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Americas catastrophically inadequate response to the coronavirus can be attributed largely to bad short-term decisions by one man. And I do mean short-term: At every stage, Donald Trump minimized the threat and blocked helpful action because he wanted to look good for the next news cycle or two, ignoring and intimidating anyone who tried to give him good advice.

But heres the thing: Even if he werent so irresponsibly self-centered, he has denuded the government of people who could be giving good advice in the first place.

Trump disbanded the National Security Councils pandemic response team in 2018, although he now, with his characteristic refusal to accept responsibility for anything, says that he knew nothing about it. And he has in general staffed his administration with obsequious toadies who never tell him anything he doesnt want to hear.

Whats now becoming clear is that when it comes to dealing with the economic fallout from COVID-19, the situation may be even worse. There are still some competent professionals holding senior positions at federal health agencies, who could give Trump good advice if he were willing to listen. But serious economic thinking has effectively been banned from this administration, if not the whole Republican Party. As far as I can tell, the Trump team is utterly incapable of formulating a coherent response to the gathering economic crisis.

As a result, there are only two potential loci of intelligent economic policymaking left in Washington. One is the Federal Reserve; the other is the congressional Democratic leadership. At this point, in other words, its pretty much up to Jay Powell, the Fed chairman, and Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House; the question is whether Trump and Senate Republicans will let them save the economy.

Powell, of course, slashed interest rates and announced a large asset-buying program on Sunday. He was right to do so. But its painfully obvious that these moves wont be sufficient, indeed will probably do little to stop the economys tailspin. Remember, in 2007-8 the Fed cut rates five times as much as it did Sunday, and it still wasnt able to prevent the worst slump since the Great Depression.

In fact, Powell himself basically acknowledged as much, declaring that he and his colleagues dont have the tools to reach those most in need of help, and that fiscal responses are critical.

Fiscal responses, of course, have to come from Congress. True, in another time, under another president, the White House would have played a crucial role in shaping crisis legislation. But last week, as the House drafted and then passed an economic relief bill one that was helpful, if still clearly inadequate it was almost entirely a Democratic effort. Democratic staff members put together the key elements of the bill paid sick leave for many (though not enough) workers, enhanced unemployment benefits, increased federal contributions for Medicaid and more.

True, Steve Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, negotiated with Pelosi, basically to make the bill a bit worse. But Democrats set the shape of the bill, even as Trump was proposing the grandiose notion of a payroll tax holiday, which has been panned even by conservative economists.

As Greg Mankiw, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under George W. Bush, wrote, a payroll tax cut makes little sense in this circumstance, because it does nothing for those who cant work. President Trump should shut-the-hell-up.

And while the White House was basically out of the loop, Republican senators have been actively obstructionist, offering no serious proposals of their own but holding up a vote on the House bill, even though that bill passed with overwhelming bipartisan support.

Why are Republicans useless at best in the face of an economic crisis? As Ive pointed out before, there are many competent center-right economists, but the GOP not just Trump, but the whole party doesnt want their advice. It prefers hacks and propagandists, the people Mankiw famously called charlatans and cranks, whose only idea is tax cuts. The party truly has nobody left who is capable of putting together a plausible economic rescue package.

The Senate probably will eventually pass Pelosis bill. But with all signs pointing to a steep economic dive, we need a much bigger stimulus package perhaps along the lines being developed by Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader as soon as possible. This package shouldnt include tax cuts; it should focus overwhelmingly on cash grants, perhaps a basic grant to every legal resident plus additional grants to those in special need.

And since theres nobody left in the GOP who can put together a coherent stimulus plan, Democrats will have to do the job, perhaps with help from the Federal Reserve intervention to stabilize highly stressed financial markets.

I admit to being somewhat worried that Democrats wont go big enough. But my bigger worry is that Republicans will undermine their efforts. Its now up to Powell and Pelosi to rescue the economy, and Trump and company need to get out of their way.

Paul Krugman, Ph.D., winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, is an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times.

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Paul Krugman: Will Republicans allow Powell and Pelosi to save the economy? - Salt Lake Tribune

If the slow-on-the-uptake response to COVID-19 by the White House seems a little familiar to you, you're definitely not imagining it. As if we're caught in some sort of "Groundhog Day" loop in the time-space continuum, we've absolutely been here before. Cue "I Got You Babe" on the alarm clock.

I realize too many Americans have gnat-like attention spans and even shorter memories, so I'll be specific. Beyond several details, the Trump presidency is looking an awful lot like the second term of the George W. Bush presidency. To his credit, Mike Pence hasn't shot anyone in the face, but we're seeing a traffic jam of similar events: a crisis with a growing death toll, a painfully tone-deaf, slow and inept government response, a financial meltdown and an out-of-control budget deficit. (Trump promised to eliminate the deficit.) Only now, it's all happening at the same time.

The Republican-led geyser of insanity that landed in our laps between 2005 and 2009 is back for an encore, and it's horrifying.

Do we seea pattern here yet?

We'd have to be blind not to. For reasons that will forever confound historians, 62 million Americans, many of whom were still tangled in the nets of the previous Republican catastrophes, decided it'd be a great idea to"own the libs" by giving the Republican Party another chance at running the federal government, not to mention Congress. This time, however, they landed on a candidate with zero experience, zero aptitude for government work, zero regard for anything other than his own popularity and, as a bonus, a history of personal financial disasters including bankrupted casinos, a fraudulent university and an even more fraudulent charitable foundation.

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Trump voters justified this choice by suggesting that an obnoxious, undisciplined "businessman" whosold steaks in Sharper Image mall stores was fully qualified to run the world's most powerful government (which isn't at all like a business). This was like shoving a carnie who runs the Tilt-a-Whirl into the cockpit of a Space-X rocket. Maybe he'll stir things up, they thought, choosing to experiment with the presidency by handing an erratic weirdo the nuclear codes. What could possibly go wrong? For starters, the rocket is nosediving, and we're all passengers, including the voters who put us here.

We tried to warn the Red Hats. We tried to remind themwhat happened the last time around. But rather than employing basic common sense or, at the very least, a Google search for what went down during the previous, slightly less moronic Republican administration, they decided to jam their faces into the GOP propeller blades once again, and here we are. Ned "The Head" Ryerson should be along any second now, refusing to abide social distancing.

Whether it was refusing to acknowledge the onset of the virus or closing down the pandemic response unit a couple of years ago, the Trump White House bungled this from the beginning, likely worsening the death toll and precipitating the collapse of the financial markets. Meanwhile, Trump's tax cuts ended up benefiting Trump's wealthy Mar-a-Lago guests far more than the "forgotten" men and women of America and there was no way to pay for them, adding still more billions to the deficit. We've also seen this dynamic play out at the state level, for example with former Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback and his tax cut "experiment," which nearly bankrupted the state rather than creating the explosive economic growth he promised.

Say what you will about the Democratic Party, but history has illustrated that Democratic presidents are infinitely better at governing than any recent Republican. I mean, it's shocking that the party that wants to drown government in the bathtub doesn't know how to govern, nor is interested in learning. But notice how Trump and Bush each eagerly embraced "big government" when their asses and legacies were on the line.

Trump arrived in Washington believing he could tweet, blurt foul nicknames and show off his executive orders like a big boy, and everything would work out great. It turns out that being president requires more vision, discipline and actual knowledge than he thought, and that's just the very basic skill set.

Much to Trump's surprise, when the disasters stacked up, he couldn't bullshit his way through like he's done so many times before. If it weren't for his life support system at Fox News Channel, not to mention his loyalists on CapitolHill, Trump would've been forced to resign after Charlottesville if he had even been elected in the first place, which would have beendoubtful without the late Roger Ailes, Mitch McConnell and, yes, Vladimir Putin. They'll all try like hell now, but I wonder whether they can put President Humpty back together again.

During his inaugural address, Trump referred to the Obama years as "American carnage," and promised to make America great again. It turns out, a "no drama" competent family man who kicked off the heretofore longest economic expansion in history wasn't anything close to being American carnage that was another Trump lie, eagerly swallowed by his own people. It turns out that while there's always room for improvement, economic growth, job creation and other indicators were equal to or more robust during the so-called "carnage" under Obama.

Indeed, carnage is what we're seeing now as we wake up to our shocking new normal for the foreseeable future. But even before the COVID-19 crisis, even before the financial crisis, there was the "Trump Crisis" the daily institution-crushing mayhem erupting from Trump's phone, from federal investigators and from the fast-moving process of turning the executive branch into a subsidiary of the Trump Organization. It was only a matter of time before Trump's flimsy, brittle presidency, built on make-believe and held together with masking tape and spit by Fox News, fell apart. Sadly, we're all getting hit by the debris from the crash.

This November, and probably four years after that, I suspect millions of Americans will make the same dumb error in judgment all over again, voting for this incapable poseur despite the madness, even while they themselves are impacted more than most by Trump's amateurish blundering. And the endless loop will continue: A Republican president craps his cage, a Democrat cleans up the mess, short-attention-span voters elect another Republican, and we repeat.

The only way to break this cycle is to take a step back, turn off the Fox News fairy tales about big hands and perfect hair, and reprioritize the question of who ought to be leading the country. As we covered last week, those leaders should never again be slack-jawed morons you hypothetically want to "have a beer with," and they definitely shouldn't be loudmouth wannabe mobsters turned game-show hosts. We're dangerously close to fighting the next pandemic with Brawndo unless this ridiculousness is finally shocked out of our system.

Read more:
GOP Groundhog Day: Why do we keep electing Republicans? They're no good at this - Salon

Nurses clean their hands after a patient was screened for COVID-19 on Tuesday in Seattle.

Karen Ducey/Getty Images

In every outbreak, some people are more susceptible than others. The current coronavirus pandemic preys on the elderly, for instance, and on people with underlying ailments. But in the United States, poll after poll shows the virus has found a population thats particularly likely, through nonchalance and neglect, to help it spread. That population is Republicans.

Republicans dont deserve collective blame. But in an epidemic, its important to confront the most efficient routes of transmission. In this case, the attitudes and behaviors likely to spread the virus are more prevalent in the GOP, and they need to be addressed by politicians and media organizations with conservative audiences.

Public opinion is shifting as the crisis mounts, so questions asked a week ago would get different answers today. But one pattern has persisted: In every poll, Republicans have expressed far less concern about the virus than Democrats have. Last week, 55 percent of Republicans, compared with 25 percent of Democrats, said they didnt worry much about it. Forty-eight percent of Republicans, versus 18 percent of Democrats, expressed little or no concern about a coronavirus epidemic here in the United States. Sixty-three percent of Republicans, as opposed to 31 percent of Democrats, said they were similarly unconcerned that you or someone you know will be infected.

In a Marist/NPR poll taken on Friday and Saturday, 42 percent of Republicans, compared with 16 percent of Democrats, said they werent very concerned about the virus spreading to your community. When respondents were asked whether the coronavirus is a real threat or blown out of proportion, three-quarters of Democrats said it was a real threat. Most Republicans said it was blown out of proportion. A Gallup poll completed on Friday found that from the first half of February to the first half of March, the percentage of Democrats who worried about the virus increased by 47 points. The percentage of Republicans who worried about it increased by 12 points.

Republicans, much more than Democrats, have been willing to entertain the idea that the virus is a hoax. Last week, in an Economist/YouGov survey, 16 percent of Republicans, compared with 10 percent of Democrats, said it was definitely or probably a hoax. Those numbers and the gap between them are fairly small. But when you factor in all the additional people who said it could be a hoax, the gap gets a lot bigger. Seventy-three percent of Democrats said the virus definitely wasnt a hoax. Only 54 percent of Republicans agreed.

Republicans, much more than Democrats, have been willing to entertain the idea that the virus is ahoax.

Given their relative skepticism and disinterest, Republicans have been far less likely than Democrats to take steps to prevent transmission of the virus. In a Civiqs/Daily Kos poll taken last week, only 23 percent of Republicans, compared with 46 percent of Democrats, said they were taking precautions or had changed some of my day-to-day habits to deal with the virus. In a Yahoo News/YouGov survey, only 55 percent of Republicans, versus 67 percent of Democrats, said they were washing their hands more often. Only 29 percent of Republicans, compared with 44 percent of Democrats, said they were avoiding crowded public places.

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, taken from Wednesday to Friday, found that 61 percent of Democrats had stopped or were planning to stop attending large public gatherings like movies, concerts or sporting events. Only 30 percent of Republicans said the same. A Kaiser Family Foundation poll, taken from Wednesday to Sunday, found a similar partisan split. So did the NPR/Marist survey. In the Marist poll, 60 percent of Democrats, but only 36 percent of Republicans, said they had decided to eat at home more often. In the NBC survey, only 12 percent of Republicans, compared with 36 percent of Democrats, said they had stopped or were planning to stop eating at restaurants.

Republicans have also expressed less willingness to be vaccinated. In three surveys taken this month, Morning Consult asked, If a vaccine that protects from the coronavirus became available, would you get vaccinated, or not? On average, when compared with Democrats, Republicans were 10 percentage points less likely to accept the vaccine and five points more likely to refuse it.

Why have Republicans been so unmoved? One possibility is that theyre more likely to live in rural areas, where people are spread out. But survey after survey shows no correlation between population density and concerns about the virus. Another guess is that Republicans are less likely to live in places where outbreaks have been reported. Polls support that theory. But they also show that it cant account for the partisan gap.

In the Civiqs poll, 9 percent of Republicans and 23 percent of Democrats said the coronavirus had been reported in your local area. Thats a 14-point difference, and it helps to explain why Republicans, in the same survey, were more skeptical of a local outbreak. But thanks to the way the poll was constructed, you can filter the 9 percent and the 23 percent out of the sample. This allows you to look just at respondents who said the coronavirus had not been reported in their communities. Among this populationwith no partisan difference in reported local infectionswas there still a partisan gap in attitudes? The answer, decisively, is yes. In locally unaffected communities, 57 percent of Republicans, compared with 23 percent of Democrats, said an outbreak in their area was only a little likely or not likely at all.

If local experience doesnt explain the partisan difference in attitudes, its reasonable to ask whether a partisan difference in media consumptionnamely, watching Fox Newsdoes. The Civiqs poll found that people who frequently watched the network, when compared with people who didnt watch it at all, were more likely, by about 20 percentage points, to say that a local coronavirus outbreak was implausible. They were also more likely, by about 30 points, to express little or no concern about such an outbreak. But in each case, the partisan gap was more than 10 points bigger than the Fox gap. The party you belong to is a better predictor than the network you watch.

Only one factor has outscored partisanship as a predictor of coronavirus attitudes: support for President Donald Trump. In some surveys, when compared with Republicans as a whole, people who strongly approve of Trumps job performance have been slightly more likely to say that theyre unconcerned about the emergence of the virus (by 7 percentage points), about its spread in the United States (by 5 points), and about contracting it themselves (by 4 points). Theyve been more likely to dismiss it as a minor or nonexistent health risk (by 8 points) and to say they wouldnt get vaccinated (by 3 points). Maybe these people have discounted the virus because Trump has discounted it. Or maybe they just share his imperviousness to unwelcome facts.

Either way, Republicansand Trump supporters in particularare a major concern in the next phase of this public health crisis. The fact that more Democrats than Republicans have reported local outbreaks suggests that the virus began its American rampage in left-leaning pockets of the country. Perhaps thats because these hot spots, such as Seattle, were more open to global travel. But from there, the virus is likely to be spread by people who dont take it seriously. Theyre the people who keep eating at restaurants, keep going to malls and movies, and dont wash their hands. All too often, theyre Republicans. They need better guidance from the leaders and news organizations they trust.

For more on the coronavirus, listen to Wednesdays What Next.

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Original post:
Theres a New Potential Risk Group for Spreading the Coronavirus - Slate

Worried about the coronavirus and feeling like not enough people were taking it seriously, Fox News host Tucker Carlson set up a meeting with President Trump earlier this month at his Mar-a-Lago resort in order to tell him to his face that the situation was dire.

Carlson discussed the tte--tte with Vanity Fair's Joe Hagan. He spoke with Trump for two hours, and while he would not spill on what Trump said to him, Carlson did tell Hagan he got across the fact that the COVID-19 coronavirus is an existential threat to both the United States and Trump's re-election.

The first COVID-19 case in the United States was reported in January. Trump said it was "totally under control" and "going to be just fine," but Carlson said he saw how spooked the Chinese government was by the outbreak in its country, and he figured "we should pay attention to it." After researching and reporting on the virus, Carlson felt he had "a moral obligation to be useful in whatever small way I could," and determined that meant setting up a meeting to stress to Trump that the imminent coronavirus pandemic could be disastrous.

Carlson and Trump spoke on March 7, with Carlson telling Hagan he told Trump "exactly what I've said on TV, which is that this could be really bad. My view is that we may have missed the point where we can control it." Carlson believes there are "a lot of people around" Trump, particularly "Republican members on Capitol Hill," who were "determined to pretend this wasn't happening." Now, he thinks the White House is taking the matter "seriously" and "knows that we're not prepared."

The coronavirus pandemic has "scared the hell out of everyone, left and right," Carlson said, and he doesn't have "the faintest idea" if Trump will make it out of the crisis unscathed. "I spent months telling our viewers that Joe Biden would never get a nomination," Carlson said. "So I mean, I have literally no idea." Read more at Vanity Fair. Catherine Garcia

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Republicans fear Trump being quarantined with 'nothing to watch but the news' - The Week

The Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin declared that more Republicans will die from the coronavirus pandemic than Democrats because of the misinformation spread by President Trump and Fox News.

There is a particular cruelty, irony that it is their core viewers, the Republican older viewers, who are the most at risk, Ms. Rubin, a self-described conservative and former Republican, said during a panel discussion Sunday morning on MSNBCs AM Joy.

Ms. Rubin credited the Democrats with being the first to cancel political rallies in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, whereas Mr. Trump initially bucked the idea before canceling several rallies Wednesday.

So, I hate to put it this way, but there will be less Democrat deaths because there will be less mass gatherings, there will be less opportunities for people to congregate and share this horrible disease, she continued. So it is really a very short-sighted strategy.

Ms. Rubin said the challenge lies in getting Trump supporters back on Planet Earth, because Fox News has been brainwashing them to think the president has been proactive on the issue.

They will contort themselves to kind of get in line and get in sync, she said. And, you know, were always saying but, but, but, pointing to the past. They dont. They simply move with the flow. Every day is a new day. Every day is a new storyline, and theyre gonna stick with it.

I think the problem will be what happens unfortunately if we start to follow that Italian model where we have mass casualties, and our lives are not disrupted for a week or two, but were talking months, she continued. And that is going to be some serious stuff. And I dont know if their brainwashing is so strong as to carry on and make excuses for Trump during that. But this is going to be some serious stuff.

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Jennifer Rubin: 'There will be less Democrat deaths' from coronavirus than Republican - Washington Times