I take it that besides the travel ban from Europe and talk about aid to Wall Street types, Trump didn’t say much about concrete health and medical measures for the people of the US? Am I right?

@Ron @bradenslen he did initially say that and then backtracked it. They’ve agreed to cover the cost of the testing but care for the disease will be per usual. It’s a mess.

@bradenslen Just going to leave this here and direct your attention to the graph:

www.npr.org/sections/...

@fgtech It just boggles my mind. The "leaders" in the Executive Branch all have that "deer caught in the headlights" look.

@Ron it used to be we could take a transcript of a presidential address “to the bank,” so to speak, but with Trump, it’s followed by a huge cascade of “clarifications.” Fixes. Awful way to govern.

@jcburns Okay, sorry for posting it. I was just answering Brad's question.

@Ron No, thank you for posting the transcript! It’s very good to have all of the facts in the conversation.

Personally, I’m disappointed that the best this president can do is try to conjure up what amounts to a “business deal” when what we need is public health leadership.

@fgtech Here are the facts:

He said health insurance companies would waive patients’ co-payments for coronavirus testing and treatment; industry officials later clarified that they would waive payments for testing only.

@pratik Oh, yes… I know what he said (what’s in the transcript) had to be corrected. What I meant is it’s helpful to the conversation to have the written record. The facts of what he said.

Anyone still thinking the president’s words are connected to reality is making a mistake.

@fgtech The norms are out the window and so are the days when you can trust the President to reassure or provide accurate information. Still there are people out there who expect him to change and give him the benefit of the doubt. I judge those people strongly.

@pratik I suspect some of those arguing for the “benefit of the doubt” actually know better and should be judged most harshly. The rest have been snookered by a life-long con man and have bought into his lies because they fear a changing world. I have more sympathy for them.

@fgtech I’m currently reading this book so while I have sympathy, it’s takes all my willpower to do so coz they literally can be an existential threat to me as they’ve been in the past to others.

@pratik Your plight is far worse than theirs. Much more must be done to ease the disruption experienced by people in your position than those simply fearing change and having trouble coping with their historically privileged position.

@pratik At the same time, fear of change is real and must be addressed, or we won’t get anywhere. It’s a human foible not specific to white Americans. We must equip people around the world to handle change while also pushing back against racism and nationalism.

@fgtech Agree but privilege and previous/existing injustices must at least be acknowledged before we can move on.

I’ve seen it among other cultures too so not unique to white Americans. A friend once callously suggested that we should simply move back to the places where we are the majority. Thus underlined the fact that it’s always about power and need to maintain supremacy over the ‘other’.

@pratik Agreed.

There must have been some evolutionary advantage to that tribal mindset, but it has become a liability in our globally connected era.