A suggestion: stop listening to the daily reports from the Propaganda Ministry. The Propaganda Minister is an idiot.
If that isn’t reason enough, it’s a font of misinformation in which we hear exactly what the PM wants us to hear, regardless of any relationship to facts.
Ordinarily, listening to fools is a time-waster and little more. It has no long-term effects provided we can separate truth from fiction. But the current PM has made that impossible from the first day when he (1) lied about the inauguration crowd and (2) sent one of his lackeys to introduced the idea of alternative facts.
That old gag—"How did you know he was lying? Because his lips were moving."—is a fact of life in the Trump administration. But now it’s serious. People listening to the Propaganda Minister or any of his enablers on Fox News (there are fewer and fewer) or even on wing-nut radio, run the risk of dying. And after they die, the person they died for will accept no responsibility. He already said that—to be precise, “I don’t take any responsibility at all.”
The buck that used to stop there, now stops nowhere.
Juxtapose this sniveling attitude with that of New York governor Andrew Cuomo speaking about closing down the state:
“I accept full responsibility. If someone is unhappy, somebody wants to blame someone or complain about someone, blame me."
Or when NBC reporter Peter Alexander asked the PM what he would say to frightened Americans, instead of calling Alexander a bad reporter for asking a softball question, the PM could have said this:
"I know this past week has been hard on people for many reasons. Working at home while the kids are running around. Not being able to visit your parents at their nursing home, or hanging out with your friends. It can take its toll.
But it is in these challenging times that we also see what we’re made of. This past week, no matter how difficult, was further proof that [we] are generous kind and compassionate, and that should give us all hope.
Except he didn’t say we; he said Canadians. That was Justin Trudeau. It wasn’t propaganda, but it was hopeful and inspiring, and less sociopathic than Trump.
And how about this from Angela Merkel:
I am absolutely certain that we will overcome this crisis. But how high will the number of victims be? How many loved ones will we lose? It is largely in our own hands. We can now, resolutely, all react together. We can accept the current limitations and stand by each other.
"Stand by each other." That's a concept entirely alien to our Propaganda Minister. The people he wants standing by him are the ones literally standing behind him for every propaganda session, the glorifiers and sycophants in the back row. Someday when people talk about the blackest days in the history of our country, that's the picture that will be in the history files—Trump and all those he infected.
So do yourselves a favor. Watch the local news and the network news. If you need more specifics go to town and state websites. Stay home and stay well. And when you are tempted to listen to the president babble incoherently about some new miracle cure that looks very promising, or about a vaccine that's just around the corner, remember, stress lowers your resistance and makes you that much more susceptible to the virus.
Another reason to avoid the temptation? This is the guy who tweeted about having met the Prince of Whales.
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