Madness

No doubt you have heard tell of the leaked CDC report projecting 3,000 deaths a day by the end of this month. I don't think of this as a solid prediction, there are too many unknowns, but the basic point is that Republican governors are moving to lift mitigation measures even as the daily rates of new cases and deaths in their states are rising. The appearance that the epidemic has at least leveled off nationally is entirely deceptive. New cases and deaths are falling in the worst-hit  New York metro area, including Connecticut and New Jersey, but rising in the rest of the country. New outbreaks are occurring even in rural counties that hadn't seen any cases until recently.

These governors are engaging in the same magical thinking their Great Orange Eminence is known for. It will just magically go away. In case you haven't done the math 3,000 deaths a day is more than 1 million deaths in a year. Sure, it's a big country. You probably won't be one of them (although you are much more likely to get sicker than you have ever been in your life, and possibly suffer permanent organ damage). But human nature just won't tolerate that. Some people will be foolish enough to put on their MAGA hats and Confederate battle flag T-shirts and congregate massively, but most people are going to restrict their activities and they aren't going to the movies, the gym, or the speedway. The economy isn't going to get any stronger but the healthcare system will be overwhelmed in various places at various times and those million dead will dominate the news and have many tens of millions of mourners who knew some of them personally.

So what exactly is the political strategy behind this? I outsource to Jay Rosen:

The plan is to have no plan, to let daily deaths between one and three thousand become a normal thing, and then to create massive confusion about who is responsible— by telling the governors they’re in charge without doing what only the federal government can do, by fighting with the press when it shows up to be briefed, by fixing blame for the virus on China or some other foreign element, and by “flooding the zone with shit,” Steve Bannon’s phrase for overwhelming the system with disinformation, distraction, and denial, which boosts what economists call “search costs” for reliable intelligence. . . .

“The plan is to have no plan” is not a strategy, really. Nor would I call it a policy. It has a kind of logic to it, but this is different from saying it has a design— or a designer. Meaning: I do not want to be too conspiratorial about this. To wing it without a plan is merely the best this government can do, given who heads the table. The manufacture of confusion is just the ruins of Trump’s personality meeting the powers of the presidency. There is no genius there, only a damaged human being playing havoc with our lives.