Mirror, mirror

“Mirror, mirror on the wall, whose the greatest president of them all?” the Wicked Queen asks as she peers into her mirror in the classic childhood tale of Snow White. That’s something I imagine Donald Trump says every morning after watching Fox News for several hours, skipping the daily intelligence briefing specially prepared for him by the National Security Council, as he did every day during the weeks and months ahead of the first cases of coronavirus arriving in America.   He ignored the warnings from the national intelligence community about the impending disease outbreak because he was too busy gloating over himself and his ratings.  He’s such a stable genius who knows more and better than the experts, why would he need to bother himself with their intelligence anyways?

Best-selling author Stephen King has chimed in recently in an article in “The New York Times” , imploring Americans to size up the November election as a choice between two candidates: do you want someone capable of dealing with a situation like we’re having with the coronavirus, or do you want somebody who’s so focused on his self-image that he’s not able to do that?  King goes on to say in the interview: “When you watch Trump I’m not sure the man reads very well. I know he doesn’t write very well. I would argue that anybody who can’t read and can’t write, can’t think.”

Stephen King is not alone. Jeffrey Sachs, advisor to the United Nations and former Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University says in a recent April issue of “The New Yorker” that “Trump is the worst political leader I have experienced in all of my professional life, which is forty years … I’ve never seen anything like the narcissism of this man, and here we are, a country so rich in expertise, in resources, in capacities, and yet we’re watching a complete failure of a political response – with a massive loss of life – in real time. It’s shocking because Trump not only does not know how to approach this issue but he blocks those who do”.

That last sentence is worth repeating: “it’s shocking because Trump not only does not know how to approach this issue but he blocks those who do”.

Whatever your politics, it’s one thing to amass all the data, analyze it and develop a comprehensive plan to address the problem and make adjustments going forward. But to block those who have the expertise, the specialized, scientific knowledge to do so when you don’t is not only immoral and offensive but crazy.  Especially if you’re the POTUS and entrusted to safeguard the public’s health, safety and security.  It’s his administration’s job to prepare for the next disease outbreak and prevent it from becoming an epidemic or pandemic. It’s his job to empower experts, anticipate failures and act quickly and transparently to solve problems stemming from it.  He didn’t do that and continues to block efforts to remedy the momentous disaster we struggle with today,

This is not hyperbole. This is fact. He demonstrates his incompetence and unfitness for being a president by undermining the infectious disease and scientific community.  He has to be the center of it all.

The alleged “stable genius” removes Dr Rick Bright, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, and the former Director of Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, entrusted with vaccine development for Covid-19 because he won’t pursue a cockamamie fantasy of Heir Dr. Trump’s hair brained drug of choice.   This decision to remove Dr Bright came from the mouth of the man who encouraged Americans to inject Lysol into their lungs to clean themselves right up, lickedty split.

”There’s blood on his hands” writes the Editorial Board at “The Boston Globe” March 30, 2020 with unnecessary sufferings, illness and death resulting from his inability to lead and care for its citizens.  The numbers of deaths totals more than 61,000, more Americans died through Trump’s watch than died in two decades of the Vietnam War!  More Michigan men, women and children have died of the coronavirus than died in twenty years of the Vietnamese War.  More than 30 million people have lost employment …. and families in disarray and trauma due to Trump’s failures and incompetence.

No, he did not cause the virus, but his actions and decisions to disband the National Security Council Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense prevention team are his responsibility and his alone.  It’s their job to prepare for disease outbreaks and prevent disaster – like which has happened – to occur.  His budget cut CDC funding, and now he plans to cut WHO funding in the midst of the pandemic. When he tweeted during the 2016 election that “nobody will protect our Nation like Donald J. Trump” I guess to he was being sarcastic.  Or delusional.

He says no one could have seen this coming.  If he had read his intelligence briefings he would have seen this coming full steam ahead, and maybe then if he trusted the scientific community, he would not have wasted weeks pooh-poohing the reality at hand.  Tens of thousands of men, women and children may be alive today.   Their families not devastated.

I believe he has diminished the lives of all Americans by his wholesale disregard and dismissal of science.  He has failed.

Ronald Reagan in his race against Jimmy Carter asked the public during his debate a week before Election Day in 1984 if their quality of life under his opponent’s presidency made them better or worse.  That yardstick, that measure could be applied to Trump’s presidency when you vote or consider voting ahead of November 3, 2020.

I believe when you look at all measures of life as an American, it is best to consider not just his failure with the coronavirus. Look at the fact that hate crimes and senseless school shootings are up … there’s a surging white nationalist movement linked to rising series of racist and anti Semitic terror attacks. The number of white nationalist groups rose 55% since 2017 according to The Southern Poverty Law Center.

We’re less healthy, less secure, less safe, more fearful, less confident, less trusting than ever before.

Other facts as you consider the quality of your life: staggering unemployment rate higher than the Great Depression, dismantled public health infrastructure, continued efforts to undermine and strip Obamacare from millions of citizens – even in the midst of the pandemic – with no replacement in sight. Reduced budget for CDC groups to watch and plan for other disease outbreaks and hazards caused by capitalism run amuck, deforestation and climate change.  Rolled back 95 environmental rules and regulations … including efforts to significantly increase greenhouse gas emissions and lead to thousands of extra deaths from poor air quality, intentions to stop payments to Green Climate Fund, a United Nations program to help poorer countries reduce carbon emissions, rejected a ban in chlorpyrifos, a pesticide linked to development disabilities in children (EU banned it in 2020).  Enough!

Even if you haven’t been following the news, this information alone should spell out the view that our quality of life is much, much worse under the Trump presidency, and prospects of it improving under his watch are very, very poor.

Even before the pandemic, he claims that he created more jobs than any other president in history.  But do you know what? This too was a lie, like the over 16,000 other lies he’s made.  Under Trump, 6.6 million jobs were created in his first 36 months in office. Under Obama in the same comparable period, 8.1 million jobs were created. That’s a significant 23% difference. Whose fooling whom?

If you care about the quality of your life and your loved ones, your economic and public health, your security, your hopes and dreams for a better life, you’ll easily see the stark and easy choice between the Donald and Joe Biden.

His failures run far beyond botching the coronavirus.

Let’s not forget caging defenseless little children at the border, transferring millions and millions of dollars appropriated for other priorities to build his damn border wall. His impeachment too seeking dirt on his opponent through collaboration with Ukraine, along with his racist, divisive policies and bans.  Violet hate crimes and suicides are all higher than they’re ever been, and he has done nothing to address the problems.  Nothing. Nothing. Nothing!

This bigot, con man and relentless liar has got to go. He does not deserve another day, let alone another four years in office.  We need to heal and bring on a more unified, dignified presidency.  Please join me and your neighbors in making a change by planning now in your communities and then voting at the ballot box in November.