Buried towards the end of Lucian Truscott’s article about how Trump can fuck up everything about his coronavirus response and still win is this grim warning:
A new ABC/Ipsos poll found 55 percent approving of Trump's leadership in the crisis, versus 43 percent disapproving, an about-face from last week's numbers.
EXCERPT: He repeatedly brags that he's doing things that "have never been done before." Lie. He says over and over again that he's done "more than anyone" to fight the virus. Lie.
This is Trump's disinformation campaign writ large, and it's working. A new ABC/Ipsos poll found 55 percent approving of Trump's leadership in the crisis, versus 43 percent disapproving, an about-face from last week's numbers. The White House is cynically harnessing the coronavirus panic in a complete image makeover. The golfer-in-chief has been transformed into the "wartime president." He can't go to Mar-a-Lago every weekend because it closed on Friday. He's clearly mad as hell about it, but we're supposed to see the resentment written in wrinkles and smears of ochre makeup across his face as dedication and seriousness.
On March 6th I posted this on Daily Kos:
Today’s diary was prompted both by the Salon article and a text message I received last night:
This was particularly annoying because I already was informed that they would stop sending me texts:
Currently the primary Democratic spokesperson setting an example for what presidential crisis leadership ought to look like is Gov. Andrew Cuomo. His briefings are being carried on Fox News:
Cuomo isn’t running for president. My hunch is that many Democrats seeing how he is comporting himself now wish he was the candidate.
All this being said in view of the poll results and everything else Truscott lays out in his article that his last paragraph should be a clarion call to Bernie Sanders:
Every time he gets cut in half, he grows another tail using lies, cheating, and thievery.
”Every time he gets cut in half, he grows another tail using lies, cheating, and thievery.”
From Salon: But if there is one thing we have learned about Trump in the last four years, it's that he's a human earthworm: Every time he gets cut in half, he grows another tail using lies, cheating, and thievery. What Trump does to manipulate the fight against coronavirus will make you long for the innocent days of Russiagate. The virus we caught isn't corona, it's Trump, and the only vaccine we've got against him is the November election.
It is about time to get the Bernie campaign workers, now probably texting from home, like Sam and Hamza, to wrap their minds around the need to work for Joe Biden. These committed individuals are among those who absolutely must confront their anger and frustrations, and yes even grief, that the candidate they worked so hard for, some for years, has lost.
Joe Biden has to become the face and voice of Democratic leadership through the coronavirus crisis. He needs to be the one and only candidate, to pick the perfect vice presidential running mate and use her in smart ways to reach undecided female voters.
Come on Bernie. You fought the good fight. Swallow your pride, lick your wounds, and prove you are a mensch. This is how I put it in my March 6th diary:
If it’s Biden I can’t see Bernie making anything but a truly sincere whole hearted effort to put their anger aside and wholeheartedly work for Biden. But he need more that words directed to his disappointed, in some cases bereaved, supporters.
It will be up to him to make sure his more ardent and single-minded supporters don’t sit out the election. He just convince them to work to elect Biden as hard as they did for him in the primary. It will be a hard sell to some of them but if Trump beats Biden and polls put the blame at Bernie’s doorstep he will end up in the history and political science books an example of how inflexible progressive dogmatism among a small group of Bernie Sanders zealots led to a Democracy destroying eight years of Trumpism.
Please, Bernie, join the fight and show you can rally your loyal troops. More than ever making sure that we win in November. This has become more than a question of live or death for Democracy but literally for all Americans.
The Poll:
My message via tweet to Bernie and his supporters: