Crenshaw to WaPo Trump Hater: ‘Let’s Try Reporting Some Facts With the Correct Context’ On Coronavirus Response
“Hating Trump is not an excuse for lazy argumentation and emotional reasoning.”
Severe TDS-sufferer Jennifer Rubin tried to argue that President Donald Trump’s inaction on the Wuhan coronavirus led to the death of thousands of Americans and basically destroyed the country.
Thankfully, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) came in with a cool head and tweeted out the much-needed facts when it comes to Trump’s response to the Wuhan coronavirus.
I swear The Washington Post publishes pieces from Jennifer Rubin just so people can laugh at her. There is no excuse to publish pieces not laced with facts just because someone is an opinion writer or blogger.
Here are a few of Rubin’s tweets with her article. Whenever she talks about coronavirus it seems that she leads with Trump. She has even called the coronavirus death toll the Trump death poll. Not kidding.
the Trump toll, when we are done, will likely include tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths, massive unemployment, trillions of dollars more in debt and trillions of dollars in lost wealth not to mention emotional hardship and educational disruption https://t.co/piGNbudj0G
— Jennifer Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) April 15, 2020
We now can calculate how many thousands Trump killed by inaction. Then there is the economic damage https://t.co/piGNbudj0G
— Jennifer Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) April 15, 2020
Now we know- tens of thousands of lives and trillions lost = The Trump Toll https://t.co/piGNbudj0G
— Jennifer Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) April 15, 2020
First of all, the Wuhan coronavirus is a VIRUS. It does not give a crap how a government responds or who is in charge.
You better believe I would not blame Hillary if this happened or if this happened during Obama’s administration.
Plus all of these arguments are null and void because the virus was likely already in America since November. Remember, I swear that I had it in late December/early January.
Anyway, Crenshaw did an excellent job dismantling Rubin’s crazy rant.
STOP. REWRITING. HISTORY.
Instead of attempting to spin the public into a hateful, frightened frenzy, let’s try reporting some facts with the correct context. Here’s what that might look like:
THREAD https://t.co/xrn9Qool3L
— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) April 16, 2020
The left all of a sudden seems to love WHO now that he cut the funding to the organization. They forget that WHO downplayed the virus in March.
On March 3rd, the day after you claim Trump should have shut our economy down, this is how the WHO downplayed the virus:
“COVID-19 spreads less efficiently than flu, transmission does not appear to be driven by people who are not sick”https://t.co/BNWzEViKJn
— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) April 16, 2020
The answer is no. It’s only been what, four weeks? People already want to go to back to work.
Would the America public really have accepted millions of jobs destroyed for a virus that had infected just 102 people by March 2? Especially considering Italy would not lock down until March 10th, Spain on March 14th, and the UK on March 23?
A bit of context is in order here.
— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) April 16, 2020
Yes, the precious federal government’s regulations, which have been in place for a looooong time, prevented others from getting out coronavirus tests:
I want to respond to this particular comment:
“Because we did not act earlier to ramp up testing at a massive scale and prepare our health-care system, social distancing — shutting down most of the economy — was required.”
— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) April 16, 2020
Not sure where the magic COVID-19 testing switch is. The truth is that long-standing regulations – in place for decades – prevented us from doing so. https://t.co/fDtnnbLg0i
— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) April 16, 2020
Additionally, you falsely state that social distancing should have been a “last resort.” But this has no basis in fact. Experts have long said flattening the curve via social distancing is the only way to prevent the initial case spike that would overwhelm hospitals.
— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) April 16, 2020
Like most TDS sufferers, Rubin wants to have her cake and eat it, too.
First, you argue that we should have shut down the economy weeks before we did. Then, you argue that the shut down, resulting job loss, and economic devastation are his fault too.
Which is it? You can’t have it both ways.
— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) April 16, 2020
Your analysis makes it seem like our government deliberately decided not to buy more PPE. The truth is there was a global production shortage when China began stopping exports, and demand soared. This is still happening.
— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) April 16, 2020
WEIRD how Rubin forgets that her own paper and the other MSM downplayed the virus.
While you argue that Trump ignored early warning signs, you ignore the headlines that ran on the pages of your paper in January and February. Here are a couple: pic.twitter.com/mESRoVydtq
— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) April 16, 2020
Mic. Drop.
When it’s all said and done, this bad-faith analysis isn’t fact-based and lacks important context. Hating Trump is not an excuse for lazy argumentation and emotional reasoning.
Now, more than ever, we need critical thinking and productive deliberation.
— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) April 16, 2020
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Comments
Poor, naive Dan Crenshaw. He still thinks Democrats have any interest whatever in facts.
I suppose you are being sarcastic. In any event, I do not think that Crenshaw believes that his efforts here will change Rubin’s mind, or those of people of the same ilk. Rather, Crenshaw knows that: “[t]he only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Our side is assisted by people willing to challenge the constant fulminations of the left.
Echoing what Rick said, Dan Crenshaw is not engaging with Jennifer Rubin in order to sway Jennifer Rubin. Rubin will not be swayed and no good Trump does is redeemable in her eyes.
Crenshaw is engaging Rubin to make sure that both sides are being presented, with context. Not to sway Rubin or any of her equally-rabid supporters, but to sway any middle-grounders who might also reading the thread.
Those fence-sitters will side with Rubin unless they get to see both sides, so that’s what Crenshaw is doing.
I agree but the first people to dance is laughter at but it’s the people that come after that get the dance going.
But Rubin isn’t a Democrat. Until four years ago she was a reasonable person. Now she’s gone completely off the rails. Maybe there’s some way to metaphorically slap her across the face and bring her back to reality.
When you talk to Conservatives about this Wuhan Corona Virus, they talk about the virus.
When you talk to Leftists about this Wuhan Corona Virus, they talk about Trump.
#NotJustAboutaVirus
“Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.”
(Quote often attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, but the concept was originally formed in writing by Henry Thomas Buckle in 1901.)
The MSM and Left (but I repeat myself) are always harping on “Trump this” and “Trump that”. Meanwhile, the rest of us are discussing events (COVID-19 pandemic, shutdown, etc.) and ideas (the merits both for and against economic shutdown, speculating on the future of America, etc.)
It must be very difficult to be a MSM reporter these days…. Oh, wait. Say something bad about Trump or the GOP, facts and context be damned; it’s sure to go viral. *headdesk*
The President’s actions have cost thousands of lives and trillions of dollars in economic damage.
I agree with the latter being, to a significant degree, the President’s fault in that he followed the advice of people who were supposed to know what they were talking about (e.g. Fauci is allegedly an expert on epidemiology and also HIV/AIDS. But I’ve read that early on he was telling the public that just anyone could be an AIDS victim and it was an absolute epidemic).
But had nothing been done the Wuhan Chinese Corona Virus death toll would likely have still been not much, if any, worse than the worst recent flu year death toll (2017 – 80,000) which, I’m not at all loath to point out, did not result in any sort of financial disruption.
“Shutting down” the economy, at least as much as I saw it, wasn’t as much Trump as it was state authorities – but IMO, he really stepped in it when he declared (and later recanted) that only HE had the authority to “reopen” it.
When you think about it, President Trump probably could be the one to “open up the economy”. The Fed has power to control interstate commerce. Without it, the states wouldn’t be able to function.
But interstate commerce hasn’t been shut down. In fact, with all the kudos going out to truck drivers, it appears to have done just the opposite. The REAL pain is with small businesses (read: lacking in political clout).
Consider this: Trump knows that if he says “black” the dems will scream “white.” He says, “Only I have the power to reopen.” The dems/media scream you’re wrong. He says, OK, you do it. Now the ball is back in their court. Notice how all of the state protests are against governors and not Trump.
From mid March to the end of March, the number of deaths attributed to covid19 increased in the US at a pretty consistent rate of 1.3/day. If that rate had continued to April 15th (for 2 more weeks), there would have been more than 250,000 dead.
The rate started decreasing at the beginning of April, about 1-1.5 weeks after States started shutting down. So the actual death toll on April 15th was 32,000.
There are still a lot of unknowns, but it’s not like the flu.
The sad truth about the Coronavirus response is that there really isn’t a good answer to dealing with the pandemic…just innumerable options of varying degrees of bad choices. If there was a perfect solution it would have been implemented by the President before now. That reality makes many people angry and frightened and looking for a scapegoat.
You’re absolutely right.
Add to that the fact that nothing like the current, nearly worldwide lockdown has ever been done before, and some missteps are inevitable.
People don’t want to hear that though. They don’t want to be reasonable. They just want it all to go away.
People continue to miss the point, concerning the global shutdown. At the time it was done, and since, no evidence has arisen to support the need for it. Get it? It was NOT necessary to crash the Global economy or that of the US to battle a virus which was not really that bad. The global economy was infected with fear. And, when it is opened up, just as with a person who has been hospitalized for a serious disease, it is going to take a long time to recover.
We still have less than the number dead in the 2017-2016 and 2018-2019 flu seasons. And, we did not shut down the world and kill the global economy either of those two years.
The Kung Flu was weaponized by the media, and as yet unidentified actors, to seriously degrade the global economy and, later, to attack Donald Trump. There was no evidence that such an unprecedented action was necessary. Now ask yourself the 10 trillion dollar question, who benefits from collapsing the manufacturing economy of the entire free world?
And if you look at the affect that “social distancing” has had on the good old fashioned flu, you will find that it flattened out to near zero in mid-March. So are we going to shut down and use “social distancing” every time flu season rolls around?
Sorry, but the stats from flu and pneumonia dropped to zero, beginning in March, because the states and CDC started counting every respiratory death as being COVID related.
It probably was necessary to do this in New York, and a few other places. In fact it should have been done in New York at least a week earlier, when the New Rochelle outbreak began. But there was no need to do it to the rest of the country.
Plus the DEMS & EVER-RUMPERS have made it 100 percent political from the git go start.
When Jennifer Rubin was at Commentary she was excellent. Since she has been at Bezos’ Compost (Izvestia on the Potomac) she seems to have had a psychotic breakdown. I would simply ignore anything she says. Of course, I ignore anything in the rag she works for. It is where the truth goes to die in darkness.
It’s not something in the water there, because Volokh was hosted at WaPo for a while and didn’t go crazy. But he’s in better company now at Reason. They’re a different class of crazy.
I just want to make one more point before going outside to socially isolate with my tomato plants and get some natural Vitamin D.
Everyone seems to be looking for a scapegoat these days: Liberals blame President Trump. Conservatives blame Dr. Fauci. Anti-vaxers blame Bill Gates. Heck, the parent of one of my daughter’s 5th grade students screamed and swore at her (in front of the student) blaming her because the schools closed.
All this anger is morphing into hatred and it scares me. I truly hope that no one really wants the country to lapse into riots and violence, but we’re steadily moving in that direction. We all should remember that at this stage of the global pandemic there are no good answers, just an honest search for the least bad of the solutions.
The DEMS do…….
What is your point?
People are waking up. They are no longer controlled by the MSM. They see that they were essentially lied to, throughout this “crisis”. They were initially told the shut down would be for 15 days. Then it was another 15 days. Then it was another 30 days. Now it is for an unspecified period of time. They are out of work. They are running out of money. Thy see that there is no 1 million dead in the whole wide world, let alone the US. They see that there is not even the 200,000, 100,000 or 60,000 deaaths that were predicted for the US. They see medical leaders poo-pooing various treatments for the virus even while they seem to be working, when used. They see that death stats are being padded, sometimes at ridiculous lengths. They see outrageous incarcerations of healthy people and arrests for ridiculous reasons to promote social distancing, which was ignored by the leaders when they forced masses of people to interact in grocery stores without face masks, which we must now all wear in various locales. The people are beginning to realize that the crisis was all a hoax and that they are being screwed by their leaders. This is driving home that already strengthened idea that almost all elected leaders, as well as the news media, simply can not be trusted to represent the populace. So, what do you expect to happen, if the political leaders continue to screw the people over? Look to the causes of both the American and French revolutions. Someone apparently wants to start a violent revolution. But, I doubt that it is the populace. They just want to go back to work and have their elected representatives stop lying to them.
I will be attending a rally in Knoxville on Sunday telling my governor to open up my state. There are many more throughout the country. Enough already!!
Actually, Mac45, you just proved my point. Regardless, I truly wish you well.
So, you agree that the political leadership of this nation is fomenting a violent revolution? Good. It still appears that you want to apologize for the totalitarian actions of the American political leadership. All the political leadership of this country had to do was to think about the good of all of their constituents and use common sense. Instead our leadership behaved like communist commissars and set out to destroy this country. If they continue ignore the welfare of their constituents they will be replaced by those same constituents. And, if they make the people desperate enough, violence will ensue. It is all up to the political leaders in this country, which way this goes. I wonder what they will decide to do.
It’s nice to see the younger GOP isn’t suffering from PTSD and calls the losers out.
Can’t we call the Wuhan Virus Death Toll the Democrats’ Impeachment Death Toll, because the Wuhan Virus began its invasion of the US and thereafter spread rapidly while the mainstream media and politicians on both sides of the aisle were focused 100% on impeachment?
From September 2019 (when Pelosi launched the Ukraine investigation) until February 5, 2020 (acquittal), most of our attention was diverted.
.. that delay by Pelosi over Christmas surely didn’t help
She was making sure the ChiCom virus arrived without interruption.
Rubin is a world class BITCH. She got me put in hack on twitter for saying something not nice about that fat Muzzie guy who was offed in Constantinople.
the blame for all of this lays squarely at the feet of the communist party in china–regardless of the 24/7 bleating/lying of the msm/cnn/fascist media or the bleating/blaming/lying of the dem/fascist party, the blame for all of the negative repercussions from the Wuhan Virus is owned by the chinese communists
Love this man. He’s a fighter. We have a few now, thank goodness.
As for the Wuhan flu as a special killer: studied some MO stats on cases x age today. Incidence is steady rate from 30 to 65 or so. Makes sense, these people are working, likely exposed. Then 65-85 rate goes down nearly 50%. Makes sense, these people are retired, sheltering. Then 85 up huge increase in rate of cases. Why? These people not sheltering? Absurd.
It’s obvious to me, many, probably most of the over 80 cases are *nursing home cases.* Those places have to be pits of contagion. My son tells me half of the new cases in St Charles County, MO last week were at *one* nursing home.
Why not clean those places up and let people work if they want to? People are at risk of losing everything. It makes me really angry to think they are doing this because of some hyped up crap model from some idiot Brit, and media frenzy for bad news. I see how Trump and many governors (including MO gov, who resisted as long as he could) can’t resist the shrieking about DEATHS! So I’m not blaming.
However, I do believe it is time for some resistance and pushback. A lot of this is plain damn tyranny. I was thrilled to see that protest in Michigan. Made my Murrican heart beat that little bit faster.
“”most of the over 80 cases are *nursing home cases.””
At least one of our 6 county deaths involved an individual under hospice care. Calling that a COVID death is malpractice.
Here in San Diego, a few days ago, we had two deaths. One “late 90’s”. The other? 102.
When you are 102, the cause of death is 102 years of living.
I am 76; systems are deteriorating. Such is life.
Seriously, what is wrong with her? She and I started from what I thought were the same premises. Four years ago we seemed to be on the same page. At least I thought so. But then Trump was elected, fair and square, and started doing mostly good things, and it seems like the more good he did the more her hatred blinded her to it.
I never hated Trump. I thought he was an unfit person to be president (but so was Clinton). I thought he was a conman, and could not be trusted. I thought his policies were those of a liberal democrat (though no worse than Clinton’s). I thought he was likely to be a bad president. But I didn’t hate him. Certainly not the way I hated Clinton and 0bama.
I kept my eyes open, and observed what he did. When he did something I didn’t like I criticized him. When he did something I did like I praised him. And when he was unfairly attacked I defended him, just as I defended those whom he had unfairly attacked. I didn’t vote for him in 2016, but if the election were held today I would vote for him this time.
Meanwhile Rubin seems to have just turned into a hate machine. It’s as if she can’t bear to see anything good about him, so her subconscious turns it into bad and she believes that. Maybe Bandy X. Lee has a name for that.
The truth is Trump’s handling of this crisis has not been perfect. But who could expect that? I don’t believe any alternative president could have handled it any better than he has. He’s done the best he can, and the best anyone could have done, given the information we had (thank you China). If he didn’t deserve reelection before (and he did), he would earn it just for this.