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The GOP Dominoes Keep Tumbling

Do you know what you have done?
Do you know what you’ve begun?

Domino by Genesis. Lyrics by Tony Banks.

People have been parsing images from the Amy Coney Barrett Super-Spreader reception as if it were the Zapruder Film. There’s only grass, no grassy knoll.

This captioned photo from Getty Images was tweeted out by the CNN anchor whose name is better than his reporting:

There are more than six GOP dominoes and soon there’ll be more.

Since I’m an evil bastard, I hope Bill Barr will contract COVID from getting up close and personal with Kellyanne Conway. I am, however, sorry that Conway’s daughter caught it from her mother.  Poor kid has been through enough. Imagine being the spawn of the right-wing Bickersons. Get well soon. Claudia.

I’m glad to report that the last week has been an unmitigated disaster for Team Trump. The fundamental dynamic of this campaign is that any time the pandemic is the main topic of conversation, it hurts President* Pennywise. Trump’s vilest outbursts at the “debate” were provoked by any mention of COVID-19.

This weekend’s events are a reminder of Trump’s recklessness and selfishness. That fakakta motorcade to nowhere needlessly endangered the health of the Secret Service agents in the SUV with the Impeached Insult Comedian.

Trump’s Sunday stunt was so horrific that a Walter Reed Doc took to Twitter:

https://twitter.com/DrPhillipsMD/status/1312867868028141568

https://twitter.com/DrPhillipsMD/status/1312869454385229827

Dr. Phillips is head of disaster medicine at GW as well as a CNN contributor. I may have to watch CNN more after that righteous outburst.

The motorcade to nowhere was all about the show. Message: I’m a tough guy. The real message is that he’s a reckless and selfish prick. I feel a musical interlude coming on:

Trump isn’t the first POTUS* to lie about his health but he’s among the most brazen. Dr. Conley’s briefings have been evasive at best, dishonest at worst. Instead of addressing the nation, Conley had an audience of one: the patient. My favorite part was when Conley said he didn’t want to damage the upbeat mood of the team. Really, Doc? I thought your profession’s motto was, “first, do no harm” not “don’t bum anyone out.”

Another classic moment was when Conley said that he didn’t know what Trump’s temperature was at its peak, he’d have to ask the nurses. Another lie. All he had to do was read the patient’s chart. Leave the nursing staff out of this. It’s on you, Doctor Commander Conley.

Trump’s docs need to be careful to maintain their professional integrity. A reminder that everyone who gets involved with Donald Trump gets slimed.

Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman filed a bone-chilling report at The Hive this morning:

On Saturday, the West Wing plunged into damage-control mode after Trump’s physician, Dr. Sean Conley, told reporters that Trump was diagnosed with COVID-19 on Wednesday—a day earlier than Trump previously disclosed. The new timeline meant that Trump would have been contagious when he debated Joe Biden on Tuesday and attended a fundraiser on Thursday at his Bedminster golf club.

The White House released follow-up statements saying Conley misspoke, but they did little to quell the chaos. The White House’s shifting chronology and lack of transparency are being driven, in part, by Trump’s desire to conceal the seriousness of his illness from the public. Three sources said Trump argued with his doctors on Friday after they told him he needed to be moved to Walter Reed. “He didn’t want to go to the hospital a month before the election,” a Republican close to Trump told me. Two sources said doctors gave Trump an ultimatum: he could go to the hospital while he could still walk, or doctors would be forced to take him in a wheelchair or on a stretcher at a later point if his health deteriorated. “They told him, ‘You can go now or we’re taking you later and it’s non negotiable,’” a second source close to the White House said. Trump waited to leave for the hospital until the stock market closed on Friday, a source said.

After spending months denying the dangers of COVID-19, Trump is expressing an emotion aides have rarely seen: fear. On Friday, Trump grew visibly anxious as his fever spiked to 103 fahrenheit and he was administered oxygen at the White House, according to three Republicans close to the White House. Two sources told me Trump experienced heart palpitations on Friday night—possible side effects of the experimental antibody treatment he received. Trump has wondered aloud if he could defeat the disease. “Am I going out like Stan Chera?” Trump has asked aides, referring to his friend, New York real-estate developer Stan Chera, who died of COVID in April.

The COVID chickens are coming home to roost. The GOP dominoes keep tumbling. TPM’s Josh Marshall wonders if the Kaiser of Chaos himself is the super-spreader. That means he’s gone from Trumper Superman to Super Chicken to Super-Spreader in the course of one disastrous week.

There’s a marvelous passage in a WaPo story about the arrogance of White House staffers who mistakenly believed that testing was enough to protect them from the virus:

Inside the West Wing’s narrow corridors, where staffers for months have worked in proximity largely without masks, what had long been an atmosphere of invincibility turned into one of apprehension and panic. “People are losing their minds,” said the outside adviser.

First, aides fretted about their own risks of exposure. If the president got infected, so might they.
Then they considered the political implications, coming so close to the Nov. 3 election. “We don’t want to be talking about coronavirus and now we’re talking about coronavirus,” the outside adviser said. “The hit writes itself: He can’t protect the country. He couldn’t even protect himself.”

He also can’t protect his own people; not that this reckless and selfish prick gives a shit about that.

The election cake is baked, especially with the RNC Chair and Trump’s campaign manager sidelined by COVID. Democrats and our allies need to execute, and victory will follow. Here’s hoping that it’s a landslide that will send the Trumper rats running for cover. The GOP dominoes are tumbling.

I’ve never really bought the coup talk. It’s always struck me as a diversionary tactic. Does anyone seriously think that Team Trump can pull off a coup when they can’t even run a competent cover-up?

The Domino Effect is in play. The GOP dominoes keep tumbling.

Repeat after me:

Do you know what you have done?
Do you know what you’ve begun?

The last word goes to Genesis:

Another day, another last word fib. Trumper mendacity is *almost* as contagious as COVID-19. If you have not already read Ryne Hancock’s great guest post, Hard Sympathy, click here.