Seth Abramson, in a series of tweets on April 15:
Something true that needs to be said and is *really* scary when you stop to think about it:
The President of the United States *doesn't understand* what's going on right now.
And the fact is, he *can't* understand-he's not equipped for it.
And therefore, he *won't* understand.
The number of ways COVID-19 will change how we live, work, study, and relate to one another is *so mind-boggling* that if you think about it for even 10 minutes you come up with a 100 questions we don't have answers to yet. And *all* of it is beyond the president's comprehension.
I was just talking with someone who has a relative who works in a prison. Can you imagine the *hundreds* of unanswered questions we now have about how *that's* going to work going forward? Do *anyone* believe that the President of the United States can comprehend that complexity?
With the flip of a switch, certain sectors of our economy and culture just disappeared for an uncertain period of time, but at a minimum 18 months to a year. How people move, stay healthy, entertain themselves-all transformed overnight, as if we live in an alternate reality, now.
One thing that should be *blindingly* clear to *every* American at this moment in history is that *no nation on Earth* can afford to have a *stupid person* in charge now. In other words, *every nation on Earth* now needs to be run by the *most competent people* in its population.
Yesterday, the President of the United States-with the help of dozens of people he hand-selected-tried to put together a group. That's all he tried to do: *put together a group*. And he ended up just reading out a list of folks whose names he'd heard but who he'd never contacted.
The entire foundation of American society is currently under question and in a state of dramatic transformation and the man ostensibly in charge literally can't even put together a group of people. He can't even stay on task. He can't even express empathy. This is utter insanity.
The conversation we're having about how to open up workplaces is so embarrassingly puerile that it can only be explained by the fact that the man leading the conversation apparently reads and thinks at a second-grade level. Is there *anyone* serious in federal government anymore?
Up to 50% of COVID-19 patients are asymptomatic, and the President of the United States wants to send them into workplaces across the US to touch common surfaces, breathe in/out, and cough in a 16' radius on the assumption a wildly contagious virus won't spread in that situation.
The last person who can be in charge at a moment like this is someone who grew up in a cult that taught him as a child-feel free to look it up-that every situation should be framed as sunny. That's childish thinking that should be a *million miles* from the White House right now.
I don't think many folks realize that there were bipartisan votes in the Senate to *take away from Trump* his power to make foreign policy decisions in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Syria. Even the members of *his own party* are quietly trying to pry the bauble from his fingers.
At this point more people in media need to be talking and acting like the only way we get through this crisis anything like intact is if all America, en masse, begins ignoring the president and focusing on adults around the country who *actually know how to deal with their shit*.
America-in the midst of a historic emergency-doesn't have the time, energy, patience, or brain-space to let the President of the United States work out childhood issues and readily diagnosable disorders that he could have tried to address himself anytime in the last five decades.
We should be perfectly clear with ourselves and one another that the presidential response to this crisis has been *so incompetent* and indeed *juvenile* on so many different levels that a president with any integrity who'd acted this way would resign and let an adult take over.
Pick a topic. *Any* topic. Say dentists. Say cars. Or higher ed. Home-buying. Wars. Healthcare. Sports. Home repairs. It doesn't matter-just pick a subject, then spend 20 minutes talking with an intelligent person about how it'll be changed by COVID-19 and you'll see the problem.
MBS is suing for peace in Yemen. Putin is admitting he doesn't have the virus under control. Pollution is dropping. Unemployment may breach 25%. We are in the *earliest imaginable days* of understanding how profoundly our world has changed and *the president isn't up to his job*.
What lies before us is a mountain so high it would be an extraordinary lift for the greatest presidents in American history to lead us even halfway up. And what we have instead is a clearly incompetent, deranged, profoundly antisocial embarrassment who *can't even form a group*.
Playtime is over. We need a real president now. /end
PS/ 2,500 Americans died of COVID-19 today.
2,500.
And the CDC says that's an *under-estimation*.
30,000 new people contracted COVID-19 today.
30,000.
That brings the total to 650,000.
So we'd better start wrestling with what it's actually going to take to get through this.
The President of the United States *doesn't understand* what's going on right now.
And the fact is, he *can't* understand-he's not equipped for it.
And therefore, he *won't* understand.
The number of ways COVID-19 will change how we live, work, study, and relate to one another is *so mind-boggling* that if you think about it for even 10 minutes you come up with a 100 questions we don't have answers to yet. And *all* of it is beyond the president's comprehension.
I was just talking with someone who has a relative who works in a prison. Can you imagine the *hundreds* of unanswered questions we now have about how *that's* going to work going forward? Do *anyone* believe that the President of the United States can comprehend that complexity?
With the flip of a switch, certain sectors of our economy and culture just disappeared for an uncertain period of time, but at a minimum 18 months to a year. How people move, stay healthy, entertain themselves-all transformed overnight, as if we live in an alternate reality, now.
One thing that should be *blindingly* clear to *every* American at this moment in history is that *no nation on Earth* can afford to have a *stupid person* in charge now. In other words, *every nation on Earth* now needs to be run by the *most competent people* in its population.
Yesterday, the President of the United States-with the help of dozens of people he hand-selected-tried to put together a group. That's all he tried to do: *put together a group*. And he ended up just reading out a list of folks whose names he'd heard but who he'd never contacted.
The entire foundation of American society is currently under question and in a state of dramatic transformation and the man ostensibly in charge literally can't even put together a group of people. He can't even stay on task. He can't even express empathy. This is utter insanity.
The conversation we're having about how to open up workplaces is so embarrassingly puerile that it can only be explained by the fact that the man leading the conversation apparently reads and thinks at a second-grade level. Is there *anyone* serious in federal government anymore?
Up to 50% of COVID-19 patients are asymptomatic, and the President of the United States wants to send them into workplaces across the US to touch common surfaces, breathe in/out, and cough in a 16' radius on the assumption a wildly contagious virus won't spread in that situation.
The last person who can be in charge at a moment like this is someone who grew up in a cult that taught him as a child-feel free to look it up-that every situation should be framed as sunny. That's childish thinking that should be a *million miles* from the White House right now.
I don't think many folks realize that there were bipartisan votes in the Senate to *take away from Trump* his power to make foreign policy decisions in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Syria. Even the members of *his own party* are quietly trying to pry the bauble from his fingers.
At this point more people in media need to be talking and acting like the only way we get through this crisis anything like intact is if all America, en masse, begins ignoring the president and focusing on adults around the country who *actually know how to deal with their shit*.
America-in the midst of a historic emergency-doesn't have the time, energy, patience, or brain-space to let the President of the United States work out childhood issues and readily diagnosable disorders that he could have tried to address himself anytime in the last five decades.
We should be perfectly clear with ourselves and one another that the presidential response to this crisis has been *so incompetent* and indeed *juvenile* on so many different levels that a president with any integrity who'd acted this way would resign and let an adult take over.
Pick a topic. *Any* topic. Say dentists. Say cars. Or higher ed. Home-buying. Wars. Healthcare. Sports. Home repairs. It doesn't matter-just pick a subject, then spend 20 minutes talking with an intelligent person about how it'll be changed by COVID-19 and you'll see the problem.
MBS is suing for peace in Yemen. Putin is admitting he doesn't have the virus under control. Pollution is dropping. Unemployment may breach 25%. We are in the *earliest imaginable days* of understanding how profoundly our world has changed and *the president isn't up to his job*.
What lies before us is a mountain so high it would be an extraordinary lift for the greatest presidents in American history to lead us even halfway up. And what we have instead is a clearly incompetent, deranged, profoundly antisocial embarrassment who *can't even form a group*.
Playtime is over. We need a real president now. /end
PS/ 2,500 Americans died of COVID-19 today.
2,500.
And the CDC says that's an *under-estimation*.
30,000 new people contracted COVID-19 today.
30,000.
That brings the total to 650,000.
So we'd better start wrestling with what it's actually going to take to get through this.