Trump and his acolytes

With help, I’ve figured out why Trump keeps giving dubious assurances on coronavirus:

• If coronavirus peters out in the U.S., he will look like a prophet for having given such assurances.
• If coronavirus is really bad — say 1,000,000 people die and the economy goes into the tank worse than in 2008, he’s toast and it doesn’t matter what false assurances he gave.

So in Donald Trump’s microscopic constellation of values (i.e., “How will this make me look?”) there’s no real downside in giving false assurances. “Collateral damage,” otherwise known as “dead Americans,” don’t count.

(H/T Sara Isgur)

From David French on the same podcast:

Trumpistas have been expanding the definition of “Russia hoax” to include things that the Trump campaign and hangers-on actually, demonstrably did:

• Roger Stone’s efforts to establish ongoing communications with Wikileaks?
• Donald Jr. meeting with a Russian lawyer in expecation of getting Russian government dirt on Hillary?
• Paul Manafort sharing polling information?
• Michael Cohen lying to Congress about Trump Tower Moscow?

Russia hoax. All of them.

And if you mention them on Twitter, you’ll get gang-tackled for “spreading the Russia hoax.”