Climate, technology and chaos Blog

Positive thinking

I have previously discussed “positive thinking” as a way that Neoliberalism engages in information distortion and suppression. Let’s look at this in more detail with the case of Covid-19.

There is a lot of use for some kinds of positive thinking. Realising that life presents problems, that solving problems can generate more problems, and that persistence and a willingness to learn from failure and mistakes, by changing tack rather than giving up, is useful. Life is complex, and enmeshed in complex systems – it is not easy for most people to do much of anything. If I can quote a relatively famous musical philosopher – John Lydon…

“Every problem at first seemed insurmountable,” he says. “Until one worked harder and harder at solving it. It’s a process I enjoy.”…

“I try to say that in the book,” he says. “Everything is a test. You’ve got to solve these problems. You can’t just run away and hide, shirk your responsibility. You’ve got to meet it head-on, get on with it. Sorry, there it is. These are the cards handed to you and you’d better play the game.”

Barbara Ellen, “John Lydon: ‘Don’t become entrenched in one opinion and get stuck there for ever'” The Guardian, 11 October 2020

This seems to be relatively realistic, if you assume Lydon also learns from mistakes. Gratitude and thanks for life and for what you have is probably good for you as well.

However, neoliberal positive thinking seems to insist that one should focus on imagined success and not focus on the problems. In the version of life it promotes, it seems you only get what you attract by your thoughts. If you think positively you attract good things, if you think negatively you attract bad things. Therefore, if you are miserable, poor or sick, it is your fault for choosing bad thoughts, and the successful are always virtuous and strong. They control their thinking so it is always positive, always envisioning what they truly desire.

This is far more problematic, especially with the implied addendum, that given a free market if you are virtuous and hardworking then only good will happen to you, if you think good things and are good. This acts as a way of reinforcing inequality and plutocracy – bad things only happen to bad, uncontrolled, or weak people.

This post is rather long, so in summary:

Neoliberal positive thinking

• ignores experience,
• plays down a whole range of problems,
• blocks information flow,
• denounces those with different views, no matter how knowledgeable they might be, and
• leads to lying, shadow politics and scapegoating.

It also leads to unjustified optimism about:

• ‘solutions’ which have not been properly tested but which feel good, and of
• the ruler’s better understanding of the problems than people who have studied the areas involved.

By helping people to turn away from real problems, it makes the situation worse.

Trump privately recognises the Danger

We now know that Donald Trump confessed on tape to Bob Woodward on 7th February 2020, that he knew the Corona virus was a problem:

You just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed. And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even It goes through air, Bob. That’s always tougher than the touch. The touch, you don’t have to touch things, right? But the air, you just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed. And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flus. People don’t realize, we lose 25,000, 30,000 people a year here. Who would ever think that, right?…

This is more deadly. This is 5% versus 1%, and less than 1%. So this is deadly stuff….

Young people too. Plenty of young people….. 

I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down because I don’t want to create a panic.

Donald Trump & Bob Woodward Covid Conversation Transcript: Trump ‘Playing it down’ REV 9 September.

A standard defense of the President’s reaction to Covid-19 is that he was distracted in early February by an Impeachment in the Senate, which the Republicans were never going to agree to proceeding, that no one could possibly be aware of what would happen in the future, and that he stopped travel from China when other people warned against it. However, in this interview, he clearly shows that he understood the danger of the problem, but he presented a completely different view of its magnitude to the public.

Publicly Trump plays down the Danger

About three days later, on the 10th February, at a public session at the White House, he showed his strategy of playing down the danger. He said:

Now, the virus that we’re talking about having to do — you know, a lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat — as the heat comes in.  Typically, that will go away in April.  We’re in great shape though.  We have 12 cases — 11 cases, and many of them are in good shape now.

Remarks by President Trump at the White House Business Session Issued Feb 10

On the 19th February, he says:

I think it’s going to work out fine. I think when we get into April, in the warmer weather, that has a very negative effect on that and that type of a virus. So let’s see what happens, but I think it’s going to work out fine.

Interview: Kari Lake of Fox 10 Phoenix Interviews Donald Trump – February 19, 2020

There is no evidence to assume that the President received further information in this period which could justify modifying his position, (certainly he has not claimed this, that I have seen) so we can assume that his downplaying of the danger was based entirely on wanting to be positive.

This neoliberal positivity went into the policy. It was reported, and confirmed, by Dr Fauci that he and other Trump administration officials had recommended physical distancing to combat the spread of coronavirus in February, but were rebuffed for almost a month – and this despite Trump’s apparent awareness of it seriousness, as revealed by the Woodward tapes. However, Trump seems to have been seduced by wanting to play it down. In neoliberal positive thinking, if you do not focus on the problem, but on how the problem is diminishing or the dawning light, then you will succeed.

what goes into those kinds of decisions is complicated. But you’re right. I mean, obviously, if we had, right from the very beginning, shut everything down, it may have been a little bit different. But there was a lot of pushback about shutting things down back then.

Facui quoted in “Fauci confirms New York Times report Trump rebuffed social distancing advice The Guardian 13^th April“

The President did not make public social distancing recommendations until 16 March. [Remarks by President Trump, Vice President Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force in Press Briefing]. He can be said to have consistently undermined these recommendations, by a refusal to wear masks or be physically distant, except on occasions. He also seems to have attacked State Governors who tried to enforce, or recommend, distancing. I suspect that the worse the pandemic became the more he rejected caution as a mode of showing he was in charge.

An interview on Fox got to the point about optimism, but illustrated how it is tied up with flattery and boosterism:

Bill Hemmer: Mr. President. Thank you. Did we get out here in the light? Right about now – a big part of your job is to be an optimist.
Donald Trump: Right.
BH: You say that yourself.
DT: My life…. We have to do what’s right for our country. And, you know, we have a very optimistic country, but this was a very sad thing that happened…. our people are incredible. And the way they’ve handled it and what they’ve done and what they’ve gone through is to me, it’s it’s really sort of shocking because as we discussed, they want to go back.

They want to go back to their restaurants and they want to go back to their places where they work. They want it. This is our country was built on that whole concept. I never realized how much. But they want to get it back. But we have a great country and our people are just truly amazing people.

Interview: Bill Hemmer Interviews Donald Trump at The White House – March 24, 2020, Factbase.

Much later at a press meeting at the White House, 7 to 8 months after the Woodward tapes were recorded, and just after they were published, President Trump explained:

The fact is, I’m a cheerleader for this country, I love our country, and I don’t want people to be frightened.  I don’t want to create panic, as you say.  And certainly, I’m not going to drive this country or the world into a frenzy.

We want to show confidence.  We want to show strength.  We want to show strength as a nation.  And that’s what I’ve done.  And we’ve done very well.  We’ve done well from any standard.  You look at our numbers, compared to other countries, other parts of the world.  It’s been an amazing job that we’ve done….

you cannot show a sense of panic or you’re going to have bigger problems than you ever had before.

Whitehouse: Remarks by President Trump on Judicial Appointments, 9 September 2020

Looking at the numbers, shows us that the US has done amongst the worst of all nations, in terms of deaths per head of population, but recognising that would not be positive or amazing (in a good sense).

As Dr. Fauci said:

There were times when I was out there telling the American public how difficult this is, how we’re having a really serious problem, you know, when the president was saying it’s something that’s going to disappear, which obviously, is not the case. When you downplay something that is really a threat, that’s not a good thing.

“Meet the Press” NBC September 13, 2020

Another relatively positive technique is to emphasise how bad it could be so by comparison everything looks good. And then decide on the lower figures as reasonable.

we did the right thing, because if we didn’t do it, you would have had a million people, a million and a half people, maybe 2 million people dead.  Now, we’re going toward 50, I’m hearing, or 60,000 people.  One is too many.  I always say it: One is too many.  But we’re going toward 50- or 60,000 people.  That’s at the lower — as you know, the low number was supposed to be 100,000 people.

Remarks by President Trump, Vice President Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force in Press Briefing, White House 20 April

We now know 50-60,000 was an a considerable underestimate (at time of writing it is 217,000), and the US deaths and serious illness are likely to increase. The more people get sick, the wider the transmission and the harder it is likely to be to halt. We now don’t know how badly the country will do from now on, even if people do start facing the problem. Trump’s remarks about over a million people could be more to the point now, almost whatever is done.

Addenda:

We are now in the last days of the election campaign. The president is continuing the optimism, and saying how bad not being hyper-positive is.

Joe Biden is promising a long, dark, painful winter. Did you see him at the debate? Did anybody see the debate by any chance? No, he said, “A long, dark winter.” Oh, that’s great. That’s wonderful. That’s just what our country needs is a long, dark winter and a leader that talks about it….

Just like he said on the debate, “You’re going to have a dark winter.” That was really depressing. It was even depressing even though he did so badly in the debate, I was depressed because I said, “It’s such a depressing thing he said.”

Donald Trump Rally Speech Transcript Waterford Township, Michigan October 30, Rev 30 October.

Selective positivity

A few Republicans, such as Richard Burr, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, pushed the same public line as the President writing:

Thankfully, the United States today is better prepared than ever before to face emerging public health threats, like the coronavirus, in large part due to the work of the Senate Health Committee, Congress, and the Trump Administration.

Sen. Alexander & Sen. Burr: Coronavirus prevention steps the U.S. government is taking to protect you Fox News 7 February

while, in the same month, warning wealthy friends that:

It is much more aggressive in its transmission than anything that we have seen in recent history

Weeks Before Virus Panic, Intelligence Chairman Privately Raised Alarm, Sold Stocks NPR 19 March

In effect he ignored the official positive line, expected the economy to crash, and sold “between $628,000 and $1.72 million [worth of his own shares] in 33 transactions“, and at least one other Republican did likewise.

On the 24th of February it is reported that senior members of the president’s economic team, privately told board members of the Hoover Institution, they could not yet estimate the effects of the virus on the American economy. 

“What struck me,” [A consultant at the meeting] wrote, was that nearly every official he heard from raised the virus “as a point of concern, totally unprovoked.”…

traders spotted the immediate significance: The president’s aides appeared to be giving wealthy party donors an early warning of a potentially impactful contagion at a time when Mr. Trump was publicly insisting that the threat was nonexistent.

“Short everything,” was the reaction of [one] investor, using the Wall Street term for betting on the idea that the stock prices of companies would soon fall.

Kelly & Mazzetti As the virus spread, private briefings from the Trump administration fueled a stock sell-off. NY Times 15 October

It is possible that anyone with a sense of realism could have worked out the same advice, but the formal information was only directed at particular people.

Panic elsewhere

Despite his proclaimed desire to avoid panic at all costs, Trump does seem to manage to promote panic when it serves his political purposes – panic at ‘rioters,’ ‘liberal communists’, Anti-fascists etc., just not when it could lead to over 200,000 dead Americans, and no one yet know how many mutilated and long term sick.

Suburban voters are pouring into the Republican Party because of the violence in Democrat run cities and states. If Biden gets in, this violence is “coming to the Suburbs”, and FAST. You could say goodbye to your American Dream!

Donald Trump Twitter 9 September

The Democrats never even mentioned the words LAW & ORDER at their National Convention. That’s where they are coming from. If I don’t win, America’s Suburbs will be OVERRUN with Low Income Projects, Anarchists, Agitators, Looters and, of course, “Friendly Protesters”.

Donald Trump twitter 11 September

There is apparently no positivity spare, to try and reduce racial discrepancies in deaths at the hands of police. Positivity helps boost fear of problems you don’t want to solve, and helps shadow projection

Positively control information

This kind of determination to be ‘positive’ about particular problems, leads to a position in which lying, ignoring or suppressing data, and hiding the reality is inevitable. Being positive in the neoliberal sense, creates a fear of real data and a desire to blame those who try to uncover the extent of the problem.

Suppression or hiding

As early as March an anonymous official told AP that

The White House overruled health officials who wanted to recommend that elderly and physically fragile Americans be advised not to fly on commercial airlines because of the new coronavirus, a federal official told The Associated Press.

Mike Stob “Official: White House didn’t want to tell seniors not to fly” AP 8 March

At about the same time Reuters reported that

Dozens of classified discussions about such topics as the scope of infections, quarantines and travel restrictions have been held since mid-January in a high-security meeting room…

Staffers without security clearances, including government experts, were excluded from the interagency meetings… “We had some very critical people who did not have security clearances who could not go,” one official said. “These should not be classified meetings. It was unnecessary.”….

‘Sensitive Compartmentalized Information Facilit[ies]’… are usually reserved for intelligence and military operations. Ordinary cell phones and computers can’t be brought into the chambers.

Roston & Taylor “Exclusive: White House told federal health agency to classify coronavirus deliberations – sources” Reuters 12 March

No one outside ‘the elite’ is to know what is discussed, even people who might know something about the problem. Information is suppressed.

‘Shoot the messenger’

Information which cannot be suppressed can be attacked and ignored. A report from the Inspector General of Health and Human Services, based on interviews between March 23-27 with administrators from 323 hospitals, gave its ‘key takeaway’ as:

Hospitals also reported substantial challenges maintaining or expanding their facilities’ capacity to treat patients with COVID-19. Hospitals described specific challenges, mitigation strategies, and needs for assistance related to personal protective equipment (PPE), testing, staffing, supplies and durable equipment; maintaining or expanding facility capacity; and financial concerns.

Grim, Hospital Experiences Responding to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Results of a National Pulse Survey March 23–27, 2020 p.1

It also reported:

severe shortages of testing supplies and extended waits for test results limited hospitals’ ability to monitor the health of patients and staff. Hospitals reported that they were unable to keep up with COVID-19 testing demands because they lacked complete kits and/or the individual components and supplies needed to complete tests. Additionally, hospitals reported frequently waiting 7 days or longer for test results.

ibid: p.3

Trump responded, by politicising the report and dismissing the authors:

It’s just wrong.  Did I hear the word “inspector general”?  Really?  It’s wrong.  And they’ll talk to you about it.  It’s wrong.….

we’ve done more testing and had more results than any country, anywhere in the world. They’re doing an incredible job. Now they’re all calling us. They want our testing. ‘What are we doing?’ ‘How do you do the five-minute test?’ ‘How do you do the 15-minute test?’

So, give me the name of the inspector general. Could politics be entered into that?…

When was she appointed?…

Remarks by President Trump, Vice President Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force in Press Briefing, 7 April

Any information which presents problems, to the positive view, has (in that view) to be provided by people who are actively hostile, or politically motivated. There is therefore no need to pay attention to any information they might give. This reinforces information suppression.

The House Select Subcommittee on Coronavirus reported that the White House coronavirus task force privately warned state officials that they faced dire outbreaks over the summer, but top Trump administration officials publicly downplayed the threat:

“Fourteen states that have been in the ‘red zone’ since June 23 have refused to impose statewide mask mandates per Task Force’s recommendations — including states with severe case spikes like Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Tennessee,” the subcommittee says. 

Regardless of how the reports line up with the administration’s messaging, public health specialists have repeatedly called for the reports and data contained in them to be made public. Such information can help local and state officials as well as individuals to better respond to the outbreak

“We’ve got a lot of Covid response-related data that’s all ready and prepped to be shared with the public and it just isn’t being shared,” Ryan Panchadsaram, who helps run a data-tracking site called Covid Exit Strategy, told CNBC in an interview in July.

Will Feuer “White House suppressed coronavirus reports and downplayed virus, House panel says” CNBC 31 August.

According to the same news report, the White House condemned the committee for being partisan, with “the purpose of falsely distorting the President’s record.” Again we have the dismissal of problems. There was nothing to take on board here, everything was going well.

Politico reported that:

emails from communications aides to CDC Director Robert Redfield and other senior officials openly complained that the [CDC] agency’s reports would undermine President Donald Trump’s optimistic messages about the outbreak…

The communications aides’ efforts to change the language in the CDC’s reports have been constant across the summer…

since Michael Caputo, a former Trump campaign official with no medical or scientific background, was installed in April as the Health and Human Services department’s new spokesperson, there have been substantial efforts to align the reports with Trump’s statements, including the president’s claims that fears about the outbreak are overstated, or stop the reports altogether.

Dan Diamond “Trump officials interfered with CDC reports on Covid-19” Politico 12 September

One Trump appointee apparently wrote:

CDC tried to report as if once kids get together, there will be spread and this will impact school re-opening… that was the aim and that’s how it reads and its disingeneous. Very misleading by the CDC and shame on them. Their aim is clear. This hurts any President or administration. This is designed to hurt this Presidnet for their reasons which I am not interested in. I am interested in this or any President being served fairly and that tax payers money not be used for political reasons. They CDC, work for him.

ibid. [spelling and grammar as reported]

A unreviewed study from the Department of Environmental Health Sciences Columbia University argued that:

Counterfactual simulations indicate that, had these same control measures been implemented just 1-2 weeks earlier, a substantial number of cases and deaths could have been averted.

Sen Pei et al. Differential Effects of Intervention Timing on COVID-19 Spread in the United States

As we have seen, Fauci and other advisors had recommended control measures in mid February while the President did not introduce them until mid-March. President Trump’s response was, again, to damn the report and its origin:

Columbia is a liberal, disgraceful institution to write that because all the people that they cater to were months after me, they said we shouldn’t close it. I took tremendous heat, you know this. When I ban China from coming in, first time anything like that ever happened, I took tremendous heat…..

And I saw that report. It’s a disgrace that Columbia University would do it, playing right to their little group of people that tell them what to do.

Full Measure: May 24, 2020 – Interview with the President

It was clearly unnecessary to say more than something like “There are always disputes about models,” or “they have the benefit of hindsight,” or “I acted on the best information available” or, assuming he had really seen it, “that this article is not yet reviewed – there could be considerable problems with their method or conclusions”, but instead he has to try and make them motivatedly bad and imply their research was subservient to an otherwise unknown “little group of people that tell them what to do”. An evil conspiracy is the only possible explanation for suggesting the Trump government could have done better.

Trump is not alone in the denunciation of people saying coronavirus is series. Dr. Fauci and other health officials, and their families have received death threats [2]. Even people appearing in anti-covid announcements can suffer similarly, presumably in an attempt to silence them, and stop the negativity about the virus. Fauci said:

I wouldn’t have imagined in my wildest dreams that people who object to things that are pure public health principles are so set against it and don’t like what you and I say, namely in the world of science, that they actually threaten you…

There’s one thing about that nonsense that I do object to, and that is the effect that it has on my family…. Because when you get death threats that require you having security protection all the time, and when they start hassling your children on the phone and at their job and interfering with their lives, that pisses me off, I must say.

Amanda Holpuch, Fauci tells of death threats as Birx pinpoints fresh areas of Covid concern. The Guardian 7 August

On the other side, some people with Coronavirus have also received threats, but its not clear, from what I’ve seen, whether that was politically motivated or not – fear of people with a contagious disease is fairly normal if not the best behaviour.

As said in the previous post, shadow politics tends to be denunciatory, rather than curious or information gathering, and that is certainly the case here.

Dislike of Data Leads to Information Mess

The President does not seem to like data and has apparently blamed testing for a rise in cases. Right at the beginning, there were some Americans on a cruise ship, the Grand Princess, which was denied entry into San Francisco, because of the presence of Covid. While the President allowed other people to make the decision, he made his preferences clear.

I’d rather have the people stay, but I’d go with them.  I told them [the officials] to make the final decision.  I would rather — because I like the numbers being where they are.  I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one ship.

That wasn’t our fault, and it wasn’t the fault of the people on the ship, either.  Okay?  It wasn’t their fault either.  And they’re mostly Americans, so I can live either way with it.

I’d rather have them stay on, personally. 

Remarks by President Trump After Tour of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA. White House, 7 March

A few months later on Fox news he made a similar argument, that implies testing for disease increases knowledge of the numbers of those infected, and thus was not a positive thing.

[Chris] WALLACE:  Then — then it [Covid] went down and now since June, it has gone up more than double. One day this week 75,000 new cases.  More than double…

TRUMP:  Chris, that’s because we have great testing, because we have the best testing in the world. If we didn’t test, you wouldn’t be able to show that chart. If we tested half as much, those numbers would be down.

Cases are up — many of those cases shouldn’t even be cases. Cases are up because we have the best testing in the world and we have the most testing….

I’m glad we do [testing], but it really skews the numbers….

You know I said, “It’s going to disappear.” I’ll say it again…..

It’s going to disappear and I’ll be right….. Because I’ve been right probably more than anybody else.

Transcript: ‘Fox News Sunday’ interview with President Trump, Fox News July 19th

In a rally he explained further:

When you do testing to that extent, you’re going to find more people, you’re going to find more cases. So I said to my people slow the testing down, please. 

Donald Trump Tulsa, Oklahoma Rally Speech, Rev.com Transcript 21 June

Let’s have less data to work with.

A review entitled Tracking Covid-19 in the United States, authored by a group led by led by Tom Frieden, director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from 2009 to 2017, was released a few days after the interview above. It claimed that the US “does not have standard, national data on COVID-19. The US also lacks standards for state-, county- and city- level public reporting.” In the press release for the report, the group said:

The report found critical gaps in the availability of information necessary to track and control COVID-19: across the 50 states, only 40% of essential data points are being monitored and reported publicly. More than half the essential information—strategic intelligence that leaders need to turn the tide against COVID-19—is not reported at all….

because of the failure of national leadership, the United States is flying blind in our effort to curb the spread of COVID-19.

Resolve to Save Lives, Press release: ​Most of United States Not Reporting Essential COVID-19 Data, 21 July

In other words, there is no pressure, or direction, to gain clear information about Covid, or to make that information generally available. Information is a mess, because in the world of positivity, we do not need that information and do not attend to ‘negative’ information. Accurate information may possibly make the Administration, and the situation, look worse, and that would make the problem worse.

As a footnote it may well be the case that because the reporting is of cases and deaths, we automatically ignore or play down those people who seemed injured by Covid, or who do not recover their full health. Thus the situation could be far worse than is suggested by focusing on death and assuming that if people don’t die they have fully recovered.

Imagined Optimism

The President also positively promoted treatments for the disease, based on early projections of success, rather than waiting for test confirmations – even against his medical advisors’ advice. He said things like:

Look, it may work and it may not work.  And I agree with the doctor, what he said: It may work, it may not work.

I feel good about it.  That’s all it is.  Just a feeling.  You know, I’m a smart guy.  I feel good about it.  And we’re going to see.  You’re going to see soon enough….

You know the expression: What the hell do you have to lose?  Okay?

Remarks by President Trump, Vice President Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force in Press Briefing 20 March

There is no evidence I am aware of, that this harmed people who then insisted on receiving the unconfirmed drugs from their doctors, but it could have. It did boost pharmaceutical company profits through increased sales. The New York Times reported:

Prescriptions for two antimalarial drugs jumped by 46 times the average when the president promoted them on TV

Prescriptions Surged as Trump Praised Drugs in Coronavirus NY Times 19 May.

The LA Times stated:

His repeated declarations of support for the malaria drugs have resulted in shortages for people who need them.

U.S. hospital orders for chloroquine jumped by 3,000% from March 1 to 17, according to Premier Inc., a group-purchasing organization for hospital supplies. Hydroxychloroquine orders were up 260%.

David Lazarus “Newsletter: Thank you, Mr. President, for being a lousy doctor” LA Times 30 March

Optimism must be everywhere – especially if it helps the corporate sector.

Positivity leads to suppression, or smearing, of dissent, as we have seen. Trump’s optimism about the medicines meant that people who insisted on better evidence for those medicines were clearly sabotaging his efforts to cheerlead and guide America.

The following report may possibly be based on false information, but it fits in with what we have observed so far:

Dr. Rick Bright was abruptly dismissed last week as the director of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, and removed as the deputy assistant secretary for preparedness and response. He said that he had been pressured to direct money toward hydroxychloroquine, one of several “potentially dangerous drugs promoted by those with political connections.”

“I believe this transfer was in response to my insistence that the government invest the billions of dollars allocated by Congress to address the COVID-19 pandemic into safe and scientifically vetted solutions, and not in drugs, vaccines, and other technologies that lack scientific merit… I am speaking out because to combat this deadly virus, science — not politics or cronyism — has to lead the way.”

Robert Bomboy Trump thinks he knows everything, Eagle Times 2 May Emphasis added. See also https://twitter.com/JDiamond1/status/1253056646802214912/photo/1

Positive the rulers are smart

It sometimes appears that the President positively assumes he knows more than specialists, can easily pick things up and is massively intelligent. Talking about medical knowledge, he said.

I like this stuff.  I really get it.  People are surprised that I understand it.  Every one of these doctors said, “How do you know so much about this?”  Maybe I have a natural ability.  Maybe I should have done that instead of running for President.

Remarks by President Trump After Tour of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention | Atlanta, White House March 7

By the way, it’s a disease without question, has more names than any disease in history. I can name, “Kung flu.” I can name, 19 different versions of names. Many call it a virus, which it is. Many call it a flu, what difference?

Donald Trump Tulsa, Oklahoma Rally Speech, Rev.com Transcript 21 June

Trump seems to be positive he knows more or less everything important without having to study it. For example:

I know windmills very much. I’ve studied it better than anybody.

I know more about technology than anybody. Nobody knows more about technology than me.

I’m a professional in technology.

Erin Burnett Outfront 23 December 2019

There are plenty of YouTube videos showing Trump declaring he knows more about a particular subject than anybody…. This is not unique to the President, and can be seen in many positive thinkers. It is a way of positively discounting problems and empirical disruptions, while ignoring advice from people who have studied the problems.

However, this kind of behaviour means that it is less likely that people will report bad news to the President or his Cabinet, because it will, at best be ignored, most likely not be welcome, and possibly be greeted with punishment. This increases the likelihood that the leaders wander in a cloud of positive misinformation, and actually do not know how bad things are, and thus are likely to consider people who report bad things as being misleading. After all nobody they trust told them any other than that the situation was good.

A recent Cornel University Study has suggested “that President Trump was quite likely the largest driver of misinformation during the COVID pandemic to date.”

Positivity and Shadow Politics

As we have seen, positivity demands negativity towards others, who disagree or are more cautious – which easily turns into shadow politics, as it involves trying to shift all mistakes and evil onto others.

The Case of Travel Bans: Denunciation of select opposition

President Trump has continually insisted that people resisted his action to prevent travel from China.

I could say I’m fully responsible.  But, you know, one day, we had a virus When I took early action in January to ban the travel and all travel to and from China, the Democrats and Biden, in particular, called it “xenophobic.”  You remember that?  Joe was willing to sacrifice American lives to placate the radical-left open-border extremists.  And we saved tens of thousands of lives, probably hundreds of thousands of lives.  And we saved millions of lives by doing the closing and now the opening the way we did it.

Remarks by President Trump in Press Briefing, White House 10 September

Yet:

According to Paul Offit, chair of vaccinology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, those kinds of [anti-restriction] opinions were in the minority at the time the president made his decision.

“I don’t know anyone who thought the travel restrictions were a bad idea early on,” Offit told us in a phone interview.

When a virus like that is restricted to one location, as it appeared to be early on, travel restrictions can lessen the odds of it spreading to this country, Offit said. Over time, however, and as cases began to be identified in the U.S., travel restrictions make much less of a difference, he said.

Epidemiologists and former U.S. health officials told Time that the initial travel restrictions were valid and “likely helped to slow the spread of the virus. The problem, they say, is that once it was clear that the virus was within our borders officials did not pivot quickly enough to changing circumstances.”

Although Democratic leaders and Democratic presidential candidates have been highly critical of Trump’s response to the coronavirus, we couldn’t find any examples of them directly and clearly criticizing the travel restrictions.

In a Feb. 4 letter to Trump, Democratic Reps. Nita Lowey, chair of the Appropriations Committee, and Rose DeLauro, chair of one of the subcommittees, wrote that they “strongly support” the president’s decision to declare a public health emergency in response to the novel coronavirus outbreak, and they specifically cited the administration’s actions to impose “significant travel restrictions.”

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/03/the-facts-on-trumps-travel-restrictions/

For what it is worth, the New York Times reported:

From the beginning, the Trump administration’s attempts to forestall an outbreak of a virus now spreading rapidly across the globe was marked by a raging internal debate about how far to go in telling Americans the truth…. [health experts] faced resistance and doubt at the White House — especially from the president — about spooking financial markets and inciting panic…

By Thursday, Jan. 30, public health officials had come around. Mr. Azar, Dr. Redfield and Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, agreed that a ban on travel from the epidemic’s center could buy some time to put into place prevention and testing measures….

The debate moved that afternoon to the Oval Office, where Mr. Azar and others urged the president to approve the ban. “The situation has changed radically,” Mr. Azar told Mr. Trump.

Others in the room urged being more cautious, arguing that a ban could have unforeseen consequences. “This is unprecedented,” warned Kellyanne Conway, the president’s counselor. Mr. Trump was skeptical, though he would later claim that everyone around him had been against the idea.

Shear et al. Inside Trump Administration, Debate Raged Over What to Tell Public. New York Times, 7 March

Let us be clear, we will probably never know the full story of these events, and the accounts are ambiguous, but it seems unlikely that the President initiated the stand for banning travel from China, against the advice of everyone, and with ‘everyone’ objecting to that that stand.

However, if people did oppose the travel restrictions it was not just the “radical left”, as the President asserts. For example, the Cato Institute has argued.

U.S. airports recorded nearly 10.7 million entries (mostly by travelers without U.S. citizenship) directly from countries with confirmed COVID-19 cases as of April 7….

Even if they [the bans] were much stricter toward other noncitizens and much earlier, it wouldn’t have mattered. Too much travel had already occurred, and too many U.S. citizens travel. … the evidence shows he [Trump] should have focused far more on domestic measures.

The problem isn’t that Trump acted too slow. It’s that he fixated on international travel almost exclusively and long after the U.S. became the world’s leader in COVID-19 cases….

America needed a leader who sought out novel tools to stop a novel virus, rather than returning to his favorite tool again and again.

David Bier How Travel Bans Failed to Stop the Spread of COVID-19 Cato Institute 14 May

Trump does not point out the opposition from his own side and, in fact, did not initially ban travel from China, he restricted it. Travel from Hong Kong and Macau was still allowed – which may not have seemed unreasonable at the time – and

more than 27,000 Americans returned from mainland China in the first month after the restrictions took effect. U.S. officials lost track of more than 1,600 of them who were supposed to be monitored for virus exposure.

Braun et al AP FACT CHECK: Trump and the virus-era China ban that isn’t, AP 18 July

Since Chinese officials disclosed the outbreak …. on New Year’s Eve, at least 430,000 people have arrived in the United States on direct flights from China, including nearly 40,000 in the two months after President Trump imposed restrictions on such travel, according to an analysis of data collected in both countries….

Nineteen flights departed Wuhan in January for New York or San Francisco…[before the ban, but after the disease was known] For about 4,000 [of these] travelers, there was no enhanced screening….

In interviews, multiple travelers who arrived after the screening was expanded said they received only passing scrutiny, with minimal follow-up.

Eder et al 430,000 People Have Traveled From China to U.S. Since Coronavirus Surfaced. New York Times 4 April

Another source has slightly different figures:

the United States had already accepted more than 436,000 passengers from China (mostly non-U.S. citizens) since the outbreak there was reported on December 31.

Among these Chinese passengers were more than 6,000 from Wuhan — the center of the outbreak. One of these Wuhan travelers entered the U.S. in Chicago on January 13, the first known entrance of a person with a COVID-19 infection. Even after the president restricted travel, another 43,000 passengers entered the country on direct flights from China

about 2.6 million entries (again mostly non-U.S. citizens) had occurred from countries with COVID-19 in Europe and the British Isles [before the ban on flights from Europe]….

David Bier How Travel Bans Failed to Stop the Spread of COVID-19 Cato Institute 14 May

Sealing borders is a standard way of trying to deal with pandemics. It is a form of “social distancing” in that the idea is to keep people separate and reduce possible transmission.

One of the reasons that a global pandemic has been feared for so long is the extreme difficulty of confining a highly contagious disease in one country any more. Air traffic and passenger movements are truly enormous, and more or less uncontrollable, in the small amount of time needed to stop disease spread. The World Air Transport Stats for 2019, for example states there were 1,811,324,000 international passengers in 2018 and 2,566,346,000 domestic passengers in the same period (p.17). They remark: “Almost 22,000 city pairs are now connected by airlines through regular services” (p14). These figures should give some idea of the difficulty of stopping disease spread in a highly interconnected world. However, we should not forget that cruise liners can also act as incubation factories as with the Ruby Princess in Sydney.

Cutting air traffic was a good idea, which few medical officials opposed, but it is not enough once the disease has breached those borders, or if tens of thousands of people are let in anyway, especially if they are let in without testing or quarantine. Trump seems to be distorting the reality to get a simple positive message and blacken the names of out-group members.

General Negativity Towards Critics

Likewise, in a rally speech on the 28th February, the President emphasised his negativity towards critics, to help justify himself, and his position, saying:

Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus, you know that right? Coronavirus, they’re politicizing it. We did one of the great jobs. You say, “How’s President Trump doing?” They go, “Oh, not good, not good.” They have no clue. They don’t have any clue…..

One of my people came up to me and said, “Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia.” That didn’t work out too well. They couldn’t do it. They tried the impeachment hoax. That was on a perfect conversation. They tried anything. They tried it over and over. They’d been doing it since you got in. It’s all turning. They lost. It’s all turning. Think of it. Think of it. And this is their new hoax

We went early, we could have had a lot more than that. We’re doing great. Our country is doing so great. We are so unified. We are so unified. The Republican party has never ever been unified like it is now. There has never been a movement in the history of our country like we have now. Never been a movement….

the Democrat policy of open borders is a direct threat to the health and wellbeing of all Americans. Now you see it with the coronavirus, you see it. You see it with the coronavirus. You see that. When you have this virus or any other virus or any other problem coming in, it’s not the only thing that comes in through the border. And we’re setting records now at the border. We’re setting records. And now just using this, so important, right? So important. I’m doing well in the polls despite the worst fake news and worst presidential harassment in the history of the United States. We’ve got phenomenal numbers. No, it’s true. The worst presidential harassment in history.

Donald Trump: Charleston rally 28 Feb

Likewise his son Don Jr, said:

Anything that [Democrats] can use to try to hurt Trump, they will. Anything he does in a positive sense, like you heard from the reporter that was just suspended from ABC, they will not give him credit for. The playbook is old at this point.

But for them to try to take a pandemic and seemingly hope that it comes here, and kills millions of people so that they could end Donald Trump’s streak of winning, is a new level of sickness. You know, I don’t know if this is coronavirus or Trump derangement syndrome, but these people are infected badly.

Cillizza, C. CNN 28 Feb Donald Trump Jr. just said something unreal about Democrats and the coronavirus

When questioned about this Vice President Mike Pence went along with allocation of blame to one side alone, despite obvious hesitations:

Well, I think what the president said earlier this week and his charge to me is to remind the American people that the risk is low, to assure the American people that we’re ready, but also to say, as the president said, this is no time for politics.

And, frankly, I — I think that was Don Jr.’s point, that there has been some very strong rhetoric directed at the president by some members of Congress and political commentators…

But what the president has charged us to do… is to set the politics aside on this and to work the problem.

that’s exactly what we’re doing. And with — with the exception of some barbs being thrown by some of the predictable voices in the public debate on — on the left, the usual shots the president will — takes, and that I have really heard… what I’m telling you is that this is really a time for us to come together…

“State of the Union” CNN transcripts

Positivity was also present in the popular pro-Trump media. This is Rush Limbaugh showing his priorities:

Folks, this coronavirus thing, I want to try to put this in perspective for you. It looks like the coronavirus is being weaponized as yet another element to bring down Donald Trump…. Yeah, I’m dead right on this. The coronavirus is the common cold, folks….

The stock market’s down like 900 points right now. The survival rate of this is 98%! You have to read very deeply to find that number, that 2% of the people get the coronavirus die. That’s less than the flu, folks. That is a far lower death statistic than any form of influenza, which is an annual thing that everybody gets shots for. There’s nothing unusual about the coronavirus. In fact, coronavirus is not something new. There are all kinds of viruses that have that name. Now, do not misunderstand. I’m not trying to get you to let your guard down…

Nobody wants to get any of this stuff. I mean, you never… I hate getting the common cold. You don’t want to get the flu. It’s miserable. But we’re not talking about something here that’s gonna wipe out your town or your city if it finds its way there. 

Limbaugh “Overhyped Coronavirus Weaponized Against Trump” 24 Feb [emphasis added]

Trump developed the habit of dismissing or insulting reporters who asked awkward questions or who were not equally positive. To give just one early example:

Q: What do you say to Americans who are scared, though?  I guess, nearly 200 dead; 14,000 who are sick; millions, as you witness, who are scared right now.  What do you say to Americans who are watching you right now who are scared?

THE PRESIDENT:  I say that you’re a terrible reporter.  That’s what I say.

Go ahead.

Q    Mr. President, the units that were just declared —

THE PRESIDENT:  I think it’s a very nasty question, and I think it’s a very bad signal that you’re putting out to the American people.  The American people are looking for answers and they’re looking for hope.  And you’re doing sensationalism, and the same with NBC and “Con-cast.”  I don’t call it — I don’t call it “Comcast,” I call it “Con-cast.”

Let me just — for who you work — let me just tell you something: That’s really bad reporting, and you ought to get back to reporting instead of sensationalism.

Let’s see if it works.  It might and it might not.  I happen to feel good about it, but who knows.  I’ve been right a lot.  Let’s see what happens.
John?

Q    Can I get back to science and the logistics here?

THE PRESIDENT:  You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

Remarks by President Trump, Vice President Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force in Press Briefing 20 March

Again, all the President needed to have said to be positive, was something like “200 cases is not too bad, with good management, and people being careful, we can slow this down, and we should be fine”, but positivity demands more shadows than that.

Spreading positivity, with the apparently necessary projecting of shadows onto others, cannot be carried out by one person alone. It requires considerable collaboration and whether a deliberate attack on the American people to protect the neoliberal economy or not, is helped by the possibility that people are operating in a political and conspiratorial environment in which deceiving others “for their own good” is normal – and that is what I am suggesting – that neoliberalism promotes conspiracies and disinformation in order to keep power.

Tucker Carlson of Fox, who at one stage tried to get the President to believe the virus was a serious problem, explained how the politics of this was likely to work:

I understood what our viewers thought… “If [the mainstream media] is telling me Trump must lose because of some virus from China, [then that media] are probably overstating it because they hate Trump”. And I don’t think that it is an irrational thing to conclude.

Battaglio His colleagues at Fox News called coronavirus a ‘hoax’ and ‘scam.’ Why Tucker Carlson saw it differently. LA Times 23 March 2020.

Supporting the President more or less required people to be positive, or at least dismissive of bad news, because that bad news came from what they reguarded as hostile sources. A Trump voter quoted in the Guardian indirectly backs this take, saying:

I think that a lot of the news media, they don’t tell the whole story. They tell the piece that sounds the most damning and they don’t add the other piece,

McGreal. ‘Trump is leading’: the midwest voters lapping up president’s daily briefings. The Guardian, 6 April

The False Binary – my way or chaos

The positivity also sets up a false binary – you either play the problem down or panic. Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Commission makes the binary as hard as possible:

What would it mean if the president came out and said, “The sky is falling and everybody should be panicked”? He presented calm and a steady hand and a plan. And that is what a president should do. You know, we just commemorated 9/11 this week. And I watched Andy Card walk over to George Bush and say, “The second tower has been hit. America is under attack.” And George Bush didn’t stand up and say, “America’s been attacked by terrorists. Everyone panic.”

“Meet the Press” NBC September 13, 2020

Panic or playing down the problem are not the only options. Facing a complex problem realistically, and entertaining some uncertainty, was still possible. We might even wonder if the Bush Administration’s being so positive that Iraq was somehow involved in 9/11 and that the conquest of the country would be easy and quick, was a good thing? Perhaps they should have explored the issues further with less determination that there would a positive result from an otherwise unnecessary war?

Positivity as policy and behaviour

Positive from the Beginning. What could they teach us? What could we learn?

It appears that President Trump’s administration was positive before the pandemic, that they did not need to prepare for a pandemic, despite it being a common expectation that a pandemic would affect the world at some time.

In October 2019, the Trump Administration decided to discontinue a Republican program expanded under Obama, called “Predict”, that monitored the transmission of animal-born diseases to humans, the possible origin point of Covid-19. The program had helped discover more than 1,000 viruses. In its 2021 budget, the Trump administration wanted to reduce CDC funding by 16 percent and aimed to reduce contributions to global health programs by $3 billion [paragraph based on Mother Jones, 3 March 2020].

We might add that one explanation for the New Administrations’ refusal to attend briefings by their departments or prepare for transition, as detailed by Michael Lewis in his Fifth Risk, was because they were so positive they could deal with anything; they were smart and governing could not be that difficult – possibly as it was normally done by public servants. All that was needed was for the Departments to be obedient. The other reason was that Trump did not want to spend money on preparing for after the election. He reportedly said…

Fuck the law. I don’t give a fuck about the law. I want my fucking money. Bannon and Christie tried to explain that Trump couldn’t have both his money and a transition.

Shut it down, said Trump. Shut down the transition.

Michael Lewis ‘This guy doesn’t know anything’: the inside story of Trump’s shambolic transition team. The Guardian 27 September 2018

He was persuaded that a refusal to pay would be seen as lack of confidence in his victory, but was apparently resentful about the continued loss of money from his campaign.

As Lewis states, the government bureaucracy polices a huge portfolio of catastrophic risks such as nuclear accident, cyber-attack, catastrophic weather events, pandemics etc:

A bad transition took this entire portfolio of catastrophic risks – the biggest portfolio of such risks ever managed by a single institution in the history of the world – and made all the bad things more likely to happen and the good things less likely to happen…

On the morning after the election the hundreds of people who had prepared to brief the incoming Trump administration sat waiting. A day became a week and a week became a month … and no one showed up. The parking spots that had been set aside for Trump’s people remained empty, and the briefing books were never opened. You could walk into almost any department of the US government and hear people asking the same question: where were these people who were meant to be running the place?

ibid.

This account by Lewis implies positivity in the New Administration about how easy everything should be for them. This is not surprising, as the dogma of neoliberalism primarily exists to protect corporations from government or public ‘interference’ and the holders of this dogma believe that the only times that anything ever goes wrong is if the government is involved.

If people in the Trump Administration subscribed to this neoliberal dogma, then it is perfectly believable that the incoming Trump neoliberal administration dismantled important offices and programmes. Given their positive view of the world, they probably had little idea of what was important, and little propensity to listen to advice because they believed everything would turn out for the best, if left to business.

With these attitudes, they might well have a tendency to prefer not use the State to do anything to stop the spread, and trust to the ‘normal’ processes of the corporate market – which seems to be largely what they have done.

Targets and Predictions

Returning to the period after the pandemic had begun. Just over a week after he agreed to recommend social restrictions, the President declared his simple priority:

we have to put the country to work.

Look, you’re going to lose a number of people to the flu, but you’re going to lose more people by putting a country into a massive recession or depression.  You’re going to lose people.  You’re going to have suicides by the thousands.  You’re going to have all sorts of things happen.  You’re going to have instability.  You can’t just come in and say, “Let’s close up the United States of America.”  The biggest — the most successful country in the world by far…..

 I would to have it open by Easter.  I will — I will tell you that right now.  I would love to have that — it’s such an important day for other reasons, but I’ll make it an important day for this too.  I would love to have the country opened up and just raring to go by Easter (Easter Sunday 12 April).

Remarks by President Trump, Vice President Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force in a Fox News Virtual Town Hall, White House 24 March

This is an overly positive target, but can be forgotten as soon as it has passed. Around April 23 the Vice President was saying:

If you look at the trends today, I think by Memorial Day Weekend [23-25 May] we will largely have this coronavirus epidemic behind us… State and local officials will begin to reopen activities, you’re going to see states ahead here begin to do that

Morgan Phillips “Pence says coronavirus could be ‘largely’ behind us by Memorial Day weekend”, Fox News, 23 April

There was no reason to believe the epidemic would have passed by then, this was pure positivity alone. Perhaps the neoliberal panic about ‘the economy’ overruled everything else? This is not to say economic collapse is not a problem, but it is not the only, or even the primary, problem. This problem and the other problems magnify each other in complicated ways – disease in itself can undermine economies.

Even now in October with a resurgence of Covid cases and the prospect of winter ahead, the President is still claiming the virus is on the way out, and praising an as yet undeveloped vaccine:

The vaccine will end the pandemic but it’s ending anyway. I mean, they go crazy when I say it. It’s going to peter out and it’s going to end, but we’re going to help the end and we’re going to make it a lot faster with the vaccine and with the therapeutics and frankly, with the cures.

Donald Trump Campaign Rally Greenville, NC 15 October Transcript Rev.com

…you know what, without the vaccine it’s ending too. We’re rounding the turn, it’s ending without the vaccine. But the vaccine is going to make it go quicker. Let’s get rid of it. We want to get it the hell out of here.

Donald Trump Macon, Georgia Rally Speech 16 October Transcript Rev.com

Although this may not be the the President’s fault on 27th October the White House issued a Press Release which claimed one of the Trump Administration’s achievements was

ENDING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: From the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Administration has taken decisive actions to engage scientists and health professionals in academia, industry, and government to understand, treat, and defeat the disease.

White House Press Release or Messier Trump Administration Releases Science and Technology Accomplishments from First Term White House. Parabolic Arc 28 October

The White House later admitted this was badly phrased and that the actual report did not claim the disease was over, but it is in keeping with their positive philosophy.

Rushing a Vaccine; Trusting pharmaceutical companies

The President’s main strategy to save the economy has been to rush a vaccine, lessen safety checks, and to say how good American vaccine manufacturers are. He said:

Then, my administration cut through every piece of red tape to achieve the fastest-ever, by far, launch of a vaccine trial for this new virus, this very vicious virus.  And I want to thank all of the doctors and scientists and researchers involved because they’ve never moved like this, or never even close.

The Food and Drug Administration has swiftly approved more than 130 therapies for active trials; that’s what we have right now, 130.  And another 450 are in the planning stages.  And tremendous potential awaits.  I think we’re going to have some very interesting things to report in the not-too-distant future.  And thank you very much to Dr. Hahn.

It’s called Operation Warp Speed.  That means big and it means fast.  A massive scientific, industrial, and logistical endeavor unlike anything our country has seen since the Manhattan Project.  You really could say that nobody has seen anything like we’re doing, whether it’s ventilators or testing.  Nobody has seen anything like we’re doing now, within our country, since the Second World War.  Incredible.

Its objective is to finish developing and then to manufacture and distribute a proven coronavirus vaccine as fast as possible. Again, we’d love to see if we could do it prior to the end of the year.  We think we’re going to have some very good results coming out very quickly….

Typically, pharmaceutical companies wait to manufacture a vaccine — a vaccine until it has received all of the regulatory approvals necessary, and this can delay vaccines’ availability to the public as much as a year and even more than that.  However, our task is so urgent that, under Operation Warp Speed, the federal government will invest in manufacturing all of the top vaccine candidates before they’re approved…

“Remarks by President Trump on Vaccine Development” White House 15 May

Everything is going faster and better than ever – at Warp Speed! However, even without the vaccine everything would be ok, because there was no real problem.

And I just want to make something clear. It’s very important: Vaccine or no vaccine, we’re back. And we’re starting the process. And in many cases, they don’t have vaccines, and a virus or a flu comes, and you fight through it. We haven’t seen anything like this in 100-and-some-odd years — 1917….

you know, it’s not solely vaccine-based. Other things have never had a vaccine and they go away. So I don’t want people to think that this is all dependent on vaccine, but a vaccine would be a tremendous thing.

ibid.

Similar optimism was present in September:

We’re on track to deliver and distribute the vaccine in a very, very safe and effective manner. We think we can start sometime in October. So as soon as it is announced, we’ll be able to start. That’ll be from mid-October on. It may be a little bit later than that, but we’ll be all set.

“Remarks by President Trump in Press Briefing” White House September 16, 2020

This was probably never going to happen. At about the same time

CDC Director Robert Redfield said any vaccine is unlikely to be widely available to most Americans before the summer or early fall of 2021, given initial constraints on supplies if and when a vaccine wins approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). [Even if a] vaccine… will initially be available some time between November and December

Audrey MacNamara “CDC director says COVID vaccine won’t be widely available until mid-2021” CBS News, 17 September

Likewise, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the FDA and a member of Pfizer’s board of directors said:

for most people, they will not have access to a vaccine until 2021. I think maybe the first quarter of 2021, probably the first half of 2021. And that’s assuming that these vaccines are demonstrated to be safe and effective in these large trials.

ibid.

But the boosting continued.

Under Operation Warp Speed, my administration is on track to deliver a safe and effective vaccine in record time.  We’re doing very well with the vaccines, as most of you know.

Four vaccines are now in the final stage of trials.  The day the vaccine is approved by the FDA, we’ll begin distributing it within 24 hours, with hundreds of millions of doses to follow very quickly.  We’re all set to go.  We’re all ready….

Tremendous progress is being made.  And I say, and I’ll say it all the time: We’re rounding the corner.  And, very importantly, vaccines are coming, but we’re rounding the corner regardless.  But vaccines are coming, and they’re coming fast.  We have four great companies already, and it’s going to be added to very rapidly.  They’re in final stages of testing.  And from what we’re hearing, the results are going to be very extraordinary.

“Remarks by President Trump in an Update on the Nation’s Coronavirus Testing Strategy” White House 28 September

While it may be a good idea to speed and encourage vaccine production, it usually takes a long time for safe testing, and not all viruses can be successfully vaccinated against (AIDS for example), or they require continual innovation due to virus mutation, or revaccination because the antibodies do not last for a long time.

Only in neoliberal positive thinking, is having a fully tested and implemented working vaccine, which is widely accepted by the population, the same as having plans for one, so everyone can stop worrying and get on with socialising and work. Other strategies need to be pursued as well.

Dr Fauci also pointed out that the President has not seen the data on the testing.

These are blind placebo-controlled trials. The only ones who see the data intermittently is the safety data monitoring board…. a single unblinded statistician…. Those data are not public data, no one can know what those data show. That person looks at the data and says, ‘OK, let’s keep the trial going, we don’t have enough data to make a decision.’ Or that person can look at the data and say, ‘You know, there really is a very strong signal of efficacy, let’s make it known.’ We bring in the company, we tell the company, then the company can make up their mind, whether they want to use that data to go to the [Federal Drug Administration for approval].

Erin Banco “Fauci on Trump’s Vaccine Boasts: No One’s Seen the Data” Daily Beast 22 September.

So we can conclude the President is likely repeating, or creating, optimistic business hype:

In the First Presidential Debate, the President implied that he trusted Pharmaceutical companies more than scientists, saying….

I’ve spoken to the companies and we can have it a lot sooner. It’s a very political thing because people like this [Dr. Redfield and Dr. Slaoui, the head of ‘Operation Warp Speed’] would rather make it political than save lives….

It is a very political thing. I’ve spoken to Pfizer, I’ve spoken to all of the people that you have to speak to, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and others. They can go faster than that by a lot. It’s become very political because the left… Or I don’t know if I call them left, I don’t know what I call them.

Donald Trump & Joe Biden 1st Presidential Debate Transcript 2020, Rev, 29 September

Previously in the debate, Biden claimed:

His own CDC Director says we could lose as many as another 200,000 people between now and the end of the year. And he said, if we just wear a mask, we can save half those numbers. Just a mask. And by the way, in terms of the whole notion of a vaccine, we’re for a vaccine, but I don’t trust him at all. Nor do you. I know you don’t. What we trust is a scientist.

President Donald J. Trump: (24:25): You don’t trust Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer?

ibid.

Against Caution about Vaccines

Positive thinking also promotes shadow politics. The president’s optimism requires him to condemn those who wonder if vaccination is enough or if the results will be in quickly enough, as being “anti-vaccine”.

I’m calling on Biden to stop promoting his anti-vaccine theories because all they’re doing is hurting the importance of what we’re doing. And I know that if they were in this position, they’d be saying how wonderful it is. They’re recklessly endangering lives. You can’t do that.

And again, this is really a case that they’re only talking — just started talking a little bit negatively, and that’s only because they know we have it, or we will soon have it. And the answer to that is very soon.

“Remarks by President Trump in Press Briefing” September 16, 2020. White House

Objections to his plan are negative politics

…we may very well have the vaccine prior to a certain very important date, namely November 3rd. Once they heard that, the Democrats started — just to show you how bad the intention is, they started knocking the vaccine. Had nothing to do with a vaccine, it was totally made up. It’s all disinformation….

[Democrats] started knocking the vaccine as soon as they heard that this actually may come out prior to election. Now, it may or may not, but it’ll be within a matter of weeks. It will be within a matter of weeks from November. It’s ready to go and it’s ready to — for massive distribution to everybody — with a focus, again, on seniors.

ibid

Joe Biden’s anti-vaccine theories are putting a lot of lives at risk.  And they’re only doing it for political reasons; it’s very foolish.  It’s part of their war to try and discredit the vaccine, now that they know that we essentially have it.  We’ll be announcing it fairly soon.

“Remarks by President Trump in Press Briefing” September 18. White House.

If people are interested, Biden’s official policies can be found here.

A Possible Future Solution Justifies Spreading the Problem?

Even after the disease had killed over 200,000 Americans – which is far more than any flu seems to have killed per year in the last 50 or so years – members of the Party seemed to be convinced that they could not get the virus, would not get it seriously, or were afraid of being seen as weak or negative. Pictures of Republican Party parties and events, show people crowded together without masking.

Apparently knowing he had been in contact with Corona Virus, Trump attended a Republican fund raiser inside his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, where no one was warned, masks were not worn, and buffet food was served in contravention of New Jersey anti-covid health regulations. This is another way of positively asserting that Coronavirus is never a problem – and which demonstrates the President’s victory over the disease.

Current leaked figures suggest that “34 White House staffers and other contacts” where infected from the one event.

After Trump was recognised as having Coronavirus, his main effort seemed to be to persuade people that he was healthy, possibly immune, and that the virus was nothing to worry about, tweeting positively:

Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago!

Donald Trump Tweet

He also suggests that Joe Biden, who is much more cautious, would be hiding in a cellar, apparently using doctored images to make his point – again falsehood is true if it shows how heroic and virtuous the neoliberal President is.

It may be that the President is immune, but that does not mean everyone is immune, or able to get free medical care and experimental drugs, and there would still be no reason to emphasise that mask wearing is unnecessary to protect the health of others, particularly those white house staff who cannot afford the kind of medicines given to Trump, which may not work for everyone anyway.

The point seems to be that in neoliberal individualism and positive thinking, the successful isolated wealthy individual overwhelms fears of death or prolonged illness in many unknown others. Trump is continuing to cheerlead the country, rather than face the complexities of the situation.

Positivity falters

There seems to have been a moment in mid to late March in which the President’s public positivity faltered. Tucker Carlson had warned him the virus was bad and Trump had had a reaction to what he had seen in New York

I grew up in Queens, New York, and right next to a place called Elmhurst, Queens.  And they have a hospital that’s a very good hospital — Elmhurst Hospital.  Right?  I’ve known it.  I’ve known where it is.  I can tell you the color on the outside, the size of the windows.  I mean, I know it very well, right?  That was near my community where I lived.

And I’ve been watching that for the last week on television.  Body bags all over in hallways.  I’ve been watching them bring in trailer trucks — freezer trucks; they’re freezer trucks — because they can’t handle the bodies there’s so many of them.  This is in my — essentially, in my community in Queens — Queens, New York.

I’ve seen things that I’ve never seen before.  I mean, I’ve seen them, but I’ve seen them on television in faraway lands.  I’ve never seen them in our country.  Elmhurst Hospital — unbelievable people.  I mean, I — when I see the trucks pull up to take out bodies — and these are trucks that are as long as the Rose Garden.  And they’re pulling up to take out bodies, and you look inside and you see the black body bags.  You say, “What’s in there?”  It’s Elmhurst Hospital; must be supplies.  It’s not supplies.  It’s people.  I’ve never seen anything like it.

Remarks by President Trump, Vice President Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force in Press Briefing. 30 March 2020

But while mentioning the same scene he swiftly moved into positivity.

And you also see where you have friends that go into the hospital and you say, “How is he doing?” two days later.  And they say, “Sir, he is unconscious” or “He’s in a coma.”  So things are happening that we’ve never seen before in this country.

And with all of that being said, the country has come together like I’ve never seen it before.  And we will prevail. We will win.  And hopefully, it will be in a relatively short period of time.

Remarks by President Trump, Vice President Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force in Press Briefing. White House 1 April

Within two weeks he was critcising Democrat governors for following the regulations he had issued, and stating that he would open the economy irrespective of what they wanted. He also started to tweet that people should Liberate Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia The inference, is that positive thinking requires shadow politics for it to seem valid, and that it acts as a way of defusing distress.

Conclusion

Early on the President knew the Coronavirus was bad, but he says he decided to play it down, and say it was going to clear up, to avoid panic. He seems to have acted together, with others in the news media and his political party, to mislead people as to the seriousness of the disease, to reduce any Federal co-ordination of the Response and to blame, or scapegoat, Democrat politicians for the problem, including the past administration and State governors where possible. The President delayed, and undermined, recommendations of distancing and hoped that an imagined rapid and unproperly tested vaccine would solve the Country’s problems. This may have later led the President to play the disease down to hide how badly the administration had done – partly because they were so positive that things would go well.

Another possible reason for the positive thinking, is that it is often asserted that consumer and business confidence is the root of economic activity. It could be assumed that if people fear the disease they will both spend and produce less. For example:

Because consumer sentiments are what really drive economies, a return to any kind of “normal” will only happen when and not before confidence returns.

Schwab, K. & Malleret, T. COVID-19: The Great Reset (pp. 43-44). Forum Publishing. Kindle Edition.

Severe slowdown is likely to lead to companies sacking staff (especially without taxpayer support particularly geared at keeping staff employed or paid), and that will lead to a further fall in demand (as people lose income, and increase saving – where possible), and hence to more unemployment.

This realisation could easily slip into a position in which optimism and downplaying the seriousness of the disease, together with attacks on those who thought otherwise could become almost compulsory, if the authorities wanted to keep profit turning and avoid an otherwise inevitable collapse in an election year.

Whatever the case, it seems it was more important to win the election, keep the neoliberal economy going and get people back to work, than it was to protect the American people from the disease. Indeed, it seems likely that the positivity made the situation far worse than it could have been.

The main policies the President seemed to have, were to downplay the disease, keep the share market high by positive spin, attack his political opponents, blame China and hope for a vaccine to be developed quickly – and apparently hope that it did not have bad effects because it was being rushed, as Pharmaceutical companies are trustworthy. Everything else went up and down. He does not even seem to consider the possibility that the disease effects could become worse as the country moves into winter.

A Realist and positive approach does not avoid problems

A real positive approach would have recognised there was a problem, and a problem which was barbed. If people did not self-isolate or practice physical distancing then many people would die or, as it turned out, suffer prolonged illness. However, it is difficult to run a modern country if everyone had to self isolate. It is also possible that if hospitals are shut down, or people are scared to attend them, then people will die unnecessarily from other diseases. There are also likely to be significant mental problems, because humans are not the isolated independent individuals of neoliberal fantasy. These are problems which all have to be recognised, and no doubt there are still more problems needing to be dealt with.

The President could have admitted these problems, could have discussed it with many people, could have encouraged people to be cautious and not to spread the disease, but to keep up socialising, rather than insist on them working in harmful conditions. However, work seems to be the only legitimate social activity for strict neoliberals. He could have helped cities in difficulty rather than try to attack Democrat States and praise Republican States. He could have accepted there might be many approaches which would need to be tried out. He could have accepted hard work and constantly corrected science was necessary. But he didn’t, he floundered in positivity that refused to recognise a set of serious and complex problems, and which continually engaged in shadow politics to try and boost the positive vision that there was no problem.

Positivity creates an unconscious

It is based on panic for the really important thing – the economy, and fear of learning the true extent of the problem. It allows the magnification of fear of lesser problems – such as riots. Positivity creates a negativity towards possible reality, obscures and punishes attempts at understanding, and proposes false dichotomies in order to make the behaviour seem reasonable. It also leads to behaviour which may intensify the problem – particularly as no attention is given to unintended consequences, or unpleasant results.

Neoliberal thinking on Climate change

There is a fair chance this kind of positivity explains some of the neoliberal approach to climate change. If they look after and protect the important things – ie corporate wealth, power and liberty, then (by not focusing on the problems this generates), those problems of climate will disappear in boundless wealth and opportunity. The only real problem comes from those who refuse to be positive, and who do focus on the problems of the world’s slowly disintegrating ecology. These negative people affect the positivity of everyone else, and by pointing to the problems, actually create those problems. Therefore negative people have to be silenced, as they are destroying the capitalist paradise which would otherwise be present.

This hypothesis is a slight refinement of the hypothesis that neoliberals would prefer that large numbers of people should die, rather than that the people are enabled have any liberty to constrain corporate action, or any independence from the corporate system, but it adds force to the idea that this position may often come from a positive cultivation of ignorance rather than malevolence.