Michael Gerson noted in his Washington Post column of Friday, July 17 that in 2016 Trump argued that the country was in crisis. And “If everything was going to hell anyway, why not take a chance on a vivid but inexperienced leader? This turns out to have been a choice of monumental irresponsibility and immaturity.” Indeed it did, after three years of destroying the U.S. capability to lead the worldwide effort to mitigate the existential threat of climate change; reversing all previous efforts to do so; damaging American institutions; spreading divisiveness and immoral behavior everywhere; exploiting and exacerbating racial conflict and promoting ethnic hatred; wrecking American foreign policy by converting the U.S. from world leader to world’s sick-man-to-be-pitied; decimating our government’s bureaucracy by driving out many fine public servants while replacing them with arrogant, ignorant thugs; committing the civil equivalent of war crimes on our southern border by—among other abominations—tearing children from their parents’ arms and putting them in cages; trying to destroy truth along with the rule of law; referring to our free press as the enemy of the people (a popular Communist phrase); and committing other acts of evil as he proceeds to pursue reelection in his fourth year.
At the beginning of the year the United States was confronted by a real crisis as opposed to one of Trump’s own making: a deadly pandemic and resultant crashing of the economy. The pandemic had been long in coming. America’s superb, but seriously underfunded, public health sector had been warning about such a possibility for years. The World Health Organization gave a specific warning of the possible imminence of a pandemic in 2019 as did the U.S. intelligence community. Covid-19 was first clearly recognized by the world community in January of 2020.
As the situation rapidly worsened from January to March, while the health community began to take it more and more seriously, recommending by the end of February strong responsive measures, President Trump consistently downplayed the threat saying that someday it would just magically go away. This was the situation until the threat became overwhelmingly clear in the latter part of March and Trump was forced into supporting a lockdown of the economy and such other measures as social distancing. Thousands of Americans were becoming sick, hospitals were overwhelmed, patients were dying, and the economy tanking. Despite death, sickness and societal disintegration on an epic scale, Trump’s attention was fixed on the plunging Dow Jones. Understanding that the market would not snap back on its own, and against the strong advice of the health community, he began agitating to reopen the economy. He did this for the sole reason of protecting his reelection effort—without regard to the health of Americans.
What followed was predictable. Under pressure from Trump supporters around the country—some of whom engaged in armed protests and threats, the country began to open far too soon. This was particularly true in states where Trump henchmen and women were occupying the governor’s office—in Florida, Texas, Arizona and South Dakota. The public health community released a plan on how to reopen in the safest possible way, emphasizing a gradual approach with mask-wearing, social distancing and frequent hand washing along with as much testing and contact tracing as possible.
Some governors tried to be as responsive to such guidelines as they could, for example, those in Virginia, Michigan and Minnesota as well as those in such states as Ohio and Kentucky. Trump tweeted safely from his White House bubble, “LIBERATE MINNESOTA! LIBERATE MICHIGAN! LIBERATE VIRGINIA…!” Heavily armed protestors tried to intimidate the governors of these states—all Democrats—without success. On the other hand, the Trump governors reopened as fast as they could. With mixed messaging between Trump and the medical establishment, particularly in the Trump-led states, the interpretation was that there would be no more restrictions of any kind and social interactions returned to what they had been before the virus. After a lull of a few weeks, as predicted over and over by the scientific community, the coronavirus returned with overwhelming force, particularly in Florida, Texas and Arizona. This return of the virus gradually spread to the rest of the country except to the Northeast which had a severe attack of the virus in the spring and thereafter adhered strictly to the plan prepared by the scientists.
The return of the coronavirus was devastating. Florida broke all records for infections in a day and found itself ahead of most countries of the world for daily infections. The economy partially recovered, and Trump continued to minimize the virus. He disparaged social distancing. He claimed that the U.S. led the world in testing—a big lie—and he asserted over and over that the reason the U.S. had so many cases was that we did so much testing. Testing (of course) does not create cases; it finds the ones that are there. Trump touted a quack cure, a legitimate anti-malaria drug proven by the FDA to have no effect on the virus disease Covid-19 while for some people creating heart problems. He further suggested on national television that people should take injections of bleach to kill the virus. The virus might have been killed by such a procedure; the patient certainly would have been. Companies making Lysol and Clorox made public pleas that their customers not ingest their products.
The virus was now virtually out of control as a result of Trump’s self-serving policies to support his reelection, so much so that The Washington Post in its lead editorial on July 20 could say: “Time for a major reset. The virus is racing out of control. The United States is plunging ever deeper into a public health catastrophe. The coronavirus is in control of much of the country… President Trump has walked away and the nation is divided, and fractious… Warnings are flashing red almost everywhere.”
On July 21, 2020, there were 3,872,575 cases of Covid-19 recorded in the United States with 142,000 dead. On July 23rd the U.S. passed the level of four million cases with 144,000 deaths. Cases seemed to be appearing faster and faster. No matter what happens, Trump will remain in office until January 20 and if the virus continues as before (it may get worse) we will reach the level of 10 million more cases and 370,000 additional deaths by that date. Thus, should Vice President Biden win the election, his task will be to contain, reverse, and eliminate a disease that in the previous 10 months will have caused approximately 14 million cases and in the range of 510,000 deaths. He has stated that he can meet this challenge, that he knows what to do. He participated in stopping the Ebola, Swine flu and Zika epidemics. He can stop this disease, he believes.
A few days ago, Trump gave a second term speech of sorts at the White House. He said in part, emblematic of his whole short speech: “So we have many exciting things we will be announcing over the next eight weeks: I would say things that nobody has ever contemplated, thought, thought possible, things we are gonna get done… You will see levels of detail and you will see levels of thought, that a lot of people believed very strongly we didn’t have in this country. We are going to get things done that they have wanted to see done for a long, long time. So I think we’ll start sometime on Tuesday.” Judging from this incoherent forecast, we can perhaps expect in the range of 30 million cases and one million deaths from Covid-19 and a resultant persistent depression level economy by the end of a Trump second term. This state of affairs would likely be accompanied by violence and poverty on a huge scale. Who in their right mind could vote for that, four more years of what we have now? By contrast, Canada, our near neighbor, has nearly 40 million people, 112,000 cases and 8,868 deaths. If they can do it why can’t we? The answer is, of course, leadership.
Donald Trump did not run for the presidency of the United States, he ran for the office of Dictator of a Banana Republic. Tirelessly he has pursued his goal of converting the United States into such a government and himself into its paramount person or dictator. He cares nothing for American history and traditions, nothing for its principles, nothing for its people—for any of its people—beyond himself and his goals. He will commit any sin, commit any illegal act, do any evil, destroy any person, wreck any government institution or policy and freely sacrifice any person, friend, foe, ally, associate or follower to his ends.
As Steve Schmidt, John McCain’s company manager, has said, Trump is, in the true English language meaning of these words, an imbecile and an idiot. He represents a level of incompetency not seen before in someone of authority in this country. His level of corruption knows no limit. He tries to destroy truth—lies and facts are indistinguishable to him. If it’s good for him, it’s true. If it is not, it’s fake. He is possessed by evil and knows or recognizes nothing beyond that. He inflicts his poison, his evil on all who touch him. He has destroyed much of our country already with his trademark divisiveness and oppressive social and ethnic hatred. He is, in the words of a prominent U.S. Senator: “The agent of the Devil in the Biblical sense.” It is long past time for his rule to end. He may have to be first voted out and then forced out but, the essential end of it all is overdue and should happen this November.
Our Founders knew people like this:
“A dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidding appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of the Republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants.”
– Alexander Hamilton, 1788
“I have sworn on the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”
– Thomas Jefferson, 1800
“A constitution of government once changed from freedom, can never be restored. Liberty once lost is lost forever.”
– John Adams, 1775
A lady asked Dr. Franklin, “Well Doctor what have we got a republic or a monarchy?” “A republic,” replied the Doctor, “if you can keep it.”
– Benjamin Franklin, 1787
“It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.”
– George Washington, 1796
“The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the Republican model of government are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.”
– George Washington, 1789
“The liberty of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution are worth defending at all hazards and it is our duty to defend them against all attack…”
– Samuel Adams, 1771
“Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.”
Benjamin Franklin – proposed for the Great Seal of the United States
John Jay