Trump Doesn't Understand the Need for Widespread Testing

This focus exclusively on health workers when it comes to testing and masks is ridiculous. Yes, I am concerned about them. But testing them and giving them masks is not going to slow the spread of COVID-19. And they'll be safer if we slow the spread, by testing everyone at least once a week and doing whatever is needed to get everyone to effectively cover their mouth and nose. What we needed 1-2 months ago was for Trump to use the Defense Production Act like a sledgehammer and get tons and tons of what we need made. It sounds like he's still dragging his feet on that, for the most part.

Testing just those who are sick is ridiculous. Before they get tested, before the are symptomatic, they can spread it. Trump seems to think that a test is an inoculation, but days after you get tested you could get it.

Also, read this, about the failure of Trump's idea of a treatment for COVID-19. He is finished.

There are Confederate flags at anti-lockdown/pro-Trump protests. I found several articles that briefly refer to it, but since it's such a small part of the articles, I'm not going to link to them. Do a search and you'll find them. I AM going to link to this, because it de-bunks a claim that a photo of a protester with that flag was doctored. Also, two such examples were in Wisconsin and Michigan, states that weren't in the Confederacy.

*****IMPORTANT*******

There is more evidence that Trump is a fascist. Read this. They aren't planning on replacing the entire Federal workforce with Trump loyalists for just 4-8 years. This is supposed to be permanent. Someone should ask them if they believe that every time someone moves into the White House, the entire Federal workforce should be replaced.

As Michael Farrell (the popular Irish civil rights/civil liberties lawyer) said, a characteristic of fascism is "the total identification of party and state."

UPDATE 4/22/20 I just wrote most of the following to a friend who thinks that fascist is the wrong word:

**He is supported by a right-wing populist movement. This thing with the federal workforce is, as I said, wanting to make the State an extension of the Party. He is bigoted, believes in an INCREIBLY imperial presidency, is thuggish (in 2016 he had his supporters assault protesters at his rallies), and is slightly imperialistic and militaristic. And there is a cult of personality involved.**

See this and this as examples of his recent, BROAD assertion of the President having more authority than he has. Also, see this as far as him purging Inspectors Generals in a way that is worrying not just Dems but GOPers as well. And he doesn't believe in an independent judiciary. First, at some point at least once he said that judges he appointed should side with his administration, and there's also this about how he thinks that judges who don't like him should recuse themselves from cases involving his administration.

 
UPDATE 4/23/20 Bearing in mind that criminal "justice" reform is a issue of racism, see this.

With the unavoidable depression and the lack of funding for local and state governments (which will happen if we don't start taxing the rich and maybe corporations more than they are taxed now) we will see economic insecurity skyrocket. And the Republicans, especially the hard-core Trump fans who are right-wing populists, will not blame capitalism for this increased economic insecurity, they will blame people of color. That is my solid prediction.

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That's Michael Farrell, the Irish activist not the actor. As I wrote elsewhere:

Michael Farrell is one of my top political heroes. He wrote an amazing book “Northern Ireland: The Orange State.” It’s a great book- it’s fairly introductory at the beginning and is a history of N. Ireland ending at some point in the 1970s depending on which edition you read. It’s also almost a labor history of N. Ireland, offers a lot of analysis, exposes the sectarian, brutal and near-authoritarian nature of the Northern state. It highlights the contributions made by Protestants and leftists to the struggles for justice, equality, and freedom. It exposes the role that capital played in creating and maintaining N. Ireland and the ways that capital benefited from the partition of Ireland and Orange rule in N. Ireland. Farrell was a leading member of People’s Democracy whose politics and activities I describe in the first half of this post (starting in the very early 1970s they expressed support for the Provisional IRA).

According to his wikipedia page:

After moving to Dublin and becoming a solicitor, Farrell was co-chairperson of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties from 1995 to 2001. He was appointed a member of the Irish Human Rights Commission in 2001 and reappointed in October 2006, serving until 2011. In 2005 he was appointed to the Steering Committee of the National Action Plan Against Racism [according to his ECRI page, it was 2001-2003- TS]. He is currently working for Free Legal Advice Centres, Dublin, and has brought cases to the European Court of Human Rights and the UN Human Rights Committee. In 2011 he was appointed to the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance, and in 2012 he was appointed to the Irish Council of State by President Michael D. Higgins.

I can confirm pretty much all of it (including the Council of State part), and there’s also the fact that people who were (between 1970 and 1990) very vocal and active Northern supporters of the Provisional IRA are not appointed to the Council of State (by a mainstream Labour politician) 20 years later without being (for example) a ridiculously well respected human rights/civil liberties lawyer.