Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and China’s President Xi Jinping shake hands prior to their talks on the sideline of the 11th edition of the BRICS Summit, in Brasilia, Brazil, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2019.The BRICS Summit, gathering the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, will take place in Brasilia Nov. 13-14. (Ramil Sitdikov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

If you had “U.S. media rushes to fluff Chinese communists to own the orange man” to complete your 2020 parlay of insanity, collect your large sum of money at the window.

Bloomberg News decided to go out and publish an article this morning that might as well be transcribed straight from President Xi’s propaganda wing.

Imagine writing this with a straight face. https://t.co/jif4xVbKLp

— Luke Thompson (@ltthompso) March 17, 2020

Only a few weeks ago, when the impact of the coronavirus was still heavily concentrated in China, the dominant narrative was that Beijing was once again the new “sick man of Asia.” Now, the theme seems to be that the coronavirus shows just how badly America’s relative power and prestige have fallen. After 2008, this perception led to a surge in China’s willingness to defy the U.S. and its friends and allies in the South China Sea, in international institutions, and in negotiations on global responses to climate change. No doubt the coronavirus will stimulate new Chinese efforts to displace and discredit American leadership in global affairs.

You can go read the rest of it if you’d like. I probably wouldn’t recommend it, as it’s basically just another anti-Trump screed couched in intellectual speak. He cites the 2008 financial crisis, claiming that Bush and Obama took “unpopular but necessary” steps to mitigate the damage and attempt to contrast that with Trump’s supposed lack of leadership.

Of course, the reality is that Trump took unpopular but necessary steps long before anyone feared the Wuhan virus. That came in the form of a ban of travel to and from China, which bought us precious time and greatly mitigated the spread early on. As a counter case, one only needs to look at Italy, where they continued to allow large flights from China for weeks, even as the crisis grew.

In the end, though, this is just more Chinese propaganda. The idea that China has handled this well because of their authoritarian regime is nonsense, and to be fair, the writer ponders that it may have hurt their response early on. But to now assume that China has gotten this under control and is telling us the truth is foolish. Nothing they say should be used as the basis for any write-up.

In fact, China is already looking to profit off of their spreading of a deadly disease. Odd, right?

As China recovers, it has mobilized its manufacturing sector to make gear that no one would've needed had it closed off in the first place. It's trying to paint itself as a hero riding to the world's rescue.

China must be held accountable for the pandemic.

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) March 17, 2020

All those supplies we desperately need now? China gets to sell them to the Western world at a premium. How very convenient on their part.

Regardless, I wonder if Michael Bloomberg being such a big fan of China has anything to do with his news outlet functioning as a wing of the Chinese propaganda ministry? It’s not just Bloomberg News, though. We’ve seen similar junk articles from The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Atlantic.

The media are showing you who they really are during this crisis. Believe them.