5/31/20: Okay, the coronavirus didn’t disappear in April, as Trump confidently and cluelessly predicted.
It also didn’t disappear in May.
The toll, in newly confirmed cases, for the month:
May 1: 30,369
May 2: 29,794
May 3: 29,763
May 4: 19,138
May 5: 22,303
May 6: 25,253
May 7: 28,974
May 8: 25,996
May 9: 26,660
May 10: 23,792
May 11: 18,106
May 12: 21,467
May 13: 20,869
May 14: 27,191
May 15: 22,977
May 16: 31,967
May 17: 13,284
May 18: 24,481
May 19: 23,405
May 20: 22,860
May 21: 20,522
May 22: 24,268
May 23: 26,229
May 24: 15,342
May 25: 24,958
May 26: 16,429
May 27: 19,680
May 28: 21,304
May 29: 18,123
May 30: 23,533
May 31: 26,177
____________________________
Total: 725,214
*
“He speaks and he makes it worse.”
WITH BLACK LIVES MATTER protests spreading, the president continues to focus on shooting looters. That would make the bow and arrow dude his kind of guy (see: 5/30/20). Even several top aides are said to have advised Dictator Don to temper his rhetoric.
Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta, a Democrat, has an even better idea. “He should just stop talking,” she tells CNN. “He speaks and he makes it worse.”
Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (see: 5/30/20), also urges the president to pick his words more carefully. Trump’s threat to turn “vicious dogs” loose on any protesters who breach the White House security perimeter, she tells reporters, reminds her of the 1960s. In those days, segregationists used police dogs to tear into African Americans daring to demand the vote.
 |
Using police dogs to stop protesters who wanted the right to vote in 1963. |
Republican leaders weren’t much happier with the pyromaniac president, throwing gasoline on the fires of protests. Several lawmakers urged Trump to temper his language, particularly threats to crush demonstrations by calling in the U.S. military. “I think it’s just the opposite of the message that should have been coming out of the White House,” Maryland’s Governor Larry Hogan, said.
“The country is looking for healing and calm. And I think the president needs to project that in his tone. He masters that sometimes,” said Senate Majority Whip John Thune of South Dakota. “That’s the tone he needs to strike right now.”
“We are obviously in a divisive situation right now that’s escalating, and I think [Trump] needs to make more unifying comments,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito.
Wishful thinking.
Sen. Mitt Romney was more realistic. “I don’t think there’s a speech the president can give at this stage that’s going to calm things down,” he told reporters. “The call today with the governors, as it was reported, doesn’t calm things down.”
In that call, Trump told mostly Democratic governors and mayors that they were “weak” and looking like fools.
No comments:
Post a Comment