Sheesh! Gov. Walz is not acting because of “pressure”
From Day One, MN Gov. Tim Walz has made it clear that the primary purposes of stay-at-home and related orders (in addition, of course, to keeping a lot of people from getting sick and even dying) are to a) provide time to figure out just what we’re really dealing with, and b) provide hospitals time to prepare, with ample beds and equipment and so forth. Now that that has happened, indications are that he is going to begin to carefully loosen things up.
Yet right there on the jump page (A6) of this morning’s Minneapolis Star Tribune the headline reads “Under pressure, Walz to announce phase 2.” “Pressure” presumably meaning, at least in part, the ignorant whining of Party of Trump legislators and other operatives, and the imbecile displays of manipulated “protesters.”
I got an email Monday from the DFL, with results of polling on how the Gov. is handling this.
How would you assess the state of Minnesota’s response to the virus:
73% think its response has been about right
22% think it’s over reacting
5% think it’s under reactingDo you approve or disapprove of the job Governor Tim Walz is doing handling the coronavirus?
74% Approve
18% Disapprove
9% Not Sure
It must be noted that this is the sort of polling where small differences in how questions are posed can produce substantial shifts in responses. But with output like this such a caveat isn’t really relevant. Moreover, Wednesday’s Minnesota Reformer e-newsletter noted that GOP internal polling is showing the same kinds of numbers.
I am not without empathy, and I get what a bind corporate media is in on this – and everything else political, these days. On the one hand they are mostly pros who want to do it right. On the other, print and broadcast news have the same base as the Republican Party does – old white people. And advertising revenue is more shaky now than ever, thanks to the Trump Crash.
It is rare, these days, and has been throughout the Trump “presidency,” that there is any sort of even marginally legitimate, perceived way of soothing that shared base. I get that. I just don’t think that it excuses crappy “journalism,” especially when they often show themselves capable of much better.
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