The governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson (R) was right when he said that we have virus fatigue but he didn't internalize why that is because he also said that in his state the number of Covid cases were down then they went up, then back down and now they're seeing a rise again. This translates in what we're seeing in other states such as Florida, Texas and Arizona - governors who opened their respective states too early and are now having to shutdown many businesses once again.
The fatigue is frustration.
Whatever you want to call it, this result is due to the initial lack of a national strategy to curb the spread of the virus, along with the president's fanciful denial back in January and February that it would magically disappear. Even this week, Mr. Trump reiterated this thinking when he said that the coronavirus would "just disappear, I hope."
And now as NBC's Peter Alexander reported, the administration's message is that we just have to live with it. It's one thing that this administration has gotten correct, we do now have to just learn to live with the coronavirus because the administration created these conditions. And for those who are hoping that in November a Biden Administration takes over and tries to implement a national strategy, it will fail because of the fatigue and the frustration of changing protocols and messaging. Also, the poison pill that is Donald Trump is unlikely to go away and will continue to sew seeds of dissent.
What a new administration may be able to do is to nationalize contact tracing, but as infectious disease doctor Nahid Bhadelia explained, the amount of positive cases could be so many that it would render contact tracing ineffective. By the November election we could be staring at 200,000+ Americans dead from Covid-19. So yes, we are now in a position where we're going to have to live with it because of Mr. Trump's magical thinking and irresponsible actions holding rallies where there is no social distancing or mask requirement.
And then there is the other 'virus' to contend with - Mr. Trump and his continuing strategy to divide America and pit groups against one another instead of uniting people.
Saddest of all is the fact that this political 'virus' is now presenting compounded danger for our troops in war zones. The story of Russia's GRU paying bounties to the Taliban for killing U.S. and coalition troops has been called a hoax by Mr. Trump. Take about frustrating... nay, it's infuriating. First, administration officials said that the president wasn't briefed even though this information was in the President's Daily Briefing and then the president says it was a hoax? Well, which is it because it can't be both. Fmr. National Security Advisor Susan Rice was spot on when she described this situation as a clown show, consisting of sycophants and weaklings in the administration. The president has no plans for a response and once again we see him taking the side of Vladimir Putin over the U.S. intelligence community. Then he has the gall to speak about American patriotism?
Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute described this in two parts. First, she said that if the president wasn't briefed, this is a dereliction of duty. If? The White House has been guilty of dereliction of duty since January 20th, 2016. However, she also said that this was an incredibly damaging leak about extremely sensitive information. But again, we have to examine the 'why' here. Why was there a leak? It's fairly evident that this information was leaked because the administration has known about this going back to 2019 and the president has done nothing about it. There is extenuating harm from Russia facing our troops in a war zone and what does the president do? He advocates for Russia to be included in the G7 again. So while Ms. Pletka frets over the leak, it is justified to put this information out to the public to try and force the president's hand and say something. But once again, we've learned that Mr. Trump will not socially distance his lips from Putin's butt.
America is confronted with a dual viral threat, and unfortunately we are just going to have to learn to live with it.
Panel: Danielle Pletka, American Enterprise Institute; Jeh Johnson, fmr. Secretary of Homeland Security; Peter Alexander, NBC News
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