Trump Courts Evangelicals With Easter Reopening Goal

At a time when the advice of medical experts should predominate, Donald Trump continues to put politics first and panders to the science and knowledge denying elements of his base: evangelical Christians.  Hence Trump's arbitrary choice of Easter as the date he wants to end social distancing and to "reopen the economy."  While never mentioned, Easter - along with Christmas - are the dates when churches typically make their biggest haul in cash donations and, since religion is first and foremost a business motivated by money and control, missing out on the usual Easter surge in donations, pastors and scamvangelists worry about the financial hit they will take.  Trump and his Christofascist supporters may be talking about the symbolism of an Easter "reopening," but the real motivations are (i) money, and (ii)  keeping the evangelical "leaders" happy.  The move , if pursued, would be reckless and endanger lives. The good news is that so-called Nones and sensible Christians would likely avoid crowded church services setting the stage for Darwin's theory to play out among the "godly folk."  Here are highlights from Huffington Post:

Donald Trump’s “beautiful” idea to reopen the U.S. economy by Easter Sunday and pack church pews that day was dreamed up during a conference call among business leaders desperate to get the country back up and running.

But his target date for easing coronavirus restrictions is another outstretched hand to a group he has long courted: evangelical Christians.

Cooped up at the White House and watching the stock market tumble, Trump had already been eager to ease federal guidelines aimed at halting the spread of a virus that had infected more than 55,000 Americans when about a dozen business leaders convened a conference call on Sunday.

“There was a concern — not unanimity, but consensus — that you had to have a reopening of the economy at some point soon,” said Stephen Moore, a conservative economist and informal Trump adviser. On the call, Moore said, he argued in favor of setting a specific date as a goal by which point the economy could gradually begin to be reopened.

Though it’s unclear exactly when the idea made its way to Trump or whether others in his orbit had pegged the date as well — one official said they had heard the idea mentioned multiple times around the Oval Office — by late Sunday, Trump was publicly siding with such thinking, tweeting: “WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF.” On Monday, he said he was considering easing his administration’s recommendations that Americans largely stay home within weeks, not months. And on Tuesday, he formally endorsed the idea of an Easter goalpost during a Fox News Channel virtual town hall.

“Easter’s a very special day for me. Wouldn’t it be great to have all of the churches full?” Trump later told Fox. “You’ll have packed churches all over our country. I think it would be a beautiful time.”

The idea drew alarm from many public health experts, who noted that even New York — thought to be several weeks ahead of the rest of the nation — has yet to reach its peak in infections. . . . But for conservative evangelicals who remain among Trump’s most ardent supporters, the president’s choice of the holiest date on their faith’s calendar was meaningful even as a purely aspirational goal to reboot American life.

Ralph Reed, a veteran GOP activist and Trump ally who chairs the Faith & Freedom Coalition, cautioned that restrictions shouldn’t be eased “if it’s a bad idea from a public health standpoint,” but also welcomed the Easter target. . . . Reed said, “because I think it would be symbolic, it would be significant, it would be inspirational.”

Even if Trump were to ease federal guidelines, states across the country, from California to New York, have already put in place a patchwork of rules to try to halt the virus’ spread. The administration has so far said it has no plans to try to overrule local restrictions.

The White House, meanwhile, has been holding calls with those who might publicly back its plans, including conservative allies of the president. Reed said he was among two dozen allies who participated in one call Tuesday with Vice President Mike Pence.

Three separate faith outreach calls, including one that drew more than 1,200 allies, were held last week alone.

Pastor Tony Suarez, another evangelical Trump ally, said he hopes the Easter target can be achieved, to “celebrate a national resurrection and an economic resurrection as we celebrate the Resurrection.”

But even among white evangelicals who are a key component of the president’s political base, there were reservations. . . . described the president’s elevation of that date as a fresh signal of the “respect within the administration for the word of God and for Christian faith.”

Among those signals, Suarez noted, was Pence’s call during a Saturday briefing by the coronavirus task force he leads for Americans to keep donating to their local ministries when most houses of worship have moved their services online.

It is ultimately, all about money and pandering to those who deny science and modern knowledge.  Be afraid.

The Coronavitus Will Cause a Political Pandemic

As a column in the Washington Post notes, so far Donald Trump's handling of the coronavirus has been less than a study in building public confidence.   Indeed, Trump and his sycophants continue to suggest that the entire health care scare is a hoax and his regime is trying to censor statements by medical experts.  Trump's main concern is not public health and citizens dying but instead the stock market level.  Having a malignant narcissist in the White House during a potential pandemic is decidedly not a good thing. Here are column excerpts:

Political interference with that process will almost certainly backfire by corroding public confidence and abetting confusion. Some of Trump’s public comments have not been helpful because they suggest that the president is not entirely in agreement with some of his medical advisers.

No doubt [Trump] the president is unhappy with the dramatic decline in the stock market. He has clearly indicated that he expected to make the market’s spectacular gains a major theme in his bid for reelection.

This will be harder now, maybe impossible. But if Trump responds by searching for scapegoats or blaming his economic and health advisers, he will make a bad situation worse — for him, the country and (possibly) the world.

A piece in Vanity Fair looks at the potential political consequences of a spread of the virus in America may mean in the context of the presidential election.  Here are highlights: 

If trends hold, the coronavirus will soon upend daily life here in the United States. Schools in some cities will close for a while; supply chains will be disrupted; people will stay at home; and the economy will suffer a blow. Even now, stock prices have continued to fall, and surgical masks have been sold out for weeks. Yesterday, we could read about the first case of so-called community transmission, after a patient in northern California tested positive for coronavirus despite having no obvious link to anyone else with it. Despite assurances from Donald Trump this week that “we’ve had tremendous success” in containing the coronavirus outbreak, Americans are unconvinced.

Coronavirus is going to be everybody’s running mate in 2020, and the question is who will fare worst as a result. In what’s normally a zero-sum game, whatever hurts one candidate helps the other. But coronavirus won’t be so clear-cut. A lot depends on how bad things get and who is running against whom.

On the Republican side, we know we’re getting Trump, and early signs of his approach to the virus are unpromising. An engaged president would be on the phone daily with CDC officials, members of Congress, military leaders, cabinet officials, medical experts, and even companies like 3M, which produces the masks on which people will be relying. Trump instead sounded like someone who got a few scattered briefings. Asked about why the CDC—which, as feared, has been stumbling out of the gate—has tested only about 500 people, versus the thousands of tests being conducted in other countries, Trump couldn’t hide that he was winging it, . . . before going into a recitative about washing hands. Trump hasn’t been sounding much of an alarm, for fear of setting off panic and seeing stock prices fall further, so life has continued as normal. He has no evident master plan, and yesterday he was trafficking in the-flu-is-worse clichés that were last in fashion weeks ago. He’d be better off as the border fanatic that people believe him to be.

If we get through the next couple of months without a big outbreak, then Trump will be in okay shape. While he might not get a lot of credit for preventing disaster (because people rarely do), he won’t suffer for it, and he’ll be able to boast of aggressive measures taken, regardless of what we did. If things get very bad, however, then Trump will have a tough time hanging onto office. We can see he knows this is a possibility, because he has appointed Mike Pence to oversee the federal response. This is a lot like China’s leader Xi Jinping assigning a similar task to Premier Li Keqiang. If things get bad, you can blame it on the bumbling lieutenant.

Meanwhile, among Democrats, coronavirus has a quite different effect. Trump’s loss is their gain, in the big picture, but they are also running against one another. In the most mundane realm, self-quarantining means that people don’t leave their homes. They don’t vote, don’t caucus, and don’t show up for rallies. This limits the ability of candidates to mobilize people, and it favors those who get a lot of attention even without campaigning on the ground. It’s okay for Mike Bloomberg, who has ads running all day on television, but it’s less ideal for the others. Bernie Sanders fires up his supporters with enormous rallies, as Donald Trump and Barack Obama did before him. Those would have to cease for a while.

Coronavirus will have people looking for plausible managers. Bloomberg, of course, has been mentioned in that regard, and it will help him. Elizabeth Warren, who claims to have plans for most things, might also get a lift. Blandness will become a virtue, as well, so Amy Klobuchar will look stronger. On the other hand, Joe Biden would not be likely to gain much ground. He has no real reputation for management, and he also lacks the vigor characteristic of effective leaders in crisis.

Bernie Sanders is less of a manager, but he would have a different and important advantage in the middle of an epidemic, which is commitment to “Medicare for all.” It sounds too drastic for many Americans when things are normal. It doesn’t sound so drastic during a pandemic, when infected people will be avoiding doctor’s appointments for fear of bankruptcy. As things stand, it’s all too plausible that, within a few weeks, people will be safer in Shanghai than in New York, because in China people are vigilant, and cases are finally on the wane, while here things are looser, and just getting started. The coronavirus will shuffle the political deck for everyone, the more so the longer it continues. But no matter who profits or loses politically with this epidemic, sane people can only hope that it comes and goes fast. The less effect it has on our politics, or anything else, the happier we’ll be. Even Mike Bloomberg would agree.