President Donald J. Trump has become one with the Covid-19 pandemic.
Even before Trump won the Republican presidential nomination in July of 2016, more than three chaotic, painful years ago, I've warned that Trump was "America's most dangerous home-bred terrorist."
"Trump whose number one goal has always been self-enrichment, is America's most dangerous home-bred terrorist," I wrote in The Hill shortly before the 2016 presidential elections.
Even before Trump won the Republican presidential nomination in July of 2016, more than three chaotic, painful years ago, I've warned that Trump was "America's most dangerous home-bred terrorist."
"Trump whose number one goal has always been self-enrichment, is America's most dangerous home-bred terrorist," I wrote in The Hill shortly before the 2016 presidential elections.
"His weapons are fear and divisiveness planted not-so-subtly in the hearts and minds of the disenchanted subject to explode anytime."
President Trump has done nothing but prove that out every bullying, bamboozling, bungled step of the way since occupying the Oval Office in January 2017.
President Trump has done nothing but prove that out every bullying, bamboozling, bungled step of the way since occupying the Oval Office in January 2017.
Under Trump, hate crimes have skyrocketed. The citizenry has split into opposing hardened factions. And Congress, in our lifetimes, has never been more partisan.
Now, amidst the Covid-19 pandemic that has killed more than 40,000 in America and left 22 million unemployed, it's never been more clear that Trump from the get-go was not only the wrong guy for the job -- but the worst.
When the American people have most needed a capable, compassionate leader committed to upholding his oath of office and looking out for the common good, Trump consistently has proven himself incapable.
Now, amidst the Covid-19 pandemic that has killed more than 40,000 in America and left 22 million unemployed, it's never been more clear that Trump from the get-go was not only the wrong guy for the job -- but the worst.
When the American people have most needed a capable, compassionate leader committed to upholding his oath of office and looking out for the common good, Trump consistently has proven himself incapable.
"I don’t take responsibility at all,” Trump said at one of his dysfunctional press conferences March 13, when asked about the administration’s failure to ensure that Americans had prompt widespread access to Coronavirus test kits – a key to identifying and ultimately minimizing the disease’s death toll.
After two months of criminally downplaying the Coronavirus threat – claiming the virus was “totally under control,” labeling it a “hoax” and saying it will magically “be gone by April"– the master illusionist President has spent more time casting blame on others, picking political fights and promoting what a “perfect” job he is doing – than protecting American lives.
While the Coronavirus reached American shores and incubated in the citizenry during January and February, Trump's focus was on his re-election prospects that hinged on a strong stock market and a bustling economy.
The President who claims he wants to "Keep America Great," while the virus spread in the homeland, was holding campaign rallies, golfing at his properties and seeking vengeance against officials who exposed his malfeasance that led to the President's impeachment.
Now, Trump’s daily, disingenuous, chaotic reality TV press conferences are sickening, bumbling displays of accusation, deflection, braggadocio and most unsettling of all – misinformation.
After two months of criminally downplaying the Coronavirus threat – claiming the virus was “totally under control,” labeling it a “hoax” and saying it will magically “be gone by April"– the master illusionist President has spent more time casting blame on others, picking political fights and promoting what a “perfect” job he is doing – than protecting American lives.
While the Coronavirus reached American shores and incubated in the citizenry during January and February, Trump's focus was on his re-election prospects that hinged on a strong stock market and a bustling economy.
The President who claims he wants to "Keep America Great," while the virus spread in the homeland, was holding campaign rallies, golfing at his properties and seeking vengeance against officials who exposed his malfeasance that led to the President's impeachment.
Now, Trump’s daily, disingenuous, chaotic reality TV press conferences are sickening, bumbling displays of accusation, deflection, braggadocio and most unsettling of all – misinformation.
Trump repeatedly lies about testing availability and still claims he inherited faulty Covid-19 testing from President Barack Obama. Of course, that’s impossible. The Center for Disease Control, under Trump, produced those initial faulty tests this year when the virus hit.
"No one saw this coming," Trump repeatedly says. But, just about everyone saw the epidemic encroaching -- except Trump.
Health and intelligence officials have been sounding the alarm bells about the Coronavirus for months. And many of the same national health officials have been warning for years, during Trump’s presidency, that the United States was woefully unprepared to contend with a global pandemic and that it was just a matter of time before one emerged.
The same day, March 13, Trump declared the Coronavirus pandemic a national emergency, releasing $500 billion in federal funding, he played dumbed when asked why his administration in 2018 eliminated the National Security Council’s global health unit.
"I don’t know anything about it,” Trump said about his administration’s dismantling of the pandemic unit that President Obama formed during the 2014 Ebolpa outbreak to help ensure the United States was prepared for pandemics such as the Coronavirus.
Trump's politicizing of the pandemic, applauding red state governors and criticizing blue state governors, as all of America scrambles to survive and confront this scourge, only abets the disease. His conflicting messages that cheer on unmasked protesters at government buildings pushing to end social distancing prematurely, is insane.
The President's latest target in his blame game is the World Health Organization WHO, which the U.S. gives hundreds of millions of dollars each year to coordinate global responses to epidemics like Covid-19.
In another pathetic case of deflection and projection to obscure his atrocious handling of the Coronavirus, Trump wants to riskily defund WHO, claiming it failed to timely alert world leaders, namely the U.S., about the pandemic.
But if WHO was sluggish in assessing the pandemic threat, Trump was inexplicably dismissive and flat-out mocked the unfolding global crisis for weeks after he was fairly warned of the virus’ lethality for which there was no vaccine.
On Jan. 23, the WHO updated its assessment of the virus threat, confirming “human to human transmission” of the Coronavirus and that the “global risk was high.”
Then, on Jan. 30, the WHO declared the Coronavirus to be a “Public health Emergency of International Concern” and warned countries “to be prepared for containment, including active surveillance, early detection, isolation, and case management, contact tracing and prevention of onward spread.”
Yet, all President Trump did was ban flights from Chinese nationals on Jan 31. Thousands of Americans who had traveled to China, still were allowed to return home, unscreened and untested for the virus. The President wouldn't acknowledge the virus' serious threat publicly or take any other significant action for another lost six weeks.
By halting WHO funding, Trump, again is making critical decisions designed to obfuscate his guilt and boost his phony stance as a “war time President” – which, at the same time, weakens the global effort to get the disease under control.
It should be clear by now, that Trump, wittingly or not, has been a facilitating arm of the Coronavirus. His multitude of missteps, incites, lies and boasts have done nothing to hinder the deadly disease’s spread.
Quite to the contrary. The President's dark-minded, contrived chaos has only exacerbated Covid-19's destructive path of death and financial dire straights for Americans.
The pandemic not only has uncovered the engrained economic disparities of America's poor and uninsured, but it's undeniably exposed Trump as America's greatest enemy.
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