What and who is Trump?
Before answering the question, let us review his performance on the national stage in recent weeks. He put on display the traits Democrats and some Republicans consider so jarring --- the profound need for personal praise, the propensity to blame others, the lack of human empathy, the penchant for rewriting history, the disregard for expertise, the distortion of facts, the impatience with scrutiny or criticism. For years, we applied our social and political algorithms of Trump's overall performance and continued to receive alarming assumptions on the question of how would he handle a genuine crisis. Now we know. Trump can’t brag or bluster his way out of people dying.
We don’t have a hidden agenda. We see the COVID 19 crisis in terms of what it means for our family, our livelihood and the future of our country. Because of Trump’s conservative “America First” agenda, U.S. is more fragile because we lack the social structure that Trump systematically dismantled to defend ourselves from the pandemic. We do not believe in taking “potshots” at Trump during a public health crisis. Nor do we believe in artificially suppressing criticism when it must be aired. In that spirit: In the best of times, Trump’s mendacity, salesman braggadocio, and nasty rhetoric is a danger to the body politic. In a global pandemic, it has proven downright lethal.
Events that cannot be denied:
Back in April 2018, Trump defended the fateful firing of the White House global health strategy team that had been assembled in the wake of the Ebola outbreak, saying he “didn’t want thousands of people around when you don’t need them,” Two weeks ago, he told reporters he didn’t know why it had been disbanded.
On February 26th, Trump declared that “the 15 cases [coronavirus disease] within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.” It was one of the many times he dismissed the growing threat.
His March 11 prime time address gave false information on travel from Europe, panicking Americans there and forcing them to wait hours in custom, and possibly exposing them in the process.
Meanwhile, after attacking “honest” newspapers on TV networks as purveyors of “fake news,” Trump now tells Americans to turn to sources he can trust. Wow!
Trump, tell the truth. Show maturity. If you possibly can.
GREENMARK 101 algorithm projects epicenter in United States with more deaths than any-other country. The epicenter of the COVAT 10 outbreak will be the United States. Access discrepancies in testing availability place our citizens at risk.
From the beginning, starting on January 22, 2020, Trump expressed optimism to the American people (even though he was briefed on January 5th to the of the seriousness of the disease.) “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. … It’s going to be just one.”
On February 14, Trump said, “There’s a theory, in April, when it gets warm – historically, that has been able to kill the virus.”
Meanwhile, the Worth Hearth Organization (W.H.O.) said, “We have no reason to believe that this virus would behave differently in different temperatures.
February 27th Trump said, “Infections were declining. We’re going down, not up. … As they get better, we take them off the list, so that we’re going to be pretty soon at only five people. And we could be at just one or two people over the next short period of time."
While Trump’s followers were sipping the Kool-Aid, the rest of us were buying his false hope. Thus, he set the stage for millions in the U.S. to die.
During the same period when Trump was “spinning lies,” Scientists around the world were waiting at their computers in early January when China released the coronavirus genetic code, the blueprint for creating tests and vaccines. Within days, labs from Hong Kong to Berlin had designed tests and shared their research with others.
Within two weeks, Australia had its own test, and even citizens in the most far-flung regions of the county could be tested. Labs in Singapore and South Korea ramped-up test kits production and ordered extra supplies. That quick work allowed them to test hundreds of thousands of people, isolate the sick and contain the spread of the disease.
By contrast, anxious citizens in the United States had endured byzantine delays, been denied testing altogether, suffered mismanagement and “stonewalling” by Trump. As the coronavirus pandemic shut down world capitals and paralyzed entire economies, Trump could no longer hide the truth and rushed to make testing more widely available and made it appear he was “acting in good faith.” Trump’s confusing statements played out in the middle of a growing health crisis that within days has erupted and indefinitely altered the course of American like. With it the number of coronavirus cases in the United States surging above 25,000, as front line heath care workers reported a dire shortage of masks, surgical gowns, and eye gear to protect them from the virus. States officials had imploded Trump for answers and he continued to oscillate like a drunken sailor. Under withering attack for the lack of speed to mobilize a government response, it is telling on his facility as a leader. Trump has taken a page from Herbert Hoover’s playbook at the beginning of the Great Depression and continues to minimize the danger and refusing to use available federal action. Why?
In essence, Trump is flying blind throughout the pandemic. There’s little question now that the Trump administration fumbled one of the most fundamental duties of a government in a pandemic: Testing people to see whether they are sick. Meanwhile, thousands of undetected infections are likely, denying health official knowledge of where to apply precious medical resources and local government strategies for implementing containment zones. The testing crisis continues as the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (behind closed doors) are pondering worst-case scenarios that could occur if no action were taken to mitigate transmission. Now, Trump falsely said, “Anybody that wants a test can get a test.”
Meanwhile, $3.4 trillion has been pumped into financial markets to protect the one-percenters and major Trump supporters. It is estimated that if that money was redirected in the form of cash payments to the American people, who are suffering the most, it would equal to $27,000 per person. Instead, the Senate Republicans have proposed $1,200, in two installments. There’s something wrong with the equation. Corporate executives of the major U.S. corporations expected to retain their, on average, $10 million yearly salaries with bailout funds supplied by the “stimulus” programs currently before or contemplated by Congress. How could this have happened? Once the worst has passed, the American people should get to the bottom of this. In the meantime, the outlines of what when wrong are emerging.
What and who is Trump can be found in the details of the fourth most significant events in our history.