Hi, Trumpniks!
Sick of winning yet?
How’s your 401K?
Boy, it turns out that just because you have a captive political party that lets you do anything you want regardless of evidence, that there are still factors that can make your perfect world a little less perfect. Like markets, and science.
Of course this whole coronavirus thing really started in a lab somewhere in a lab somewhere in China that the Democrats sponsored just to undermine the stock market and make Our President look bad. But if this whole thing was a political hoax, somebody forgot to tell the Chinese, and the Iranians, and the entire Italian government, and the nursing home in Washington state where over 20 people died because our government knew that a global contagion was going on and yet the Trump Organization refused to accept World Health Organization-approved coronavirus tests.
And so since all these outside factors were contradicting the whims of our Dear Leader, the stock market continued to tank in the last ten days, wiping out virtually all the gains it had made since Donald Trump was declared president.
And as bad as that was, things got worse when Russia and Saudi Arabia decided to break their agreement on oil prices and boost production, dropping prices and thus market demand, along with the rest of the market.
Putin and bin Salman? They’re Trump’s two bestest buddies in the whole world! Well, next to Kim Jong-un, of course. I mean it ought to figure, both of these guys are probably best known for ghastly assassinations of political dissidents who fled abroad, so it stands to reason they’d stab each other in the back. The good thing of course is that the price of gas is low. But of course that’s due to the simple market factor of gas not being as necessary since no one has anywhere to go. If they really wanted to make a killing, the Russians would find out how to corner the market on toilet paper.
So perhaps realizing that it might help if Trump said something besides “just go to work, you’ll be fine,” the Trump Organization got its mini-brain trust of Stephen Miller and Jared Kushner to help draft a speech that Trump read on Wednesday, which among other things didn’t help because of the extremely flat affect he has on camera when he isn’t allowed to just be an off-the-cuff insult comic. Not only that, he didn’t look well, after he was repeatedly photographed with people who have turned out to have the coronavirus. Of course he has been sniffing and wheezing his way through public events since at least the Hillary Clinton debates. But now we have to ask, was Trump sniffing and wheezing his way through that speech because he has coronavirus, or just because he’s a 73-year old man with sleep apnea and an Adderall addiction?
But what really didn’t help was when people actually went over the details of what Trump said, and apparently he wasn’t supposed to say the Europe ban “will not only apply to the tremendous amount of trade and cargo, but various other things as we get approval”. But this was a prepared text on teleprompter! Did somebody insert the wrong lines into the text just to trip him up? Did he riff? Oh, that Trump! He’s such a card!
I mean, eventually on Friday Trump did finally announce a national emergency, which he said was “two very big words” (for him), and he did announce various initiatives to coordinate with Walmart and a few other companies. Of course some of these companies didn’t know exactly what the plan was. And Trump still seemed to have a bit of an issue with cleanliness, and not touching the mic at the outdoor press conference, and not shaking hands, and all that. But the idea that he was at least trying to act like a president and take the situation seriously did inspire Wall Street to gain 900 points, which sorta made up for losing so much in the previous four days.
Here’s the thing, not only did Trump’s surprise block of European travel royally piss off EU nations, it did that much more to undermine the stock market on Thursday because of that throwaway line about trade and cargo! And when the travel restrictions were officially imposed over the weekend, the end result was American travelers from Europe being channeled into one of 13 designated airports where an already over-worked Customs and TSA staff will be obliged to get them in line and answer questions. (Of course they won’t be tested for coronavirus, because we don’t have the technology that frackin’ South Korea has.) Twitter and other media reported vast crowds of people in line for the process, returned from Europe, all crammed together in one place. Coughing and sneezing. Talk about social isolation.
Hey – I wonder what THAT’s gonna do to the stock market on Monday?
Who woulda thought that containing a global pandemic could be so complicated??
I mean, are you guys really this clueless or is this intentional policy? Because if it is, and all this chaos and suffering is on purpose, what does that say about your morality and ultimate goals?
Liberals keep saying, “the cruelty is the point,” but this is cruelty you’re inflicting on white and affluent people!! It’s almost like you hate everybody!
See, there’s a difference between Donald Trump and the coronavirus. Viruses aren’t racist. Viruses don’t care if you’re Chinese or Italian or American. They can’t be stopped by your magic wall (anymore than it stops ladders and bolt cutters) and they can’t be stopped by Mike Pence’s prayers. A virus is a factor of science, and as Neil DeGrasse Tyson likes to say, “the beautiful thing about science is that it works whether you believe in it or not.”
And just as the virus is not impressed by balderdash, bluffing and bullying, apparently the markets are not either, because the people there have to predict trends for a living. And even if the United States continues to stick its collective head up its collective ass (without hand sanitizer) the rest of the world will look at the evidence and their governments will set their own policies that affect us whether we like it or not.
But hey, maybe I’m wrong about Donald Trump. I’ve been wrong before. Look, Donnie. You know I don’t like you. And maybe things seem kinda negative right now, and I know you don’t like to hear any bad news. That is of course, part of why things are like this. But just remember: Where you are now is because of what you did to get here. And you’ve gotten this far on balderdash, bluffing and bullying, and nothing has touched you yet! Not even coronavirus! (Or so your press flacks have told us.)
It’s ALWAYS worked!
Just like it always worked for Hitler. And Saddam Hussein! And the Soviet Communist Party! And all your other role models!
So now that you’ve restored the confidence of the markets, you can get out there Monday and get yourself back on track. All you need to do is pay attention to the world around you and not make things any worse. And what are the odds of THAT?
Just remember, Donnie:
You are
GOLD!
(Gold!)
Always believe in your soul
You’ve got the power to know!
You’re indestructible-
Always believe it!!