President Pandemic Knows Who's Lousy With COVID-19, And It Is New Zealand

There is no bottom for Donald Trump.

Monday, Donald Trump flew into Minnesota for a (mostly) socially distant campaign rally, and he delivered his usual brand of bullshit. He's not capable of rising to the occasion, as Michelle Obama pointed out when she verbally pantsed him last night during her DNC speech. Americans are dying at an alarming rate from COVID-19, primarily because of his malignant stupidity. He's struggling in the polls because voters want a president right now who is capable of empathy. Trump is miscast.

Trump tried to raise his usual lynch mob against Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, which is to be expected. He's racist. But he also grossly mocked New Zealand's recent “surge" in coronavirus cases.

TRUMP: The places they were using to hold up now they're having a big surge … they were holding up names of countries and now they're saying, “Whoops!"

No one says “whoops!" when referring to an ongoing pandemic that kills actual human beings. This man is a monster.

TRUMP: Do you see what's happening in New Zealand? They beat it, they beat it, it was like front-page news because they wanted to show me something.

Yeah, sure, New Zealand's government listened to science and successfully contained COVID-19 all just to spite Trump. There was no other compelling reason, like the health and safety of its residents. What kind of emotionally deformed, spiritual homunculus says crap like this?

Trump tries to favorably compare his failed coronavirus response to the “surge” of cases in New Zealand. We have m… https: //t.co/1zKgfKSC76

— DNC War Room (@DNC War Room) 1597692969.0 

Trump spiking the coronavirus football is grotesque enough, but it's also predicated on lies. Because no one — no country with even the most half-assed leadership — has fucked up their COVID-19 response like the United States.

TRUMP: Big surge in New Zealand, you know it's terrible, we don't want that, but this is an invisible enemy that should never have been let to come to Europe and the rest of the world by China.

There is no “big surge" in coronavirus cases in New Zealand. The entire country recorded nine COVID-19 new cases on Monday and 13 on Tuesday, which is admittedly an almost 50 percent increase. RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! Meanwhile, in the land of American exceptionalism, there were 40,022 cases on Monday. At least 542 Americans died and were unable to enjoy the president's Henny Youngman-style routine: “Take my pandemic, please!"

In fairness, New Zealand is a relatively small country with a population of just under 5 million people, which is roughly equal to my home state of South Carolina. At least 453 new cases were reported in the state Monday, and 19 people died. As of this morning, there've been 106,953 cases and2,288deaths in South Carolina. New Zealand's total cases were 1,643 and “just" 22 people have died. Maybe China “unleashed" a milder COVID-19 strain on the Kiwis. (I'm joking, but someone is probably saying this on Fox News right now.)

Imagine any other world “leader" joking about sick and dead South Carolinians. You can't. No one's that awful. Even the dictators are more careful with their words, and our allies — and New Zealand is one of our our oldest allies — would never be so heartless. America is heartless now, bereft of compassion and decency. Removing Trump from power is an important step in restoring relations, but some wounds will take generations to heal.

New Zealand's Ardern hits back at Trump over COVID-19 'surge'    www.youtube.com 

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, a professional adult, had to address Trump's nonsense. There's no comparison. For one thing, the current New Zealand "outbreak" is connected to a "single cluster of related cases." America would kill for that type of containment and contact tracing. We're shutting down schools because the virus is so out of control here.

ARDERN: I don't think there's any comparison between New Zealand's current cluster and the tens of thousands of cases that are being seen daily in the United States. Obviously, every country is experiencing its own fight with COVID-19. It is a tricky virus, but not one where I would compare New Zealand's current status to the United States.

Look, for anyone who is following COVID and its transmission globally, New Zealand's nine cases in a day does not compare to the United States' tens of thousands infected ... I'm not concerned with people misinterpreting our status.

That was so poised and diplomatic. She didn't say, “Fuck you, asshole," but you could see it in her eyes.

We are 76 days away from ending this horror show. American can't endure for much longer with literally the worst person who ever lived as president.

[ NPR / The Guardian ]

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