Trump’s Coronavirus Denials Sound like the First Act of Every Disaster Movie

I’m not looking forward to Act Two.

If you were writing the next Hollywood disaster movie, you could construct a first act more or less by scanning the headlines from the past few weeks. We’ve got it all: workaday scientists racing to sound the alarm about a looming existential threat. Science-denying government officials ignoring those alarms. Heroes and helpers amidst the uncertainty. Gal Gadot singing for some reason.

And of course, the president. Trump’s performance here has been a real tour de force. He seems to have modeled himself on those villainous politicians in every disaster movie. He’s ignored experts, shifted the blame, repeatedly downplayed the threat, stoked racism, and spread misinformation.

Watch our video above to see how eerily similar Trump’s approach has been to climate-denying officials in The Day After Tomorrow, the captain of the Titanic, and the spineless apparatchiks in charge of the response to Chernobyl.

Thankfully we’ve begun to see a shift in some of the most visible skeptics. But remember: That’s only the start of Act Two. We still have a long way to go.

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AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

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