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Monday, May 18, 2020

The CNN Narrative

If you wonder what narrative CNN is pushing at the moment, here's a rather good summary of it from an article CNN published today.

"Instead of an imagined "tradeoff" between reviving the economy and safeguarding health, President Donald Trump's policies are delivering both a great depression and tens of thousands of deaths at the same time. That's because a tradeoff between economy and health doesn't exist, except in Trump's fantasy. Unless people are confident about their safety in the midst of the pandemic, they will not resume normal life. By allowing a premature reopening, which ensures that the epidemic will rage, Trump most likely has condemned America to economic collapse."

This is the left's story line for the fall election.  It's the chorus in the Greek play put on by the media/Democrat collective.  The problem is that it is not even close to being true.

Let's start with the basic assumption that underlies this narrative:  supposedly, President Trump sees a "tradeoff between economy and health".  Oh really?  The CNN piece doesn't give any example of Trump taking that position (because there aren't any.)  If one actually listened to the President, one would understand that the shutdown was designed to make sure that hospitals would not be overwhelmed by huge numbers of virus cases.  America was going to "flatten the curve".  In other words, cases of the virus would be spread out over time in order to avoid the kinds of avalanche of hospitalizations seen in Italy and Spain.  That would also be done to make sure that America had time to get sufficient numbers of ventilators and other supplies to handle those in need.  Spreading out the cases would also give the USA more time to seek out treatments that help with the virus and hopefully a vaccine.  At no time was the idea presented by the President or his people that there was a trade off between the economy and death.  So the very heart of the CNN narrative is just plain wrong.

Let's move on to the concept of a "premature reopening" which will "ensure that the epidemic will rage."  CNN just treats the reopening as if it is premature.  It offers no proof.  And why is there this lack of proof?  The answer is simple:  thus far, the states that have partially reopened have seen no spikes in the level of infection.  In many states, the numbers of cases have continued to fall after reopening.  And this drop in infection levels has happened even while the total number of tests has risen by 50-100%.   A huge spike in testing has yielded fewer people testing positive for the virus in about half of the states with the remainder basically staying constant.  So far, not only is the reopening NOT causing the epidemic to "rage", instead, the epidemic seems to be petering out.

CNN, nevertheless, is doing what it can to try to promote ongoing fear of the virus returning strongly due to the reopening because that will slow any economic recovery.  The facts don't support there being any resurgence of the virus, but CNN is reporting it anyway.

How many times in the last few years have we all been told by CNN and the other members of the media/Democrat collective that only they believe in science.  Everyone else is a Neanderthal, a moron, a conspiracy theorist or -- if that fails -- a racist and a white supremacist.  Now, the clear science shows no rise in cases following the initial reopening -- indeed a fall in the number of cases.  CNN and others of its ilk choose just to ignore the science, ignore the data, and report what can only be described as lies.

It's a frequent thing for President Trump to call CNN Fake News or the enemy of the people.  There's a good reason for this which is ably illustrated by the CNN narrative on the virus.  CNN is indeed Fake News.  CNN is indeed the enemy of the American people.

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