Opinion | Trump’s Flounder Period

Truly, Trump has been flopping around lately like a beached flounder. Remember when he decided it was the governors, not him, who should deliver the bad news to citizens that they had to shelter in place? (“I like to allow governors to make decisions without overruling them because from a constitutional standpoint, that’s the way it should be done.”)

Then he decided that the rule didn’t apply when it came to delivering good news about restarting the economy. (“When somebody’s the president of the United States, the authority is total. And that’s the way it’s got to be. It’s total. It’s total.”)

Hey, somebody has to do the fun part.

Finally, after a massive backlash from governors, Trump gave in and agreed that they could do the reopenings — presumably with a lot of advice from GAERIG. He then turned his attention to the international pandemic, and decided the most useful thing he could do in the fight for world health was to, um, torpedo the World Health Organization.

Yeah, Trump announced he was freezing American funds for the W.H.O. because he thinks it’s too pro-China:

“One of the most dangerous and costly decisions from the W.H.O. was its disastrous decision to oppose travel restrictions from China and other nations. They were very much opposed to what we did. Fortunately, I was not convinced and suspended travel from China, saving untold numbers of lives. Thousands and thousands of people would have died.”

I know, you’ve heard that story a lot. Whenever anybody points out how slow Trump was to recognize the danger of the coronavirus, or start gearing up on research and testing, he always reminds the world of the stupendous job he did keeping out potentially infected travelers from the East. “How come I was the only person, the only leader of a country that closed our borders tightly against China?” he demanded, claiming his fast thinking saved “hundreds of thousands.”

I know you know it didn’t work like that. Trump restricted travel from China after the W.H.O. warned about the virus there, and after other nations had already put restrictions in place. Trump did make the decision; however a more perfect description might have been: “It had never been done before. Except by some other countries. But I was definitely up toward the front of the middle of the herd.”

OK, let’s look at the bright side. We’ve got GAERIG! And 70 million Americans are about to get those stimulus funds. Each check bearing Donald Trump’s name. Right there near the $1,200.

The man is terrible at governing, but he’s a genius at branding.

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