WaPo: "Not clueless and hapless. Malevolent."

[erronis]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/08/stop-saying-trump-is-denial-truth-is-much-worse/

Stop saying Trump is ‘in denial.’ The truth is much worse.

Once we dispense with the idea that Trump remains “in denial,” we’re left with a few interpretations. The most charitable is that Trump continues to have principled disagreements with experts over these matters, but there are zero indications he has any substantively grounded views on them of any kind.

A far less charitable interpretation is that he’s merely indifferent to the catastrophic consequences that are resulting from these failures — and will continue to do so — and that he’s prioritizing nakedly self-interested political calculations over any such concerns.

Trump has been steadily wrong in these political calculations, to be sure. At each stage, he has believed not acting was in his immediate interests, only to discover the consequences of inaction proved politically worse.

There may have been a species of denial at play in those faulty political calculations — a misguided faith in his magical ability to re-create his political reality through the force of will and tweet. But we can’t pretend any longer that Trump isn’t perfectly aware of what the real-world consequences of his actions — or inactions — will be.

The press critic Jay Rosen has repeatedly suggested that the effort to obscure Trump’s role in this ongoing fiasco is producing one of the biggest propaganda and disinformation campaigns in modern history. Central to getting this right is dispensing with the idea that Trump is a hapless, clueless actor rather than a deliberate and malevolent one.

The one other possibility that underlies his malevolence is direction from hostile actors - foreign and domestic.

[soothsayer]

1. Right on

[spooky3]

2. Excellent column that is very consistent with the evidence. Nt

[Mike 03]

3. Kudos to the Washington Post for finally going "there."

It's high time we get real about what's happening.

[ProfessorGAC]

4. It Can Be All 3

Clueless, hapless & malevolent.
Each of the three does not preclude either of the other 2.

[marybourg]

5. I've been calling him the malevolent nincompoop for months,

Ever since “insane, traitorous fascist” became too much of a mouthful for everyday use.

[Trailrider1951]

6. There's more, much more:

Quote: The preponderance of the evidence points to something far worse.

Trump has been widely and repeatedly informed by his own and other experts for many months that his failure to take coronavirus more seriously could have utterly catastrophic consequences, that it could result in widespread suffering and needless deaths.

It isn’t enough to point out that Trump repeatedly ignored that advice. What’s more important is that Trump has repeatedly seen the predicted consequences of those failures come to pass, and is seeing that right now.

Yet Trump still continues not just to downplay the severity of the virus’s continuing toll, but also to actively discourage current efforts to mitigate the spread — by failing to set an example through mask-wearing, for instance — and to urge the very sort of rapid reopening that has already contributed to catastrophic outcomes.

The carnage is mounting once again. Total cases just hit 3 million. They have risen in 37 states over the last two weeks — hitting single-day records in six — and the national rolling average of 50,000 new daily cases is far outpacing June’s.

There’s no doubt that the decision to reopen rapidly in many states — which Trump urged — has played some kind of important role in the current surges. As a former Baltimore health commissioner noted: “The key is we did not have to be here right now.”

Yet Trump has shown zero signs of even trying to grapple with the cause and effect behind these new circumstances. Instead, he continues to lie about them, falsely claiming we have the lowest mortality rate in the world, falsely claiming that “99 percent” of cases are “totally harmless,” and absurdly claiming the virus will “disappear.” Unquote.

Trump is aiding the virus in spreading and killing people. He truly is EVIL.

[gulliver]

7. Yep, he's not in denial. He knows full well he's created a catastrophe.

He's trying to save his own ass from the snapping jaws of the truth, not innocently unable to grasp or accept it. He's the kind of guy who, fleeing from police, would start a fire in an orphanage to distract his pursuers.

[erronis]

8. "Start a fire in an orphanage" - which is exactly what he is doing.

Metaphorically and really. And doesn't care about the carnage.

Because he thinks/knows that he won't have to stick around to clean up or make amends.

Are all of the other (r)epuglicons part of this same scheme? Is there a master-plan to escape the wrath? Can putin really accommodate all of these in the USSR?