Mad King Donald takes the country on a death march

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Kevin Drum quotes a story in yesterday's Washington Post:

Trump administration pushing to block new money for testing, tracing and CDC in upcoming coronavirus relief bill

The Trump administration is trying to block billions of dollars for states to conduct testing and contact tracing in the upcoming coronavirus relief bill, people involved in the talks said Saturday.

….One person involved in the talks said Senate Republicans were seeking to allocate $25 billion for states to conduct testing and contact tracing, but that certain administration officials want to zero out the testing and tracing money entirely….Trump and other White House officials have been pushing for states to own more of the responsibility for testing and have objected to creating national standards, at times seeking to minimize the federal government’s role.

Drum's comment:

This is...what? Insanity? When cases are rising, deaths are rising, and people are waiting up to a week to get testing results back, it flatly makes no sense. I can’t even think of anything to say about this. It’s beyond words.

He found some words:

POSTSCRIPT: Does this have something to do with Trump’s apparent belief that if we don’t test we’ll have fewer cases? Are White House aides not even willing or able to push back against craziness of this magnitude anymore?

Rob's comment:

Trump's first Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, could take it for less than two months before resigning. He was quoted as saying afterward that Trump is "a fucking moron." Just so. 

That Trump apparently believes that testing somehow causes COVID-19 is behind that madness and stupidity. 

He---and the stooges around him---are at least carrying that idea to its logical conclusion: If we stop testing, the pandemic will be eliminated! 

Instead, the polls show that this craziness is not going unnoticed by the American people.

Trump and Republicans are heading to a richly-deserved and historic defeat in November. That's the only silver lining detectable in this ongoing national disaster of an administration. 

Republicans need to be crushed in November and banished to the margins of American political life where the racists, religious fanatics, gun nuts, and flat-earthers live. 

But November is a long way off, and thousands of people will be sickened and die in the interim, not to mention the damage to American institutions and political culture.

The only historical parallel I can think of is Jim Jones and the People's Temple from days of yore, but he only killed 918 people.

And Jim Jones was a Democrat.

See also American Death Cult: Why has the Republican response to the pandemic been so disastrous?