Trade advisor Peter Navarro warned White House on January 29 of coming pandemic in a frightening memo that [redacted] ignored and later denied seeing: NYT

photo courtesy of pixabay.com and ErikaWittlieb

The New York Times reported on April 6 that a critical memo written by trade advisor Peter Navarro on January 29 warned of the coming pandemic, but was ignored by the White House.  [redacted] later claimed that he had not seen it, despite evidence to the contrary.  For six weeks after this memo, nothing serious was done.  The White House cut off most travel from China on the 29th, but by then, people coming from China had already seeded the virus on the West Coast.  Later, people from Europe brought the virus to the East Coast, long before travel from there was cut off.  Finally, on March 13, a state of emergency was declared.  The Defense Production Act has not been fully utilized, and organized preparations have been ignored and are still being ignored.

Numerous explanations have been given for this delay, from impeachment to distrust of the “deep state”, but none of these hold water.  The only reasonable explanation is that [redacted] simply didn’t believe the warnings because they didn’t suit his narcissistic, sociopathic world view.  Nothing could be allowed to upset his great economy– until it did.

We are witness to a continuing failure to heed warnings and a continuing failure to mount an organized response to this pandemic.  There were multiple warnings from many sources; what’s more, there are plans for just such an eventuality already laid out.  We are in trouble, and there will be more loss of life and more economic hardships to come.  The end result may be destruction of democracy if the November election cannot go forward with full participation of the electorate.  People who don’t normally vote must be incentivized to vote this time, or democracy will end.  Mark my words.