A Day in the Life – President Trump, to this observer, seems very much unhinged lately. In fact, one date 10 days ago – June 25 – appears to be the single worst day of the President’s term in office. A Biden-Trump presidential poll showed that Mr. Trump is absolutely getting wacked in key ‘bubble’ states – Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina, Florida, he’s even behind in Republican bastion Ohio – losing by significant margins to Mr. Biden. [In Minnesota, which he carried against Hillary Clinton in 2016, Donald Trump is losing by fourteen points.]
And yet, despite all the evidence that his re-election strategies so far have been futile, Mr. Trump doesn’t seem capable of altering his language or performance in front of prospective voters. In fact, his behavior, instead of fostering some momentum and positivity for his campaign, indicates he’s doing the very opposite – as Joe Biden, seemingly gaining more and more support, barely lifting a finger, reclines in an easy chair in his basement, sipping on a couple of Mai-Tais, watching reruns of ‘Hogan’s Heroes’– and still beating the hell out of the President.
For a man running for re-election, Mr. Trump’s actions seem particularly askew and very odd. It’s as if he’s psychologically incapable of behavior modification. [My family history points me in one diagnostic direction: progressive rigidity in thought processes brought on by initial stages of dementia; but that’s a tale for another day.]
Digging into his modus operandi a bit more broadly, let’s examine the day trip to Arizona recently at which he visits a section of the ‘Wall’ and then spoke at a mega-church in Phoenix: at the wall, he observed its ongoing construction along a portion of the border between the United States and Mexico. OK…great. The completion of the two-hundredth mile was celebrated by Mr. Trump. Two hundred miles!? Big friggin’ deal. This wall, for which ultimately $15 BILLION will be spent, had to get most of its funding by stripping away money from other government entities, like the National Guard and Army, and even illegally in at least one case.
[Do you recall the incident in Washington a few weeks ago when a small park was cleared out by police and National Guard in front of a church so Mr. Trump could display a bible? Among the armaments utilized to ‘sweep out’ the young people were helicopters, which created very high wind turbulence to discombobulate the protesters. Well, the ‘regular’ force helicopters had all previously been shipped to the Mexican border, so only medical-evacuation copters were available. So that type was used during the skirmish. Imagine the scene: swooping down on the confused protesters are med-vac helicopters, replete with medical signage and crosses on their fuselages. Unbelievable. It’s straight out of ‘Catch-22.’]
Mark my words: in five or ten years, this wall, whatever its final version looks like, will be just another hulking, useless, rusting, expensive lesson on how this country for decades has wasted trillions and trillions of dollars for essentially nothing but politicians’ vanity projects.
Following his sojourn to the wall, Mr. Trump then speaks at a Phoenix mega-church with a jammed 3,000 in attendance, packed together shoulder to shoulder, no face masks in view. The photo is jarring: after all the uproar that people in large crowds who do not wear face coverings imperil themselves and become potential ‘super-spreaders’, and at the very moment Arizona is overwhelmed by a ‘skyrocketing’ number of COVID cases with hospital beds quickly filling to capacity, Donald Trump talks and talks as if there is no crisis, no COVID distressing news at all. It’s as if he’s living in Never-Never Land. And, despite Mr. Trump’s reticence on this massive problem, the country as a whole is undergoing a very frightening and burgeoning disaster in many states, with Arizona perhaps in the worst shape of all.
It’s as if the President saw a land mine bomb on the road in front of him, and muses, ‘Ah, what the hell, I’ll step on it.’
Were his advisors so intimidated by the President and his rages that not one of them could have warned him off the visit?
People out there all over the country are now rightfully scared to death. The juxtaposition of President Trump’s hands-off, ‘what-me-worry’ approach next to the emerging horror in so many states has compelled Americans to at last examine truthfully the essential nature of our President: blasphemous, incompetent, venomous, disorganized, narcissistic, incurious, dishonest, uninformed, and a peril to all of us. If Mr. Trump sinks further, we ought to be very afraid.
We’re in the midst of a horrific calamity, that looks like it’s only going to get worse: The very idea that politicians, a species universally depicted as ranking below rabid rodents in the animal kingdom, are pronouncing to citizens that health officials – doctors, epidemiologists, the CDC and the like – should not be the final arbiters of proper and effective COVID patient treatment, and instead we should rely on the medically fraudulent, dangerous assertion that everything is going to be OK, so let’s forget about the science, boggles the mind.
Are we crazy? Have Americans completely abandoned the notion that we’re all in this together, and we better work under some semblance of unity to get through this? At least the wear-it-or-not mask debate is very visible : it’s an argument plainly displayed in public between individuals who understand science and do don face coverings for their health and the health of others, and those who cannot acknowledge that science is a discipline driven by objectivity, not by emotion, and that the truth – in this case, wearing a mask and proper social distancing -- may be a harsh burden to accept, even if in your heart of hearts, you know it is the appropriate behavior.
Instead of promulgating outright lies [Mike Pence : ‘We’ve won [the battle against COVID], Mr. President. Thank you.’] – Mr. Trump could take a huge, healing step by venturing out to the Rose Garden with a mask in place. That would be such a unifying move for the country, and we could – maybe – initiate a realistic battle plan to defeat this scourge. And, prick up your ears, Mr. Trump, you’ll like this, your sagging approval ratings would jump up if you wore a mask. This is no time for fairy tales.
But you’re not likely to do that, right? Oh, no, the very act of wearing a face covering is a sign of weakness, not strength, in your eyes. Instead, the President and his operatives will continue to employ methods to conceal the real infection numbers, i.e., tamp down testing, and try to once again hoodwink the population with obfuscations and fabrications.
Mr. Trump, forever dissembling, doesn’t comprehend that ‘looking weak’ has nothing to do with wearing a mask. He doesn’t realize that he’s the weakling, the patsy, the wimp in the manner in which he carries on. For one thing, he never accepts blame – it’s always a thousand other villains. But putting on a mask is simply admitting the truth, nothing more, and accepting what is in front of you, no matter how uncomfortable or impotent or scared that may make you feel. That’s a definition of courage and intelligence and strength. I don’t know if Mr. Trump will ever deal with the veracity of this virus; and that ‘strength’ of his, foregoing a mask, will cause incalculable damage and many lives in this country during the upcoming months. God help us.
‘Black Lives Matter’ is a perfect cri de Coeur for these times: the words are forthright, meaningful and powerful. The tacit message is that throughout America’s history, black lives haven’t mattered much, and maybe now they will.
Good thoughts and certainly aspirational, but I’m not optimistic about real change. If American history is any indicator, there’ll be plenty of cosmetic change, but as for a massive alteration of race conflicts in civil society, I doubt it.
The protesters want structural changes to the ‘institutional racism’ they perceive exists throughout the fabric of our lives. They’re right about the pervasive racism being alive and well – take a look, for example, at how our large urban residential areas have developed over a couple of hundred years: here in New York City, there are neighborhoods of 98% affluent, white people, literally right next to communities of 95% black and poor minorities. That’s the very definition of ‘segregation.’
Or, the public school systems in New York and other cities: the preponderance of the funding for these schools goes to the schools in the better neighborhoods, which end up with more and deeper teaching resources, and better teachers; even the physical plant of the school buildings are in much better shape in the richer neighborhoods.
That’s just a couple of instances of the racial schisms that are so embedded in society. Changing that mind-set will entail a huge amount of not only good will among the rich and powerful, but a hell of a lot of money, too. And, right now, the country is essentially broke.
This pandemic has at least stripped the hypocrisy and complacency off the festering and bloody boil sores of racism. That comprehension is surely for the ultimate good of society.
Amidst the gloom of present-day racism, there are actual situations present that can be dealt with immediately, with solutions that would improve immeasurably the lives of blacks and minorities.
For one, I’m talking about the hospital system in any large city: the situation is appalling, and yet in this current atmosphere of the past couple of months not a word is spoken about it.
Here in New York, the system consists of public and private hospitals. The private hospitals, always going on about their ‘non-profit’ status, cater to the affluent [white] classes, who can pay their medical bills with their generous company insurance policies, so of course the hospitals do very well, thank you. [‘Non-profit’, my petunia: the executives of these non-profits make out like bandits.]
The public hospitals? Perpetually underfunded by municipalities, burdened with indigent patients who often carry no insurance, overcrowded emergency rooms, often lacking up-to-date medical facilities and supplies, these institutions are overwhelmed in normal times, much less during crises. Elmhurst Hospital in Queens is a perfect example.
So, here’s my solution: the richest private hospitals, drowning in enormous billion-dollar endowments , larded with generous donations from wealthy patrons and philanthropies, open their tightwad purses and agree to furnish sufficient funding [a billion?] to the public hospitals so they can upgrade their facilities to modern, efficient instruments of health care that better serve the needs of their constituents.
No one dares say it, but the way the hospital medical system is set up now in this country, it’s naked racism. So, do something, damn it. All you private hospitals, put some teeth into your ‘non-profit’ assertions and donate a billion dollars of funding for the beleaguered public hospitals in your city, and make them whole. Help out your medical brethren. Would that be so hard to do?
By Jim Israel
July 3, 2020
Mr. Gripes
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