We need new, competent, creative national leadership. No more excuses, lies and cover-ups. No more Trump.
As an aspiring writer it is usually my hope to write my thoughts cleverly and wittily enough that readers will remember my name and return to my byline. The problem when writing about President Donald Trump is that almost always the subject matter is about some Trump-induced disaster negatively impacting the lives of large numbers of innocent people say for example our Kurdish allies in Syria or our fellow citizens in Puerto Rico. Rarely do such catastrophes lend themselves to witty and clever.
Donald’s latest catastrophe is his failure to take the necessary steps to stem the spread of the Coronavirus from an infection to an epidemic and then to a pandemic. His failure has very clearly exposed and demonstrated why Donald Trump will never be an effective leader. In fact, it shows why he is not even capable of being a decent human being. Mix the following personality traits of a person with a spoiled/entitled nature, a limited intelligence, and a “mile wide” nasty/selfish streak. When you mix them with a $500 million dollar inherited “bullying machine”, you get a guy who suffers from “Dunning-Kruger effect”. This effect is a perfect storm of a cognitive bias that is defined as a “person who is utterly incompetent, but nevertheless has an illusion of superiority coupled with a total inability to recognize his own lack of ability.” A person who does not know; who does not care to know; and who will not take any advice on how to ever learn how to know, is a person who needs to never apply for leadership jobs.
Here are the facts. Not since the civil war has our country been in such EXISTENTIAL DANGER. As of January 1, 2020, the CDC (and others) were warning the White House in writing of the real threat of a Coronavirus epidemic about to spread. They all recommended that the Federal Government begin to make preparations immediately to combat it. The President’s daily briefings began containing updates of this information. For the next three weeks, the President decided to actively run away from dealing with the issue. He actively decided that it was more important to suppress negative news about the virus ( as Americans were dying) in favor of keeping his popularity high by downplaying news that was negative to the economy. And none of his advisers had the courage or strength to get the President to take remedial action at the federal level. Everybody but Trump and his toadies knew what was coming; and everyone knew that the remedy required Presidential leadership, control and co-ordination. But the Trump lies and cover ups continued and still continue 2 and 3 months later. And the world is paying the price.
And so today, the current daily press conferences are nothing more than exercises in futility; exercises in further vengeance, selfishness and criminal lies, wasting valuable time, coming from Donald Trump. He must be forced to resign.
Like many of my friends and also like growing numbers of television journalists and commentators, I am so tired of this sick, liar (Donald) being allowed to befoul the airwaves and to demean to such a low level the former prestige of the Office of the Presidency of the United States, I just want to scream, “Somebody make him stop”. We are all witness to this slow-moving train wreck.
There can be no doubt that his behavior has been consistently wrong. And the cost to the world, to humankind and to the planet is incalculable. The days for lying and bullying are long since over. When will the overwhelming and unequivocal call for this horror show to shut down come forward? When will the call come for him and Pence (and all of the rest of the GOP enablers) to resign immediately? The damage that they have caused is already in the trillions of dollars and growing; the deaths will be in the 100.000 s and maybe more. His everyday lies are criminal acts that are global in devastation and are tragically beyond his capability to fix. He cannot succeed. He can only continue to make things worse.
If he were a truant high school student, after 2 minutes of his mumbo jumbo he, would be off to the principal’s office; if he were my own teenage son lying in this typical manner about having physically abused a girlfriend or a date, he would have received an instant “taste of his own medicine” (and then some); and if he were a soldier in the U. S. Army who had abandoned his post with subsequent fatal consequences, you can be certain that his “excuse making, blame shifting” antics would not have been given the “kid glove” treatment to which he thinks he is entitled.
The fact that this low life Donald Trump character has lasted so long and so prominently as a figure on the world stage is an inexplicable mystery of significant enough magnitude to merit much further investigation, but at a later date.
His misuse and abuse of presidential powers resulting in actions and misconduct the likes of which prior to his “bully pulpit” would have been impossible to conjure even in any of our wildest of dreams or nightmares, much less actually witness happening to the extent they have actually happened, paints indelible, horrific, mental pictures for all of us, which shockingly have become all too commonplace. I must suggest that these distractions may very well be in the service of some ominous background activity that I should be able to see, but which I cannot yet bring into focus. But that is a question for the future investigation. For right now today, this man is the problem.
I don’t care a whit about anything he says. I am still disturbed by the fact that this viscous little orange jerk can still occupy Center Stage for so often and for so long, whereas in the past he would have felt the hook immediately. Someone must please explain to me how in 2020 we can rid ourselves of this steaming hunk of fecal matter; this petty little liar who has fired or stifled any competent people who might have set him on the right path. Until we are rid of every trace of influence that he and all of his minions bring to bear, our country cannot move forward.
My usually normal, conservative, middle-class friends are dumb struck with brain freeze. They all want to know: “What is really going on in this man’s head?! We really want to know. We have had enough!”
“Ditto, ditto and ditto”