Coronavirus

Calling All Quacks

Written by SK Ashby

States many be reopening their economies too soon even if they have proper guidelines and standards in place, but it's still not quick enough for Trump and the GOP.

Trump and his campaign want to see the entire economy reopen at full capacity without any safety standards or social distancing, but almost no one thinks that's good idea so the campaign is on the hunt for any licensed quack they can find who will call for it.

The Associated Press reports that they're looking for “extremely pro-Trump” doctors to serve as campaign surrogates.

The plan was discussed in a May 11 conference call with a senior staffer for the Trump reelection campaign organized by CNP Action, an affiliate of the GOP-aligned Council for National Policy. A leaked recording of the hourlong call was provided to The Associated Press by the Center for Media and Democracy, a progressive watchdog group. [...]

Tim Murtaugh, the Trump campaign communications director, confirmed to AP that an effort to recruit doctors to publicly support the president is underway, but declined to say when the initiative would be rolled out.

“Anybody who joins one of our coalitions is vetted,” Murtaugh said Monday. “And so quite obviously, all of our coalitions espouse policies and say things that are, of course, exactly simpatico with what the president believes. ... The president has been outspoken about the fact that he wants to get the country back open as soon as possible.”

I'm sure they'll be able to find at least a few wackos who are willing to sign on to this for the right price, but any doctor who considers themselves more loyal to Trump than to science and their own medical oaths is someone who should be closely monitored by their state medical board.

If a doctor is willing to go on television and say we should take no actions to limit the spread of the virus because it will help Trump, there's no telling what other horrible and possibly even worse advice they're giving their clients in private.

There's other problems with this campaign, of course. Persuading local governments to relax or eliminate all of their standards still wouldn't restore consumer demand to what it was before and the resulting deaths wouldn't be good for the economy or even Trump's campaign. Over 100,000 dead bodies will be bad for Trump, but you know what would be worse? Another 100,000 bodies.

Trump is desperate for a quick way out of this economic slump when there simply isn't one.