This is relentless! Shouldn’t it have stopped by now? It’s out in the open, exposed, gruesomely naked. The President’s mishandling will be remembered forever, or as long as we have a history, anyway.
This would be where shame would kick in for a normal human being, and corrective steps would be put in hyper-drive, all out effort, full court press, and so on…
Still nothing. Yesterday’s sound bites included “we’re the backup” for the states, even after a humiliating Tom Brady allusion a few days ago. He tried out his “backup” line in a meeting with the country’s governors, to which Washington’s Governor Inslee replied, “We don’t need a backup. We need a Tom Brady”, clearly suggesting that Trump’s performance was falling fatally short of that. We heard the new point man, Jared Kushner announce the federal ventilator reserves were never meant for the states. Those belonged to the Feds. The supply chain is a complete disaster, both for access and, because of that, cost, and the Administration resolutely will not step in and let the best logistics people in the world, the U.S. military, take over. The states have to fight for whatever scraps they can scrounge. Shame on them for not starting sooner, but that’s on them, the President said.
The death rate that we are steeling ourselves for has been advertised as the best result if we do everything right, and no sane person could possibly describe our country’s response in those terms.
Florida. He’s going to kill thousands, on him, over and above. High risk population. High risk activities attracting people from across the country. Petri dish. Going forward preachers will be guilty, too. Not all. Some get it.
Georgia. Really? You had no idea that infected people could be asymptomatic for two weeks or more? I knew that a month and a half ago, and I’m no one, a blip. The CDC is a matter of miles away from the Governor’s mansion.
I think it is critical that somehow we break through to the sychophantic base of the President. They are at the highest risk in this pandemic, because they simply don’t believe it. They don’t believe Trump has done anything wrong, and they think Barack almost killed us all. His base are the ones that will crowd the churches on Sunday, claiming the cloak of protection of Psalm 91. They will meet in groups, have game night, play basketball, go to the beach. Their governors will put them at great risk. There are no democratic governors that have not shut down their states. None. California Governor Newsome was the first to shut down his state. The results are stunning and obvious. He saved lives.
Fox and Family will bear some of the blame. They lied to there own audience in a situation that could kill them, and will in large numbers. The real news was sounding the alarm back in January, letting people know something was out there, then letting people know that something is IN here. They saved lives. There is no question about it.
So it seems now that where you get your news could be a case of life and death. Think about that. When all the numbers are known in the autopsy of this crisis, I will be willing to bet that the GOP lost more of its followers than Democrats did. I get no joy from this pronouncement. In fact, if there is any way to turn that tide I would like that very much.
But how?
Anything I say is considered a play from the Deep State to achieve a goal that doesn’t seem clear to me. To destroy the economy? I’m in this economy! Why would I destroy my ability to make a living, or maybe even retire? To upend Trump? I was of the opinion that we were doing that anyway, or rather he was doing it for us.
Not only do they need to know their lives are in danger, they need to know that Trump is the one putting them there. We are the worst disaster zone on the planet, we have slowed nothing and it is because, irrefutably, of his lack of response and desire to hide it for his personal gain. This continues unabated. Today he reiterated that the states were at fault for not preparing for this in advance, and his base is learning these new gaslighting strategies but without the self-awareness of what they are doing. They are simultaneously victims and perpetrators, and there is no way in to their bubble, no way to break down the wall that Fox and Trump have built.
This was the wall that Trump built. Very high, very deep, impenetrable. He built a wall that has sequestered a third or more of the population where they are not allowed to expose themselves to news. They are being herded into a tiny corral, a miniscule environment that is easily controlled.
Trump plans to keep it that way. At today’s pep rally, he made it very clear that he would fight voting by mail, that real Americans show up and pull a lever, after showing a proper voting I.D. Republican leaders were heard all this past week of what a disaster voting by mail would be for them. Several said you would never see a Republican elected again, including Trump himself, and they would be right. In massively gerrymandered states, we have seen Democratic candidates get more votes and lose, the strategy producing exactly the results it was intended to. The Republican coup ends with fair elections, so fair elections are bad, and they even have the base’s support for cheating as an election strategy. It’s just politics. Nothing to see here.
Our President is deadly. His hands are already bloody, and soon he will be drenched in it, and there is no way out. The most powerful country on earth, and its entire population is captive, powerless. They won’t impeach him again, because the GOP senate will hold and nothing wll change. The 25th Amendment has never been an alternative. That requires the cabinet to get rid of him. Can you imagine this group of Acting Nobodies would raise a finger to the guy who made them remotely relevant? Pretend TV economists, Slum Lord Millionaires, strange surgeons, unscrupulous lobbyists, corporate titans, owing all to him. None of them would have seen the inside of the White House without a ticket. His cabinet is on his side. That’s why they’re there. He has narrowed it down to strictly yes men and women. Not the best people, his people.
The only hope we have is seven months away.
Seven.
He will be President for at least nine.
The leadership we have right now is what we will have for the majority of this crisis. This is it. It won’t get better. This FUBAR situation has no relief, no answer.
Surely he’ll wake up. Surely.
You know better than that by now. This is him awake. He’s not pretending to be this way. He is this way.
What are the odds we “flatten the curve” in as timely a way as possible under his stewardship? Frankly, they are already 0, and no one can stop him, or rather, no one can start him, start him forging the way to the best outcome possible, start him on a path of service to the country, start him digging deep for the best he has to offer, to start understanding the awesome responsbility he carries, the burden the office imports to him that he must rise above.
I actually think there is the possibility for redemption in the Congress. These legislators will have to confront their constituencies face to face at home, and they will be increasingly unemployed and desperate. Our very real survival will equate fairly neatly with their political survival, because the President said it was up to the states. People will want bacon, and the Senator needs to bring home the bacon, the Congressperson needs to serve it up. I think Congress will produce a very flawed compromise solution to address the economy. It won’t effect the virus much. Just the money. It won’t be enough, but it will put off knowledge of that fact for months. It will allow people to limp along for awhile, supplementing incomes that are likely impacted forever but not propped up that long, before the real cost, the long term cost of this comes home and settles in, and changes our lives forever.
But that is months away, and with any luck the reality won’t really set in with any widespread momentum until after the elections. That is Trump’s only hope. Pump it up long enough to get four more years, and take credit for it all along the way, and define the losers, the ones that let you down.
Will it work? That’s up to all of us.