Week 190 - Russian Bounties

This week the coronavirus spread further out of  control, topping 50,000 daily cases for three consecutive days — more  than 10,000 higher than the early peak in April. Trump continued to  largely ignore the pandemic, refuse to wear a mask, and make the most  trusted source of information, Dr. Anthony Fauci, less accessible,  leading to confusion in the patchwork of state responses.

This week reporting indicated Trump knew as  early as 2019 that Russia had put bounties on U.S. troops in  Afghanistan, and several U.S. Marines were killed as a result. Trump  pretended he had not been briefed, and after he officially was briefed  Tuesday, continued to call the matter a “hoax” repeatedly, and took no  steps to hold Russia accountable.

Trump continued to stoke an us vs. them divide  in America, invoking a straw man “new far-left fascism” in a divisive,  dystopian July Fourth speech at Mount Rushmore, claiming to be the  savior of law enforcement and our “heritage.” Even as Trump continued to  fall in the polls, and the mood of the nation continued to darken,  Trump seemed unable to rise to the occasion, and do anything other than  revert to racism and divisiveness — moving in the opposite direction of  the country’s mood amid what the New York Times coined the broadest social movement in history. By week’s end, even  Republican lawmakers worried Trump would forever associate their party  with racial animus.

Read the full list here: https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-190/