Pandemic and the Case for Community

In a piece for The New Yorker last week Susan Glasser wrote that “Crises clarify.”

No doubt about that.

She notes that “the incompetence, dishonesty, and sheer callousness of the Trump Presidency have been clearer in recent days than ever before.” Quinta Jurecic and Benjamin Wittes of the Lawfare blog go even further, noting Trump’s “incompetence exacerbated by malevolence” in dealing with the coronavirus, a reversal of the previous dynamic on matters like the Muslim ban, where malevolence was tempered by incompetence.

When your administration has only two gears, and one is being clueless assholes and the other is being evil morons, you’re not in great shape.

PANIC IN DETROIT (ALSO: EVERYWHERE)

Where to begin? Let’s start with Trump’s Oval Office speech, which has been widely, and rightly, panned as a disaster.

Sweating, stilted, stumbling over the words on the TelePrompTer, and of course unconscionably spewing lies and misinformation, it was no shock that Trump had the exact opposite of his intended effect in terms of assuring us that there was a steady hand at the helm. Even some of the right wing was appalled. The day before, America seemed relatively calm. The day after, Brooklyn (where I live) was visibly panicked, with the by-now ubiquitous runs on…