Rewriting history
Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2020 3:03 pm
A bunch of people on my feeds have been trying to rewrite history by talking about how much criticism Donny took for "banning travel from China." This is an attempt to rewrite history. Don't let it work.
It's an attempt to rewrite history because Donny didn't actually ban travel from China. What he did was ban foreigners (but not U.S. nationals) from entering the United States directly from China (but not from some other country, even if they'd been in China). Of course, as a disease-prevention technique that works about as well as using a sieve to drink water. But as a dog whistle to the racist elements of his base, it got the job done.
We'd be having a very different discussion if Donny had required EVERYONE entering the country who had been in China at any time in the previous 14 days to enter quarantine until they'd been away from China for at least 14 days. But that would have required him to take the threat seriously, instead of simply viewing it as yet another opportunity to score political points. --Bob
It's an attempt to rewrite history because Donny didn't actually ban travel from China. What he did was ban foreigners (but not U.S. nationals) from entering the United States directly from China (but not from some other country, even if they'd been in China). Of course, as a disease-prevention technique that works about as well as using a sieve to drink water. But as a dog whistle to the racist elements of his base, it got the job done.
We'd be having a very different discussion if Donny had required EVERYONE entering the country who had been in China at any time in the previous 14 days to enter quarantine until they'd been away from China for at least 14 days. But that would have required him to take the threat seriously, instead of simply viewing it as yet another opportunity to score political points. --Bob
