President Trump decided to further deflect blame for his vast incompetencies in connection with the COVID-19 outbreak this weekend by blaming … the medical profession and hospitals:
Trump’s boldest claim was about masks. He noted that current demand wasn’t commensurate with what hospitals typically use and suggested that masks were “going out the back door.”
“It’s a New York hospital, very — it’s packed all the time,” he said. “How do you go from 10 to 20 [thousand masks per week] to 300,000? Ten [thousand] to 20,000 masks, to 300,000 — even though this is different? Something is going on, and you ought to look into it as reporters. Are they going out the back door?” [Aaron Blake, WaPo]
So let’s make some points about motivations, the first prior to the quote, and fallout.
I think we’re seeing some first-class projection here. That is, if Trump was a hospital administrator, he would be figuring cost vs price and trying to drive up the price by hoarding. Of course, that would be unethical, if not out and out illegal, so he would have to cover it up in order to preserve his reputation.
And, since the world is like Trump, or they’re suckers (see: Trump University), he assumes hospitals do this. Or, at least, are most likely to look like they do. Such is the Trump way when responsibility threatens to come a-calling.
And the fallout? The medical profession remains one of the most respected in society, which may reflect negatively; hospitals, however, are the entities that charge outrageous fees and resist publicizing prices, so they’re not so high on the list.
What would I like to see now? Undoubtedly, there are medical professionals in the Trump cult. I’d like one, or several, of them to step forward with evidence backing up Trump’s claim, OR step forward to say, No, there’s no evidence for this claim, and I’m no longer a Trump supporter.
It’s called having self-respect.
