President Donald Trump remains the worst President ever. Faced with a global pandemic, he chose to wreck the American response. I agree with many: ‘bungle’ isn’t the right word. Bungling would imply that Trump tried to do well, but just couldn’t get it right. “Bungling’ suggests Trump did his best. No, Trump didn’t mean well. No, Trump didn’t try his best. He didn’t even try to be neutral.
Trump is much worse, blocking the administration’s response. Federal coordination and intervention are beneath his station. Look, we all know the deal. Trump only wanted the Presidency for the imagined perks; he hates the whole ‘job’ part. But the epidemic response wasn’t just his usual lazy-ass nonsense. Trump has been opposing the most reasonable actions. No, you can’t count this; no, you can’t test there; and no, you can’t plan for any of this. Trump fired the experts, hid the data, forbade forecasting, and spouted his bald and increasingly risible lies in daily online campaign rallies/press conferences. Trump has not been anyone’s vision of ‘passive.’ He looks through every possible action before settling on the most damaging choice. Actively evil, he is the worst President ever.
And, no matter how odious, Trump is the spiritual leader of today’s Republican Party. He’s not an aberration. Republicans cheer happily every time Trump enriches the wealthy or makes poor people’s lives a step worse. He embodies every racist, sexist, xenophobic, pinched, sour, miserly, elitist urge in their party of white disenfranchisement. And now, here, in this pandemic, have Republicans worked for America’s benefit? No. They grovel before Trump, squeezing out as much obsequious flattery as humanly possible because Trump’s need for raw adulation has no limits. And then they leverage Trump’s monkey-wrenching nonsense, multiplying his reach. When Trump talks about ending that dastardly social isolation stuff, possibly reigniting the virus? Republicans upped the ante, crowing over killing the old and infirm. Takes a special kind of person to value stock prices over your elders. Republicans have blocked or stalled the pandemic response over and over and over and over. Instead, the pandemic is their excuse for repression and gigantic federal giveaways.
Honestly, I find myself pulling for karma. You know Trump’s press conferences/ego-stroking he held daily? Trump would group his senior leaders behind him, using them as props. They had to stand quietly, gazing at the Orangster adoringly as Trump made up stuff for the press. Sometimes, Trump gives the mic to one of them to see how many times an ‘acting’ leader can praise Trump’s name. Pence won that contest in a blowout (so to speak) every time I watched.
Since Dr. Fauci was the only official speaking the truth, Trump (big surprise) dropped the eminent Doctor from his adoration scrum. Just as well. When I watch the conference now, I want all those senior officials posted behind Trump to bunch up even closer together. Prove you share the spirit, dudes!
Trump is the worst President ever, leading the worst party, and at the worst time for American democracy. Anyone want to give me the odds that Trump uses the pandemic to suspend or delay the 2020 election?
