Catherine Rampell in WaPo on Trump's pandemic response as the Fyre Festival.
Let’s just do it and be legends, man.
That could well be the slogan of this White House’s slapdash, hubristic approach to reopening the U.S. economy, which is turning into the Fyre Festival of pandemic responses.
Rather like the organizers of that infamous, ill-fated music fete, the Trump administration appears to have contempt for nose-to-the-grindstone planning or infrastructure development.
Instead, it believes that all problems — logistical, technical and medical — can be solved with slightly different social media messaging. Perhaps a new slogan. Or a more outrageous, puffery-filled, caps-locked presidential tweet.
Take it from the Fyre fraudsters: Forget the organizing, expertise, planning, budgeting, any of that other boring stuff. When in doubt, up the hype. People want to believe.
If Hoovervilles appear, no doubt we’ll be told that Americans have happily taken up glamping.
And maybe it will work. Plenty of Americans appear to want to give into the scam, the fraud, the legend.