The LuLac Edition #4,403, September 16th, 2020

WRITE ON WEDNESDAY 

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This week the Times Editorial board nailed it when they were referring to Bob Woodward’s “Rage” interviews. All of a sudden now, the word “panic” is getting variations of true meanings. Here’s what the newspaper had to write on this: 

 

PANIC TRUMP'S STOCK IN TRADE 

President Donald Trump’s assertion that he “downplayed” (lied about) the COVID-19 pandemic to avert panic is as laughable as his conduct is irresponsible. In a recorded interview in July, Trump acknowledged that he knew that the coronavirus was a deadly and opportunistic pathogen even as he repeatedly asserted publicly that it was akin to seasonal flu. He “downplayed” the risk, he claimed, to avert panic. Fear and panic are Trump’s stock in trade. 

As in: If Joe Biden is elected, urban mobs will descend upon bucolic suburbs and destroy the “suburban way of life.” “Caravans and caravans and caravans” of Central American and Mexican rapists, killers and thieves are coming to overwhelm your town. 

Biden will cause a “depression like we’ve never seen ... Our markets will crash.” Democrats’ “plans would massively raise your taxes, destroy our liberty, muzzle our faith and erase our sovereignty.” Biden will take your gun and destroy the Second Amendment. 

Biden and Democrats would “obliterate the Pennsylvania energy industry, destroy Pennsylvania’s economy, endanger Pennsylvania’s families and demolish the American way of life.” 

Democrats will destroy health care, Social Security and Medicare. 

Trump could have prevented panic by explaining what was going on, asking for cooperation in stopping it and marshaling the nation’s massive resources against it. Instead, he lied. Now, it’s not clear why the president chose the pandemic as the one area in which he decided to thwart panic, as more than 6 million Americans became infected, more than 196,000 died and tens of thousands of first responders and medical personnel were exposed to COVID-19. Perhaps it’s just the law of averages. Otherwise, panic is all he has.