Trump Can’t Turn the Economy Back on Without Overriding Executive Orders of 30 Governors

Update: Between March 30 and April 1, most of the last big states — TX, AZ, MD, VA, and FL — imposed stay at home orders.

Update: I’ve updated this and reposted. At least six states have added stay at home orders since Trump said he wanted to reopen the economy by Easter. This post was originally published on March 24, just before mid-day.

As noted, yesterday Trump signaled that he wants to turn the economy back on, perhaps 15 days after his original Emergency declaration on March 13 (which would mean the emergency would end on Saturday, March 28). As Ron Klain just noted, though, Trump doesn’t have that ability: Governors, not the President, have been the ones to shut things down (along with a number of mayors and corporate executives).

It will be governors, not Trump, who decide when to reopen the economy.

Over the last week, a set of governors (currently 30) have issued stay-at-home orders; another (MA) imposed a suggested stay at home declaration, and a number of cities and counties have similarly shut down. This NYT story has a great map and numbers showing how many people are affected (though without durations or governor party affiliation).

As the list below makes clear, Trump can’t turn the economy back on without finding a way to rescind the executive orders of a bunch of governors, including those of Republicans Eric Holcomb (whose order goes until April 6), Mike DeWine (whose order goes until April 6), and Jim Justice (whose order doesn’t have a termination date).

Update: Trump just said, “I would love to have the country opened up and raring to go by Easter.”

Update: This has been updated through March 27. This is the most comprehensive list of orders I’ve seen, including those closing businesses as opposed to ordering people to stay at home (though as of today it is missing a business closure from AL’s Kay Ivey).

Update, March 30: Maryland’s Larry Hogan and Virginia’s Ralph Northam, whose initial non-essential business shutdowns had stopped short of a stay-at-home order, have both now issued the latter.


Full stay-at-home orders

  1. Alabama (Republican Governor Kay Ivey) Imposed April 3, effective April 4.
  2. Alaska (Republican Governor Mike Dunleavy): Imposed March 27, effective March 28, in effect until April 11.
  3. Arizona (Republican Governor Doug Ducey): Imposed March 30, effective March 31, in effect until April 30. Some city flexibility on order.
  4. California (Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom): Imposed and effective March 19, in effect “until further notice.”
  5. Colorado (Democratic Governor Jared Polis): Imposed March 25, effective March 26, in effect until April 11.
  6. Connecticut (Democratic Governor Ned Lamont): Imposed March 20, effective March 23, effective through April 22. (Order)
  7. Delaware (Democratic Governor John Carney): Imposed March 22, effective March 24, in place until May 15 or public health threat eliminated. (Most recent order)
  8. District of Columbia (Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser): Imposed March 30, effective April 1.
  9. Florida (Republican Governor Rick DeSantis): Imposed April 1, effective April 3, effective until April 30.
  10. Georgia (Republican Governor Brian Kemp): Imposed April 2, originally effective until April 13; extended on April 8 until April 30.
  11. Hawaii (Democratic Governor David Ige): Imposed March 23, effective March 25, effective through April 30.
  12. Idaho (Republican Governor Brad Little): Imposed and effective March 25, effective 21 days (though April 15).
  13. Illinois (Democratic Governor JB Pritzker): Imposed March 20, effective March 21, effective until April 7. (Order)
  14. Indiana (Republican Governor Eric Holcomb): Imposed March 23, effective March 24, effective until April 6. (Most recent orders)
  15. Kansas (Democratic Governor Laura Kelly): Imposed March 28, effective March 30, effective until April 19.
  16. Louisiana (Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards): Imposed March 22, effective March 23, in place until April 13.
  17. Maryland (Republican Governor Larry Hogan): Imposed and effective March 30.
  18. Michigan (Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer): Imposed March 23, effective March 24, in place until April 13. (The state announcement, but not the order itself, states the order will be in place “at least” three weeks.)
  19. Minnesota (Democratic Governor Tim Walz): Imposed March 25, effective March 27, effective until April 10.
  20. Mississippi (Republican Governor Tate Reeves): Imposed April 1, effective April 3, effective until April 20.
  21. Missouri (Republican Governor Mike Parson): Imposed April 3, effective April 6, effective until April 24.
  22. Montana (Democratic Governor Steve Bullock): Imposed March 27, effective March 28, effective until April 10.
  23. Nevada (Democratic Governor Steve Sisolak): Imposed April 1, effective April 1, effective until April 30.
  24. New Hampshire (Republican Governor Chris Sununu): Imposed March 26, effective March 27, effective until May 4.
  25. New Jersey (Democratic Governor Phil Murphy): Imposed and effective March 21, effective until further notice.
  26. New Mexico (Democratic Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham): Imposed March 23, effective March 24, in place until April 10.
  27. New York (Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo): Imposed March 20, effective March 22, in place until April 19. (Most recent orders available here.)
  28. North Carolina (Democratic Governor Roy Cooper): Imposed March 27, effective March 30, effective for 30 days (until April 29).
  29. Ohio (Republican Governor Mike DeWine): Imposed March 22, effective March 23 in place until April 6.
  30. Oregon (Democratic Governor Kate Brown): Imposed and effective March 23, effective until terminated. (Order)
  31. Pennsylvania (Democratic Governor Tom Wolf): Imposed and effective April 1, effective until April 30.
  32. Rhode Island (Democratic Governor Gina Raimondo): Imposed and effective March 28, effective until April 13.
  33. South Carolina (Republican Governor Henry McMaster): Imposed April 6, effective April 7.
  34. Vermont (Republican Governor Phil Scott): Imposed March 24, effective March 25, effective until April 15.
  35. Virginia (Democratic Governor Northam): Imposed and effective March 30, effective until June 10.
  36. Washington (Democratic Governor Jay Inslee): Imposed March 23, effective March 26, effective until April 8.
  37. West Virginia (Republican Governor Jim Justice): Imposed March 23, effective March 24, effective until terminated. (Order)
  38. Wisconsin (Democratic Governor Tony Evers): Imposed March 23, effective March 25, effective until April 24.

Non-essential business closures

  1. Alabama (Republican Governor Kay Ivey)
  2. Kentucky (Democratic Governor Andy Beshear)
  3. Maine (Democratic Governor Janet Mills)
  4. Oklahoma (Republican Governor Kevin Stitt)
  5. Tennessee (Republican Governor Bill Lee)
  6. Texas (Republican Governor Greg Abbott)
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129 replies
  1. Rugger9 says:

    However, Trump can posture himself as a “wartime” president, bone spurs and all and blame the Ds for anything that goes wrong. which just might work for re-election. After all, 54% in a poll said the WH was doing a good job. Sheesh.

    • harpie says:

      It would be VERY WEAK to call himself a “War time President” and not to make use of his power wrt: Defense Production Act.

      • Frank Probst says:

        I have exactly the opposite opinion on this. He’s been a “war time President” since the moment he was sworn in, for whatever the hell it’s worth. We’re in two “forever wars” in the Middle East. We don’t hear much about them these days, because the rest of the country has long since “moved on”, and I haven’t heard anything about them in the last several months. My guess is that they’ve both gone from “bad but stable” to “much worse and much more volatile”.

    • e.a.f. says:

      Wait until the press starts showing all the body bags

      Just saw a picture in Italy which Vanity Fair has up. It’s a street full of army trucks lined up at a hospital waiting for the nightly load of bodies

      The article goes on to strike out at Republicans who carried on like lunatics about death panels. The article points out Italy has more hospitals and equipment than the USA yet the doctors in the ERs have to decide who gets treatment and who doesn’t

  2. Peterr says:

    There are also a bunch of federal courts which are either closed or operating under various restrictions, including SCOTUS itself.

    Somehow, I don’t think John Roberts and his judicial branch colleagues are going to say “OK, let’s open everything back up again” just because Trump says to do so.

      • spiny says:

        I bet that the last thing Roberts wants to do is rule on Trump’s tax returns before the election. Arguments on that case were scheduled for the end of the month and are now delayed indefinitely. Now Trump, on the other hand, probably wants his lackeys to rule in his favor asap.

  3. greengiant says:

    The administration is playing a losing hand and the only way with their limited abilities to win would be to bluff the virus into submission.
    Instead we get nonsense about it will get better in the summer and to watch out for the fall. or that the new cases will be a bell shaped curve.
    When the first community transmission virus was reported here there was a run on TP. Of course todayls the lines wrapped around grocery stores make that look normal. Restaurant business went off a cliff before it was shut down. Air travel went off a cliff without any mandates. Hotels business went off a cliff. That part of the economy is not coming back until the virus is defeated.
    Tragic decisions are non partisan. People in call centers with 3 foot spacings were incubators that could have been avoided. Just one example.

  4. MissingGeorgeCarlin says:

    Hola, I’d like to pass on what a nurse in Sarasota FL told me yesterday:
    1) The swabs they’re using to test for Covid-19 have a 40% failure rate.
    2) They don’t have enough masks.

    • Rayne says:

      The most accurate place to swab for COVID-19 is inside the lungs. I suspect that’s why nasal/throat swabs aren’t as effective.

    • vicks says:

      My neighbor said (yeah I know) that her sister in law works in the surgical unit of a local hospital and her hours are getting cut.
      I would assume that initially, they would limit the hospital staff that cares for covid -19 patients and then it would be all hands on deck.
      Someone tell me I am right?
      Do I need to go down there and tell them that they need these nurses to help them prepare?
      Do I need to go down and give them a list of things they could be doing?
      Are these hospitals worried about their bottom lines?
      If so, WTF?

      • e.a.f. says:

        Bottom line. Currently in hospital in Nanaimo,BC,Canada
        6 days so far. Fractured leg—surgery etc
        They’ve been ramping up since before I got here. Protocol being raised each day. Elective surgery cancelled. OR nurses now on floor. Patients being sent home. Supplies under lock and key. Recently retired docs and nurses asked to come back to work

        In the city of Vancouver has turned the civic Queen Elizabeth theatre into a triage centre so people go there first for testing etc and then will be sent elsewhere. The theatre is in the downtown core with huge under ground parking and elevators
        They are also ramping up care for doctors and nurses children. Early childhood educators are being advised where they will be seconded

  5. Frank Probst says:

    A bunch of mayors have also shut things down. Can a governor overturn a mayor’s order? Even in Texas, there are a bunch of those in place.

        • Jim White says:

          Not formally. They had been strongly encouraged to go home, but the admin has held off on a full shutdown because the ones who live overseas have nowhere to go. Hard to imagine there won’t be a more complete campus lockdown soon with some sort of accommodation for them.

    • vicks says:

      I THINK a state would have to pass specific legislation that overturns an ordinance issued by a city.
      How hard or easy that would be to accomplish depends on the states constitution.
      There are a lot of stories talking about situations in Texas and it looks like most of the time the states has been winning.
      https://www.nlc.org/sites/default/files/2017-03/NLC-SML%20Preemption%20Report%202017-pages.pdf

      “The U.S. Constitution does not mention local governments. Instead, the 10th Amendment reserves authority-giving powers to the states. Therefore, there is a great deal of diversity in state-local relations between, as well as within, states. Generally speaking, however, states provide either narrow (Dillon’s Rule) or broad (Home Rule) governing authority to cities, defined in the state constitution and/or by statute enacted by the legislature.9

      Dillon’s Rule, which is derived from an 1868 court ruling, states that if there is a reasonable doubt whether a power has been conferred to a local government, then the power has not been conferred.10 Dillon’s Rule allows a state legislature to control local government structure, methods of financing its activities, its procedures, and the authority to make and implement policy. Due to the rigidity of this system, however, some states began to adopt “Home Rule” provisions in the early 1900s. Home Rule limits the degree of state interference in local affairs and delegates power from the state to local governments. That power is limited to specific fields, and subject to constant judicial interpretation.

      The distinction between Dillon’s Rule and Home Rule is important but often overlooked in discussions of preemption. Cities in Dillon’s Rule states are broadly preempted in many of the areas discussed in this report. However, there are many instances of larger cities in Dillon’s Rule states that are granted Home Rule authorities, like New York and Baltimore. In other instances, regardless of Home Rule status, state law supersedes local governing authority, particularly when the state wants to establish a minimum threshold (i.e., minimum wage, antidiscrimination) to which locals must abide.”

      All of it will be shot to hell anyway if Trump declares America has beaten the virus.

      [Forced line returns removed, blockquote added to improve readability. /~Rayne]

      • Peterr says:

        This is already a tool well-known by the right wing.

        ALEC has used state legislatures to overturn or prohibit certain kinds of local ordinances they don’t like. For example, in Missouri, as both St. Louis and KC were on the verge of raising the minimum wage, ALEC got the legislature to prohibit any local ordinances that put it higher than the state’s (laughably low) minimum wage.

  6. tpsmithster says:

    Those favorable polls are taken at the beginning of the disaster that is going to unfold. Once the deniers are dying and their elders are dying, Trump’s BS will fade and the real people will have a say on what they have seen. BS won’t save Trump from a big drop in favorability. Then we see how strong the cult is and if it can keep him above 30%

    • dude says:

      Donald Trump thinks if he can invoke a “wartime” persona, he will acquire the aura of a Winston Churchill, defiant and unyielding in the face of great odds. He wants to be rallied around and thanked worshipfully. And I will bet you his core supporters will buy it. And the evangelicals will bury the dead as martyrs to the cause of the faith, and declare the failures the result of having too little of it. They always do.

      Trump and Co. want us to go back to work as though we are all Rosie-the-Riveter. I would like to believe the voting public will turn on him, but there is much room for doubt. “You don’t change horses in the middle of the stream”. You heard that when George Bush (Shrub) was running for his second term, only they substituted “president” for horses and “war” for stream. These folks out there saying “you need to get behind the president and help send a unifying message”—-that is what they are alluding to. That is only meaning of “together” for them. And they are getting louder.

      I do not hear the voice of reason out in the public where I live. Soon enough the scientists and the rational are going to be called traitors. I live in a state that has not declared a full lock-down. It is politically divided between the governor and the legislature. And I work for a state university which has a medical school adjacent a regional hospital. We’re going to wait until March 31 to “revisit” the existing recommendations to maintain social distance and work remotely. I am willing to bet they will all agree to postpone further consideration until after April 15. They will be smart enough not to say it that way, but they will not advocate for a lock-down.

      [Paragraph breaks added for readability. Best practice: grafs 100 words in length or less. Thanks. /~Rayne]

        • alfredlordbleep says:

          The lesson there (Brits, please correct me if mistaken) is that the common striving/common good the war effort raised was hostile to a Tory in peacetime. Or words to that effect.

        • John Paul Jones says:

          As I heard my grandfather say when I was just a wee nipper, people also felt that they were owed something for all their sacrifices, which actually went back to the 1920s and -30s when many people really had to struggle to exist within a class-dominated system. Grandpa didn’t hate Churchill, but he thought of him as a Tory and an imperialist, and he remembered his various positions from before the war. The publication of the Beveridge Report also had a huge impact. Many voters, like Grandpa, felt that while Churchill was exactly the leader needed during a war, he and the Tories would be ill-suited to a peace-time role, particularly if the Beveridge Report was to become policy.

      • skua says:

        Horses midstream has some comfort to it.
        Watching hearses might evoke hard rational thought and realizations.
        Depends on the level of delusion.

      • RobertJ says:

        Churchill was a leader and a master of the English language:

        “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

        The contrast with Trump is mind boggling.

        • Frank Probst says:

          It’s probably worth remembering that Churchill’s Nobel Prize was for literature. It’s hard for me to see Trump winning that one.

    • Philip Webster says:

      how strong the cult is…hope they are really super strong for Trump…He is so ignorant he is going to kill off a good part of his racist base; he is defeating himself and doesn’t know it.

      And: is this the beginning of the end of the 30-40 year run for the fundamentalist Christians ? Liberty U and Jerry F. who don’t believe in anything but their personal Santa Klaus are calling students back, opening again. Koch ALEC ? etc etc

      And the crazies at FOXX are helping themselves to early retirement too.

      Be thankful you all: we couldn’t do it without them. Of course, Trump is so terrible. His actions will kill off way more than necessary to flatten the curve.

      Be Safe; Shelter in Place my brothers and sister.

      • Gerard Plourde says:

        Falwell’s bluster reminds me of a joke popular among mainstream Christians that Seems apropos-

        During a flood a man prays to God to deliver him. As the water begins to rise a police cruiser comes by and asks if he wants to be evacuated. He says, “No. God’s going to deliver me.”

        The water continues to rise. A National Guard high water vehicle stops by and asks if he wants to leave. Again he refuses “I trust in God.”

        The floodwaters rise again. The Cajun Navy now arrives in a boat. He turns them down. “God will save me”, he says.

        The water rises so high that he’s standing on his roof. A Coast Guard helicopter swoops in. Again he refuses. “My help is the Lord.”

        Shortly thereafter, the torrent carries him away and he drowns. Upon reaching Heaven he confronts God. “Why didn’t you rescue me?”

        God replies, “Who do you think sent the police, the National Guard, the Cajun Navy, and the Coast Guard?”

  7. punaise says:

    I know it doesn’t work this way, but Trump declaring an arbitrary “all clear” by Easter seems criminally liable / negligent.

    At least these days if he fired a shot down 5th Ave there would be no one on the receiving end.

    • P J Evans says:

      I think he’s being pushed by the hotel/travel people and by the conservative religious “leaders” who have his ear – he’s talking about having the churches full for Easter. (A great way to kill off more people!)

      • Peterr says:

        Jerry Falwell Jr is pushing against VA state officials who have ordered no gatherings of more than 10 people. Falwell is keeping Liberty University open by going to online classes, but he’s not closing the dorms and is requiring faculty to (a) teach from their offices (not homes) and to hold in-person office hours face to face meetings with students. This has not gone down well with at least some of the faculty, staff, and students, but the power of Falwell over them all limits the amount of public criticism and blowback.

        • e.a.f. says:

          Most of those young people haven’t seen their friends more or less die as they choke to death because their lungs aren’t working. Once they do they’ll have another tune

        • Rayne says:

          So South Jersey, huh? And no new confirmed cases, meaning nobody had a test run OR that any test produced a positive reading, is that what you’re claiming with a dearth of words?

          Here’s the number of deaths posted in obituaries in the Courier-Post, newspaper for South Jersey.

          2016 — 32
          2017 — 30
          2018 — 36
          2019 — 40
          2020 — 59

          The average number of deaths reflected for the same period, March 26 for four years running, 2016-2019, was 34.5 obituaries.

          Gee, I wonder why March 26, 2020 had a nearly 70% spike in obituaries posted?

          Buh-bye, come back when you can produced a reasoned argument with data and citations.

        • Mitch Neher says:

          Trump has been the premier Mammonist in the world for . . . at least several years.

          And Trump came perilously close to committing black letter blasphemy with his supposedly sarcastic claim upon being The Chosen One.

          What’s more, Trump didn’t say anything about being The Second Coming–just The Chosen One.

        • Vicks says:

          Thank you. Perfect word
          mam·​mon | \ ˈma-mən \
          Definition of mammon
          material wealth or possessions especially as having a debasing influence
          you cannot serve God and mammon
          — Matthew 6:24 (Revised Standard Version)

        • bmaz says:

          Yeah, fuck fixing that crap. Anybody that cites Claude Taylor is an idiot.

          Why not just cite Louise Mensch? Get out of here. And, yes, I very much mean that.

        • Cynthia Perez says:

          Sorry, Bmaz, I have never heard of Claude Taylor. The video actually has nothing to do with him. I just copied and pasted from another website because it is hilarious.

        • MB says:

          Look at his MAGA hat – it’s really an AGAM hat. It says:

          “niaga taerg acirema ekam”. Best hat I’ve seen since the “Lock Him Up” ones…

  8. Manqueman says:

    Only a fool understates what our own Stalin can do. Kill millions unnecessarily to get business (albeit with a reduced consumer base) going sooner, delay the election, refuse to leave office…
    And Wall Street’s up to day because POTUS’ SecTreasury, scummy as he is, is smart enough that dealing with the Party of Trump won’t, shall we say, result in anything good; that is, he realizes handouts to business with little more and few crumbs to the people isn’t enough. So Wall Street is excited AF that there’s likely to be a deal soon because Mnuchin’s dealing with the Dems instead of Moscow Mitch.

  9. Duke says:

    https://www.rawstory.com/2020/03/restart-the-economy-is-a-prayer-to-a-conservative-god-who-demands-human-sacrifice/
    By Stephen Young, Religion Dispatches
    March 24, 2020
    Excerpt:
    “A simple translation of “restart the economy” suggests itself: the economy or the free market is God. It rules over and defines reality. And this God demands human sacrifice to rescue us from Coronavirus.”

    Trump demands the sacrifice and his followers are waiting patiently to see the toll paid by others demise.

    Reminds me of the old joke mocking consent, “Don’t!…….stop!
    Don’t. Stop.

    Don’t stop.

  10. punaise says:

    a reader at TPM writes:

    …I interact with conservatives all the time. It’s interesting watching the conservative id coalesce as it does.

    [T]here was a second group that more closely aligned with this new Trump/Dan Patrick thinking. The comments I heard went something like this, “This is going to sound bad, but 2% really isn’t that many people and it’s mostly old people anyway. They’ve lived a good life. Overpopulation is a major problem and it will also help with social security.”

    I’m writing in because I fear we are treating this as a more fringe idea than it actually is. I don’t think this is Trump reacting to his properties being forced to close or to a Fox News segment he saw. I think this has serious legs. …

    It’s part Ebeenezer Scrooge morality; part inability/unwillingness to comprehend the scope of horror coronavirus is capable of inflicting on us. Of course, implicit in their thinking is that it won’t affect them.

    We must be clear-eyed about what we’re up against…

    • P J Evans says:

      People who think that it won’t be anyone in THEIR family or THEIR friends, because they’re all good people (and vote the right way). People who have been taught over the last 40 years that government is a problem, that feelings and instinct are more reliable than experts, that science is wrong because it doesn’t agree with the feelings and instincts (and their preachers).
      The virus doesn’t ask questions. It doesn’t read or watch TV. It doesn’t care about you: you’re just a food source and an incubator.

      • Pajaro says:

        Quote from a great movie, apply as needed: “Listen, and understand. That terminator is out there. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.”

    • harpie says:

      1] This thread from 10 days ago, was retweeted at the time by Aaron Weisburd:
      https://twitter.com/brooklynmarie/status/1238854136818331649
      11:46 AM · Mar 14, 2020

      Good morning, this is your periodic reminder that key aspects of current USA domestic policy are being run by “population control” zealots who learned at the virtual knee of a white supremacist and advocate of what he termed “passive eugenics” [detailed THREAD]

      2] https://twitter.com/brooklynmarie/status/1240316136169725952
      12:36 PM · Mar 18, 2020

      Steve Bannon’s terrible podcast is doing the same thing. This is how weapons-grade disinformation works, people.
      ..[links to Daily Beast] A White Nationalist Has Rebranded Himself as Coronavirus Expert. And People Are Flocking to Him. [link]

      ““I think the coronavirus is creating a brand new world,” Kawcyznski told The Daily Beast, when asked about his new role as a would-be coronavirus expert. ” <- passive eugenics

      Here are some of the ecofascism/eugenicis dogwhistles getting thrown around right now: -overpopulation -Malthus/Malthusian -population control -"Euro-American majority" -"environmental pressures" -"thin the herd" -"survival of the fittest"
      You get the idea.

    • Vicks says:

      How about they just process that bullshit before they spray it around thinking people?
      What part of “it will break our healthcare system” do they not understand?
      Trump isn’t going to let them all bunk with him at Mar-a-lag-o with him and his chosen until this thing passes.
      I heard someone on the radio this morning say that people should go back to work when these CEO’s that are lobbying Trump to blow off this whole mitigation strategy start taking the subway to work or take their grandparents on a Walmart run

      Who the hell is going to fix their kid’s appendix when it’s bursts? Who is going to come rescue them from a burning building if the whole fire department is out sick?
      Who is going to work on taking away a women’s right to choose if too many of the old geezers in congress have kicked it? My god! what if Mitch dies?
      If they don’t care about being advocates for the certain death of their friends, neighbors and co-workers, at a minimum someone needs to make these fools go get a piece of paper and spend five minutes thinking and writing down what can and will happen downstream if we allow highly contagious virus that will requires a two week hospital stay for 20% of the people that get it.
      Tell them to grab a calculator too, they won’t be able to do the math in their heads.

      • Mitch Neher says:

        Vicks asks, “What part of ‘it will break our healthcare system’ do they not understand?”

        The part where ‘they’ no longer hurl those words in other people’s faces.

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      Only 2% of Americans dead because of Trump’s reckless response to Covid-19? That’s 6.6 million people. The six million figure has awkward historical analogies. So I’ll stick with what would a Covid-19 Memorial for that many people look like.

      If you carved their names on the sides of the Washington Monument, you would need to build two more to hold them all. If you built a Covid-19 Memorial along the lines of the Vietnam Memorial, which holds 58,000 names, you would need 114 of them. Or one memorial with walls 2.6 miles long, over five miles in total. At a brisk walk, you could do it in just over an hour – if you didn’t stop to cry or read the names.

      For comparison, the distance from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial is less than two miles, and you pass the Washington Monument, the Reflecting Pool, and the Vietnam Memorial along the way. To walk the length of the Covid-19 Memorial once, you would pass them three times. As he endlessly repeats, Donald Trump sets records wherever he goes.

      • Ken Muldrew says:

        3,000,000 million US soldiers served in Vietnam and 58,000 died there. That’s what, about 2% mortality? No bid deal. Nobody would ever affect bone spurs to avoid that, would they?

        • P J Evans says:

          About what it was during the Civil War – from the war alone. (Population about 32 million, 600k dead.)

      • Vicks says:

        No at the time i wrote that the figures were 2% of those who contracted the virus died. That # will go down because we are rationing the tests, and only testing those that are sick enough to qualify.
        My point was that 20% of people that contract the virus require an average of a two week hospital stay, and that our federal “leaders” are ignoring the potential for “collateral damage” being as bad of worse than the virus.
        Can you imagine the terror of being a pregnant woman right now?

  11. Valley girl says:

    I’m in DeKalb County GA. A shutdown order for the county was put in place 12:01 am today March 24. The EO continues until revoked or amended by subsequent EO. It includes a lot of Whereas.. language, much like I’ve seen elsewhere.

    But, a lengthy section emphasizes that the CDC is in DeKalb Country, its importance, blah blah. Be interesting to see if Trump tries to mess with DeKalb Co.

    • Jim195 says:

      This is a good article. But there is a scenario it does not consider. What if someone’s boss decides that Trump is right and, contrary to a governor’s EO, employees have to come to work or be fired? They might sue, but it would seem that this puts the legal burden on people who cannot afford to bear it.

      • Rayne says:

        Hoping that’s a negotiating chip with Congress, and states may have to implement their own restrictions to protect the public from employees forced by employers to return to work too soon or while ill.

        • e.a.f. says:

          Go to work and chance dying. Not me. The money isn’t worth it. On the other hand person rtw becomes ill thinks they’re going to die finds the gun they ought to not really own and goes postal at the home of their least favourite politician

          A community with a lot of unhappy people who own guns what could possibly go wrong

      • harpie says:

        This is from Monday in New Jersey:

        https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1242403815569178626
        6:52 AM · Mar 24, 2020
        VIDEO

        In New Jersey, where at least 27 people have died from coronavirus, those who violate social distancing rules or keep non-essential businesses open could face criminal consequences, said Gurbir Grewal, the state’s attorney general.

        “The time for warning is over,” Grewal said Monday. “If you’re a retail store or an entertainment center and you stay open, or if you’re a bar and keep serving patrons in your establishment, consider this as your final warning. Your actions are against the law in New Jersey, and you will be held accountable”

        For the quote, scroll down at this link:
        https://abcnews.go.com/Health/coronavirus-live-updates-japan-begin-quarantining-visitors-us/story?id=69742183

        • Raven Eye says:

          An interesting wrinkle from the prosecutorial perspective…County Prosecutors in New Jersey are appointed by the Governor for a term of five years, and must be affirmed by the State Senate. They are not elected to office, as with equivalent positions in other states.

      • Vicks says:

        I am having a hard time imaging a legitimate company demanding employees come back to work.
        My worry is that the devil that is Donald Trump will create incentives that will make it difficult for the greedy and the desperate to resist.
        There is so much to watch with this ass-h*le, now I have to check to see if Trump has replaced the higher ups in OSHA with toadies yet.

  12. Mitch Neher says:

    There’s an outside chance that Trump is going to try to convince people that the US economy would have miraculously recovered if only “those crazy socialists in the Democratic party” had gone back to work when Trump told them to go back to work.

    It will not be true. Therefore, FOX News will proclaim that it must be true. And Trump’s worshippers will believe it to be true to the full depth of the crow’s feet in the corners of their squinting eyes, while they feverishly pray for “Four More Years.”

    P. S. Trump should’ve gone with “Green Grass And High Tides Forever” for his 2016 campaign theme song instead of . . . you know . . . the one he did run with. How’s that tune go? It’s not the one about satisfaction. No. It was the other one.

    • Martin from Canada says:

      Nah, you gotta use the Baby Shark song.

      Baby Trump
      Doo doo, doo doo doo doo
      Baby Trump
      Doo doo, doo doo doo doo…

  13. diggo says:

    Isn’t it the case that you people in the USA have literally thousands of evangelical pastors who are telling their congregations they are immune to COVID19 because God is protecting them and the rapture is coming? Videos are out there of pastors saying this and asking their congregations to shake hands, hug and even kiss each other? Somehow I think their nutjob rapture isn’t going to turn out as they expect – they will kill themselves and many many more. The USA aint gonna do well in this pandemic because of a directly associated epidemic of STUPID2020

    • Philip Webster says:

      Exactly, sir or madam; this is the great culling self-inflicted due to the belief in Santa Klaus and the rejection of reason.

      OH, BTW: thank you. Sorry, we have here in the USA a lot…A LOT of stupid people sadly not all their fault as our education systems have been poorly managed by the same.

    • P J Evans says:

      I’ve read about assemblies of Muslims in Sulawesi and in other countries thinking the same thing. It’s not limited to any one religion or country.

    • e.a.f. says:

      heard that on the news. Perhaps they’ll stop when they find out Muslims in many places are not going to Mosque or if they are they’re keeping 6ft away with only a few at a time in the Mosque. Catholics will also survive. They cancelled church services and mass in Canada.

      • P J Evans says:

        The Mormons have closed all their temples, worldwide. (They’re restricted to members in good standing, and even then it requires a recommend from a bishop.)

    • Tom says:

      The author left out (i) Trump’s ignorance of history, of his own country or any other; and (ii) Trump’s carnival barker, lowlife sleaziness.

      • Max404 says:

        His ignorance, full stop. Lazyness-induced, loud-broadcast, proud ignorance.

        And assholiness. Sorry, I can find no other word. Worthy of the fate of the Marbles’ in the hands of Divine, who convicted them of first-degree stupidity and assholism. (Pink Flamingos, 1972, dir. by the lovable John Waters)

  14. Wm. Boyce says:

    There’s nothing we can do about the 30-35 percent of Americans who can’t seem to figure anything out. But I think open rebellion, first from the nation’s governors, will break out if the moron-in-chief attempts to end the lock down.

  15. Chetnolian says:

    Back to the subject of the post, the law apart, does anyone think that the Mayor of Austin, for instance, where there is clearly ongoing person-to-person community spread, is going to allow his shelter in place order, not due to expire till mid-April, to be set aside while people are in hospital and, no doubt by then dying? The prospect of Federal and City lawyers arguing it out is surely too grotesque to contemplate.

    • Ken Muldrew says:

      Everything gets much, much worse between now and Easter. There will be nobody arguing for a return to work in a week; they would be hung from a lamp post before they had finished speaking.

  16. AnotherAnne says:

    To add to Rayne’s list: Vermont, Republican governor, Stay home/Stay safe order until April 15.

  17. Pajaro says:

    In NM the Governor just extended school closures to the end of the regular term. There are various stated ways that seniors can certify qualified for graduation. she has also restricted air travelers arriving in the state to a mandatory 14-day self quarantine, which will be enforced. For a tourism state that is big. I also saw that we rank 47th in the number of hospital beds/1000 persons.
    If some localities can flatten the curve locally, and prevent importation as the incomer quarantine may, perhaps they can delay the peak until other localities’ have passed, reducing stress on health resources, overall. However, nationally, we aren’t looking too good.

  18. Mitch Neher says:

    The US economy is not going to recover quickly even if Americans go back to work just because Trump asks them to go back to work.

    I doubt that very many Americans would go back to work just because Trump asked them to go back to work.

    Trump has not done much to supplement the global supply chain with expanded domestic manufacturing. And the pandemic has already eviscerated the supposedly strong fundamentals beneath the US economy before the pandemic broke out.

    If Americans do go back to work because Trump tells them to go back to work, the collapse of the American private health care system will also crash the US economy very deeply for a prolonged period of time.

    And the combined death tolls from COVID-19, normal causes of death and causes of death exacerbated by economic recession or depression will be far worse than those death tolls otherwise would have been.

    Trump’s Easter miracle is a pipe dream–for Trump. A nightmare for everyone not named Trump.

  19. Jenny says:

    Robert Reich on Twitter: 6:48 PM · Mar 27, 2020

    I don’t know how many times I need to say this before Congress will listen, but taxpayer money should be used to bail out people, not corporations.

    A one-time $1,200 check is insulting.

    How can we expect families to pay their bills for the duration of this pandemic with $1,200?
    https://twitter.com/RBReich/status/1243671138045169665

  20. harpie says:

    Here’s Trump’s emergency declaration [???]:
    https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trump-approves-michigans-disaster-declaration/

    …dated and “issued”, and posted today, it begins:

    Yesterday, President Donald J. Trump declared that a major disaster exists in the State of Michigan and ordered Federal assistance to supplement State, tribal, and local recovery efforts in the areas affected by the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic beginning on January 20, 2020, and continuing. […]

  21. Matthew Harris says:

    It seems that even here, people are a little bit under Trump’s sway of the narrative, because people are talking it in terms of the dichotomy he presented: the economy versus people’s lives.

    The economy was already having very serious troubles, before the declaration of emergency, and before different state governments started closing things down.

    The Dow Jones isn’t a perfect metric, but it can be illustrative here. On Friday, February 21st, the Dow Jones was at 28,992, basically a little off its all time high. A week later, it had decreased to 25,409, a 3,500 point drop in a week. This was when the big news was the coronavirus’ presence in Italy. Just the secondary effects to tourism and trade of Italy having a serious problem were enough to put the market into “correction” territory. On March 9th, when Italy ordered its lockdown, it had declined another 1500 points, for a 5,000 point drop in 20 days. Three days later, when the NBA suspended its season (which, to be honest, was when this became “real” for me), it had descended to 21,200. This was all before there was large scale or even piecemeal closures or declarations in the United States, and the stock market had already lost 8000 points, or 25% of its value. Again, the Dow isn’t a perfect metric, but the point being:

    The entire tourism, hospitality and airline industry had already been decimated before any real government action was taken. Even if the federal government and every state government decided to lift all restrictions, large sectors of the economy would have no demand, or not enough demand to remain in business. Other sectors of the economy would be following anyway, cutting hiring or laying people off because of the general downturn in activity from such large sectors going blank. Which doesn’t even mention the expected problems of global supply chain disruption, etc.

    Governments didn’t shut down the economy. The economy shut down itself.

  22. Linet Henry says:

    I live in Washington state, and I’m pretty sure we’re have an “all but essential business shut down” that started with the stay at home.

    Perhaps I misread your list?

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