Agence France Presse: Florida Beach Ravers Tie with Trump for 'Most Foolish' during Pandemic
You’ve got to practice what you preach, and if you are a public relations firm that doesn’t do publicity for itself, you are sending out a very negative message. Each year, Lucky Star Communications has sponsored an annual “Most Foolish American” survey, which has reached audiences not just in the U.S., but in England, the rest of Europe, New Zealand and Australia, Japan and elsewhere. This year’s winner was a tie: Pres. Donald Trump was viewed by Americans as equally foolish as U.S. college students braving the coronavirus pandemic to go on Spring Break on the Florida Beaches. Here’s some coverage by Agence France Press, the official French newswire.
Florida Beach Ravers Tie with Trump for 'Most Foolish' during Pandemic
by Agence France Presse 01 April 2020, 15:44
U.S. students who defied coronavirus warnings to keep partying on Florida beaches during their spring break have been crowned the year's "most foolish" Americans in a new survey -- tied with President Donald Trump.
Images of crowded beaches and crammed nightclubs along Miami Beach's famously hedonistic strip long after most Americans had embraced social distancing triggered widespread bewilderment and anger last month.
They even drew a rebuke from Trump, whose own handling of the pandemic has been criticized amid delays in testing and hastily retracted pledges to reopen the country in time for Easter.
The newly relaunched annual survey by a US media consultant, commissioned to mark April Fools' day, found the American public was equally scathing about both.
Of more than 1,000 Americans reached via random phone calls between March 25-27, 51 percent agreed Trump had acted foolishly in the past year, while 50 percent said the same about the Miami crowds.
Jeff Barge, the poll's organizer, declared it a statistical dead heat, within the survey's margin of error.
The survey was done "just for fun," he added.
Several other politicians featured on the list including Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden and Rand Paul -- an ardent critic of emergency coronavirus spending who became the first US senator to test positive for the disease.
On a darker note, convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein was ranked third, just ahead of rapper Kanye West and actor Jussie Smollett.
The stars of the critically slammed flop movie "Cats" were given a 22 percent foolishness rating. "Obviously the rest had not seen the film," said Barge.
Past winners of the poll -- which last ran from 1998 to 2007, and was conducted by Opinion Research Corporation -- have included Britney Spears, Michael Jackson and Bill Clinton.
SourceAgence France PresseA