It all began in 1971, when the Young & Rubicam advertising agency fashioned the United Negro College Fund's slogan: A mind is a terrible thing to waste. Two years shy of one score later, Vice President Dan Quayle honored the college fund's motto by musing: What a waste it is to lose one’s mind.
In 2004, Stanford economist Paul Romer modified the fund's slogan in a meeting of venture capitalists: A crisis is a terrible thing to waste. And in 2008, in the
cruel grip of America's financial free fall, soon-to-be White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel then modified Romer: You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. I mean, it’s an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.
For 12 years, Republicans have savaged Democrats for what Emanuel uttered, which, as retold here, had a long and honorable history. But Democrats, Republicans have charged, will cynically manipulate any crisis so as to achieve their nefarious goals.
Just one month ago, Fox News reporter Andrew O'Reilly called Emanuel's utterance an "infamous quote"; while battling over what should go into the $2 trillion stimulus, a top aide to Trump's reelection campaign tweeted that "Democrats are using Rahm Emanuel's playbook of never letting a crisis go to waste. Their demands have NOTHING TO DO with helping the American people - this is about fulfilling their liberal wish list"; and Republicanism's' #2 man of immutable principles, Mitch McConnell, reflected that "[Democrats] ought to be embarrassed. This is no time for this nonsense."
The nonsense of you never want a serious crisis to go to waste; it’s an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before. As Republicans have bellowed for more than a decade, this appalling sentiment is something by which they would never be embarrassed, a nonsensical practice in which they would never engage. Hence:
In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 21, 2020
Said USC's constitutional scholar Franita Tolson to the NY Times: "Given our infection rate and the lack of testing, he’s taking advantage of a national crisis."
That can't be. That just can't be, since Donald Trump, Republican extraordinaire, would never issue an executive order that has nothing to do with helping the American people — that is only about fulfilling his and his party's racist, nativist, xenophobic wish list. Because, if nothing else, he'd never want to embarrass Mitch McConnell, his #2 man of principled Republicanism.