If the president assures the citizenry that he understands this is a priority and that he is vectoring in America’s best scientists to respond, that not only foils the cheesy partisan political attack that is coming. It helps the actual defeat of this potential epidemic. Instead of inspiring panic, the presentation of the Administration as having this crisis well in hand will serve to calm fears as well as tell people what to do.
Not Trump. Schlichter can't bring himself to acknowledge that if coronavirus really does become a crisis in America, Trump will feel the need to tell us that he is the #1 expert on it. Right now he might be too preoccupied with other matters to get personally involved in the management of America's response, but if it becomes necessary for him to weigh in, he'll insist on being front and center.
And where will he get his information? The same place he gets his information on every other subject: Fox News. Eventually, if this becomes a major concern for Americans, the nihilists at Fox will find a way to blame Democrats and liberalism. I've told you that I believe Trump doesn't hate Asian people the way he hates Muslims, blacks, and Hispanics, but sooner or later Fox will call for more draconian restrictions on foreigners than are necessary, and will begin demonizing scapegoats, probably including Asian-Americans, whether or not they've traveled to Asia during the outbreak. The president will follow Fox's lead.
Let's hope Trump never focuses on this crisis. Let the experts do their jobs. The last thing we need is his involvement.
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AND: I spared you the many sneering references in Schlichter's column to bat-eating, which has been blamed for the outbreak, perhaps erroneously. It's quite possible that if coronavirus becomes a serious problem in America, Trump (probably echoing Fox) will just blame it on those crazy non-Europeans with their crazy diets, the way he blames massive wildfires on inadequate forest raking.
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