Saturday, October 10, 2020

KEEPING THE IMPORTANT FUNCTIONS OF GOVERNMENT UP AND RUNNING IN A CRISIS

This new ad from the Lincoln Project sends a strong message about the pain of the pandemic.



Throughout this crisis, many people have died unaccompanied by family or friends. But according to Olivia Nuzzi of New York magazine, when the president was hospitalized, he wasn't alone.
In the hospital, Trump’s world shrank overnight in a way it hadn’t since he arrived in Washington from New York to be sworn into office nearly four years ago. Contagious and isolated from his family and closest aides, he was accompanied by Dan Scavino, the social-media director who had first been his caddie and had survived at his side longer than anyone who wasn’t blood, and Mark Meadows, his highly emotional chief of staff, who slept in a room nearby....
I'm having some trouble understanding this. Trump was "contagious and isolated from his family and closest aides," but he was still allowed to be accompanied by two of his closest aides? People who had presumably been in close contact with him and might be infectious themselves? If they could accompany him, why not family? Melania had tested positive and couldn't be there, but why two aides and not his children?

If an exception was made to safety protocols because Trump is the president of the United States, I guess I understand the presence of Meadows. It makes sense for a president's chief of staff to be nearby -- continuity of government and all that.

But Scavino? The guy who polishes off the tweets Trump writes when he's in the Oval Office because Trump is too vain to wear reading glasses there, even though the only people who can see him are his own aides?

But to Trump, being accompanied by his Twitter corner man is continuity of government. Scavino is clearly considered one of the president's two most important aides -- and I suspect he's not ranked second.
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