On the day PM Morrison admits his debt lake was cobbled together, not planned and measured, we have this priceless analysis from America of a type we simply do not see in Aus, given The Aus and AFR wanted us to believe the growing catastrophe had been well-managed and -consulted (with a few corporate barons) - at a dinner!
Michael Gerson, Wash Post, Trump’s tweets are a strategy of distraction to obscure a policy of abdication
As is often the case, a failure of presidential communication revealed a series of deeper, more substantive failures. In the midst of a crisis, the Trump White House could not even produce a middling speech because its policy process is nonexistent; because Trump has chosen morally and intellectually mediocre White House advisers; because the president has no respect for the power of words and is incapable of public empathy or inspiration. And when Trump was given a format better suited to his style — his daily novel coronavirus task force briefings — he regularly revealed profound and disturbing ignorance.
In light of these limitations, a tweetstorm solidifying the hatred and conspiracy thinking of Trump’s core supporters must seem an attractive alternative.
Trump’s refusal to engage in traditional presidential discourse has another possible explanation. His current policy in the coronavirus crisis is not something he would want to describe out loud. Trump is now completely deferring to states — while pressuring them to restart business activity — because he has given up on a federal strategy to ensure universal, high-quality testing and tracing. It is far easier to blame the governors for future deaths and to claim the credit for future economic growth.