Those Souped-Up Goalposts

Trump: That’s one of the reasons we’re successful, if you call losing 80k-90k people successful
Bret: That number has changed Mr. President. You said 60
Trump: I used to say 65k and now I’m saying 80 or 90 and it goes up and it goes up rapidly pic.twitter.com/v4FbbygF5Q

— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) May 3, 2020

Wow. Trump basically just admitted that his messaging is changing to get just ahead of the death tolls and "it goes up rapidly", which is, just, wow. Pretty close to Trump admitting an actually true thing, probably because he's proud of this strategy. We've moved from "15 to nothing" to "60,000" (I forget when he ever did say 65K but maybe he just said that because it's close to the current figure, which is 68K give or take and puts hitting 70k at Monday or Tuesday morning), but then again, he has also primed us to consider things pretty good if we get off with deaths in the low six figures. You know, versus if he did absolutely nothing at all, which he once said out loud as a possibility like that was something as president he actually could have done which would be in the millions. Going by which, maybe he really does think he has saved (billions?) millions (I think he meant to say "millions" but has a very sniffy nose). By just doing anything at all.

This is the same brilliant messaging that Larry Kudlow showed this morning by explaining that the administration did too have the pandemic contained, except for the way it continued spreading and all. (He knows better. He also knows it was absolutely predicted.)

Juxtapose this weird goalpost-moving messaging against the story this weekend regarding the White House's reliance on a model created by someone that was not an expert in infectious disease to press for opening up business activity in the US. They were spooked by the original scary numbers, so instead of just doing things smarter, they went and got happier numbers to look at. And the further off the mark the reality is from what was predicted, as the Trumpies try to get the economy back online in the midst of a disaster they have intentionally chosen not to understand?

It's a recipe for disaster. It is already a disaster. He's only tipped us that regardless, he'll keep those goalposts rolling. And will congratulate himself wherever they end up.

In the same virtual townhall, Trump indicated that he's been treated "worse than Lincoln", and I know this is not even the first time he's tried that comparison. Does he know what happened, or does he only see the monuments, and think, "That could be me?" He looked very diminished under Lincoln's image, and is indeed, not of a size for the moment we are in.