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last October. Trump has reacted during his years in office in the
manner to which we have become accustomed: by defunding and
dismantling every relevant part of government and assiduously
implementing the instructions of his corporate masters to elimi-
nate the regulations that impede profits while saving lives — and
leading the race to the abyss of environmental catastrophe, by far
his greatest crime — in fact, the greatest crime in history when we
consider the consequences.
By early January, there was little doubt of what was happening.
On December 31, China informed the World Health Organization
(WHO) of the spread of pneumonia-like symptoms with unkno-
wn etiology. On January 7, China informed the WHO that scien-
tists had identified the source as a coronavirus and had sequen-
ced the genome, which they made available to the scientific world.
Through January and February, U.S. intelligence was trying hard
to reach Trump’s ear, but failed. Officials informed the press that
“they just couldn’t get him to do anything about it. The system was
blinking red.”
Trump was not silent, however. He issued a stream of confident
pronouncements informing the public that it was just a cough; he
has everything under control; he gets a 10 out of 10 for his handling
of the crisis; it’s very serious but he knew it was a pandemic before
anyone else; and the rest of the sorry performance. The technique
is well-designed, much like the practice of reeling out lies so fast
that the very concept of truth vanishes. Whatever happens, Trump
is sure to be vindicated among his loyal followers. When you shoot
arrows at random, some are likely to hit the target.
To crown this impressive record, on February 10, when the virus
was sweeping the country, the White House released its annual
budget proposal, which extends further the sharp cuts in all the
main health-related parts of the government (in fact just about any-
thing that might help people) while increasing funding for what’s
really important: the military and the wall.

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