The catastrophic backstory is well-known: Displaying a “beyond criminal,” “lethal level of intentional ignorance,” our staggeringly incompetent game show host of a president has for months mishandled “the most dangerous pandemic in our lifetime,” from firing health teams to rejecting WHO testing kits to ranting, “One day – it’s like a miracle – it will disappear,” to lying and egregious racist dog-whistling and lying again. Last week, he reached new levels of lunacy in his Nazi-rally, fact-free, increasingly dangerous press briefings: “Call them what they are – propaganda.” After days of boasting, rambling, hyperbolic making up stuff and airing wingnut conspiracy theories, he famously threw a hissy fit when NBC’s Peter Alexander asked what he’d say to frightened Americans – “I say you’re a terrible reporter” – and even more calamitously spouted “perilously untrue” and now fatal misinformation about “curing” coronavirus cures with malaria drugs he’d just heard about: “I am a big fan. We will see what happens…But I feel good about it. That is all it is, just a feeling. You know, I am a smart guy. I feel good about it. We will see soon enough.” Cue the facepalm seen around the world by stoic, just-the-facts Dr. Anthony Fauci. The circus has prompted growing calls – here, here, here, here – for media to just stop airing what Rachel Maddow called murderous “fairy tales (that are) cruel and harmful and needlessly diverting and wildly irresponsible from anyone in any leadership role (and) actually wildly responsible if someone said that to you from a barstool, if any of us could go to bars anymore.” The vital truth: “When he’s talking about the coronavirus epidemic, more often than not, he is lying.” And it keeps getting worse.
