Putin’s Obedient Servant

Posted: July 3, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

As Mr. Donald J. Trump continues to work hard over the last week to cement his status as the Worst President Ever, there are numerous examples of his total failure as a leader and as a person.  Whether it is continuing to espouse that COVID-19 will “sort of disappear”; promoting “white power”; holding thinly disguised rallies at national monuments; or running for president of the Confederacy, there are large numbers of occasions when one can only shake your head and hope that the election gets here soon.

And then it gets worse.

There may be no part of the job of President as important as that of Commander-in-Chief.  People die when the president gets it wrong.  For that matter, people sometimes die even when everything goes as planned.  It is a tough world and it is part of the pact between the military and the American people that service men and women will go in harms way to protect and defend the Constitution and our way of life in exchange for the promise that their lives, talent and American treasure will not be wasted in futile exploits and that those in charge — all the way to the president — will do all that they can to keep them safe in an inherently dangerous profession.  In the military it is known as force protection.

As a country, we can be reasonably certain that the recent revelations that Russian operatives worked with the Taliban in Afghanistan to put a bounty on the lives of US and coalition service members are true.  The evidence is startlingly clear.  The price for an American death was as much as 100,000 dollars.

Within a normal administration this would have caused one of several, or multiple, courses of action to kick in immediately upon learning of this threat.  The Russians would be warned at the highest level of government that this was a dangerous game that must stop immediately.  Likely, sanctions would be leveled against all involved.  Probably, especially if further evidence was uncovered, those involved in Afghanistan would have been on the receiving end of a capture or kill operation.

As we know, sadly this is not a normal administration.  The official announcement was that no action will be taken against Russia.

And then it gets worse.

Mr. Trump says, “I think it’s a hoax by the newspapers and the Democrats.”  These remarks came on 1 July after several days of credible reporting that Mr. Trump continuously decried and belittled.

The excuses for inaction have come fast and furious.  Among those floated were the assertion that Mr. Trump was never briefed on the situation.  When that was reported to be inaccurate, the excuse was that it may have been in a written intelligence document but no one verbally briefed him.  When that did not quite pass the smell test,  the reason given was that the intelligence reports were not “verifiable.”  Well now.  That is not an intelligence term.  Most  intelligence reports in this vein are not verifiable.  The terms of art are “credible” or “not credible.”  When there is credible evidence of a terrorist attack, it is not verified that an attack is actually going to happen until it does.  The country does not — or at least did not — wait for an attack before acting.  The killing of Osama bin Laden was based on credible intelligence — they did not know for sure that he was in that villa at that time — it was verified when they got a DNA match from the dead body.  The terms that Mr. Trump and his enablers use are just gobbledygook designed to deflect from Mr. Trump’s dereliction of duty as Commander-in-Chief.

Rather than being bogged down in the weeds over who was briefed and to what level, etc. etc. etc.  the real question should be what action would a president take once the story broke?  The answer is easy.  The president picks up the phone and calls for an immediate update and then works with his staff for appropriate responses to counter the Russians or to put out a credible explanation as to what actually happened should the facts have been misinterpreted.

So now we all know about it.  Who knew about it when is not now important.  What is Mr. Trump going to do?  Apparently, whine about how it is unfair to him and that it is all designed to make him look bad and on and on with his usual “poor me” schtick.  Despicable.

It seems that the lives of US service men and women fighting our nation’s wars are less valuable than whatever political ax Mr. Trump has to grind.

The signal to Mr. Putin?  Do whatever you want Vlad because the USA is not going to hold you accountable.  It is open season on Americans abroad and on our national security at home.  Kill our folks.  Interfere in our election.  Conduct cyber attacks on our businesses and infrastructure.  Do whatever you want because the stable genius in the White House will not do anything to upset his personal apple cart full of Russian money.

To me, that is the best and most plausible explanation as to why Mr. Trump refuses, time and time and time again, to do anything to upset his “friend” Vladimir Putin.  My sense is not that Mr. Trump is protecting Mr. Putin.  My strong belief is that Mr. Putin is protecting Mr. Trump’s secrets and Mr. Trump is afraid that if he says or does the wrong thing, the Russians will put it all out there.  Putin is the name, blackmail the game.

No one with oversight responsibility has yet to see Mr. Trump’s taxes or the financial records of Trump, Inc.  Mr. Trump has fought long and hard in court to keep those records secret.  I am willing to bet that those records are full of illegal at the worst, unethical at the best, transactions.  Mr. Trump and Trump, Inc. had multiple bankruptcies.  US banks stopped lending him money for his far flung schemes.  My bet is that Russian oligarchs, beholden to Mr. Putin, bailed him out and in return Mr. Trump and his businesses helped the Russian Mafia to launder money and to conduct other illegal schemes.

Have you ever seen the movie The Godfather?  It’s all you need to know as to how Mr. Trump is entangled with the Russians.  And believe me, Mr. Trump is not the Godfather.  I don’t think he is even as smart or as skilled as Fredo.

We know that our values are totally corrupted when the Commander-in-Chief will take no action to protect our troops and the Party of Trump in the Congress stays silent.  It is hard for me to decide which is more loathsome — a president that will not do his job or members of Congress that protect and defend a corrupt president rather than our troops.

Testing Kills

Posted: June 17, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

“If we stop testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any.”

Donald J. Trump on 15 June speaking of the number of coronavirus cases.

Really?  Just like if we stopped pregnancy tests there would be no more pregnancies?  Or if there were no cancer tests there would be no more cancer?

I suppose that I should not be surprised at Mr. Trump’s comments by now.  He failed every leadership test that the pandemic threw his way so what would change now?  His plan seems to be to pretend that there is nothing wrong and to resume business as usual.  What else to expect from the Worst President Ever?

Just when you think it cannot get any worse, of course it does.  As we know, Mr. Trump decided that the best way to prevent anyone thinking that we still have a COVID-19 problem is to pretend that we don’t by holding a rally with some 20,000 people in a closed space in a state that is one of the current pandemic hot spots.

Unfortunately, this appears to be the strategy for the entire Trump administration.  Yesterday Vice President Mike Pence authored an article in the Wall Street Journal that said, in part:

“In recent days, the media has taken to sounding the alarm bells over a ‘second wave’ of coronavirus infections.  Such panic is overblown.  Thanks to the leadership of President Trump and the courage and compassion of the American people, our public health system is far stronger than it was four months ago, and we are winning the fight against the invisible enemy.”

Most public health officials agree that we are not in a second wave of the pandemic.  They believe that we are still in the early stages of infections and that the second wave is a few months away.  This of course, is page one of Mr. Trump’s playbook.  When things are not going well, yell “hey everybody, look over there, the nasty media is at it again.  Pay no attention to my incompetence.”  Most preposterously, the Vice President went on the claim that:

The media has tried to scare the American people every step of the way, and these grim predictions of a second wave are no different.  We’ve slowed the spread, we’ve cared for the most vulnerable, we’ve saved lives, and we’ve created a solid foundation for whatever challenges we may face in the future.  That’s a cause for celebration, not the media’s fear mongering.”

“Cause for celebration”?  Shameful.

The man is pandering to one man and one man only.  Mr. Trump.

On March 15 of this year there were roughly 60 deaths known to be a result of the pandemic.  As I write, we have more than 119,000 Americans dead.  Americans dead.  In three months.  And we should celebrate?

By any measure we have failed in this crisis.  Take any metric that you choose; total deaths, total cases, deaths per capita, whatever, and the USA is in on the wrong side of the power curve.  There are 7.94 million known cases in the world.  The US has 2.18 million of them.  Roughly 28% of the world’s cases.  There are 435,000 deaths world wide.  The US has about 119,000 of them.  Roughly 27% of them.  In what is supposed to be the greatest country in the world with the greatest scientists, doctors and public health facilities we are doing very poorly indeed.

But, yeah, go to Oklahoma and celebrate.

Following the administration’s logic as espoused by the President and Vice President, if there were no testing there would be no coronavirus deaths.  Therefore, testing kills.  We should stop testing immediately.

 

There Is A Major Storm On The Horizon

Posted: June 5, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

As we all ponder the significance to our country of the many protests and responses to the horrific murder of Mr. George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers, some local issues with national importance may be overlooked.  In the end, all politics is local as former House Speaker Tip O’Neill once opined.  In each locality and municipality we can work to improve our local community relationships and to ferret out the institutional racism that most citizens must now recognize.

Most striking to me in the video chronicling Mr. Floyd’s murder is the unabashed, even nonchalant way in which the officer pressed his knee into Mr. Floyd’s neck and held it there for 8 minutes and 46 seconds.  It took my breath away to realize that the officers were equally unabashed at knowing numerous people were recording their actions even as those civilians pleaded with the officers to let him breathe.  The officers just did not care.  Clearly, they thought that there would be no retribution for their actions.  There was no shame.  While I firmly believe that by far the vast majority of law enforcement personnel are good people that do the right thing, in this case there must have been a climate in the Minneapolis police force that gave these officers a sense that there were no personal consequences to their actions.

In that vein, the climate in Washington D.C. is like a powder keg waiting for a spark to set it off.  As in most cities, demonstrations have been quite peaceful, interrupted by periodic looting and destruction to buildings perpetrated by petty criminals and a small group of wing nut anarchists from both ends of the ideological spectrum.  Yet, this is also a city problem that may have national repercussions.

You would not know that nearly all of the protests in the district, and indeed around the country, were peaceful if you only listened to the impeached Worst President Ever and all around vile human being Donald J. Trump or his side kick Attorney General William Barr.  To me, the unprovoked attack on peaceful demonstrators assembled in Lafayette Square last Monday in the District, using rubber bullets, flash bang explosives and chemical weapons was a dangerous turning point.  The only objective was to provide a photo-op for the president to strut around and hold up a Bible in front of historic St. John’s Church in a manner that seemed to convey that it was some symbolic object with which he was unfamiliar.

“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”  — of unknown origin.

Many of you have been to Washington D.C., either as tourists or because you live or work there.  Still, it is worth reviewing the local political relationships to totally understand the danger inherent in the current situation.  Washington is used to demonstrations.  They happen all of the time.  Many of them occur in Lafayette Square directly across (a closed) Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House.  The Washington Police Department (officially the Metropolitan Police Department) is well trained and used to dealing with demonstrators.  Here is the problem.  The MPD does not have jurisdiction over the federal portions of the district.  A plethora of federal law enforcement agencies have that jurisdiction depending on the situation.  Additionally, Washington D.C. has a mayor and city council, but under the Home Rule Act passed by Congress in December 1973, any laws, regulations, actions by the city government and just about anything else that the Congress or federal government does not like can be over-ruled or thrown out.  Indeed the federal government moved to federalize the MPD this week before vigorous political push back put that on temporary hold.

So here is the set up as I write. It is a very fluid situation that could change for the better or worse on short notice.  The mayor and MPD in the district essentially have been shut out of dealing with their own citizens and controlling their own streets.  The federal government, under the direct personal control of Mr. Trump’s very own Luca Brasi, Attorney General Barr, has taken over the city.  As documented by the Washington Post, Washington is now an occupied city.  There are at least sixteen federal law enforcement and military agencies with thousands of people on the ground.  These agencies range from the obvious such as the FBI to the less obvious where agencies have been deputized and given unique authorities outside their charters to patrol the streets and make arrests including the Bureau of Prisons, the DEA, the ATF, ICE, Customs and Border Protection, to name a few.  None of these organizations normally operate in the district to police the streets and many do not have training to manage peaceful demonstrations.  More ominously, many have been recorded as being in riot gear without name badges, insignia or organizational badges.  Never a good sign.

Additionally, 3300 National Guard troops from ten states are operating in the district.  This is in addition to the 1200 National Guard troops from the district that are under federal control, rather than local.  In the fifty states governors control the National Guard unless they are federalized in extreme conditions.  The mayor of Washington has no control over the Guard coming from her own city.

Wait!  There’s more!

1,600 regular Army troops from Ft. Bragg North Carolina and Ft. Drum New York are deployed in military bases within a 15 minute drive of downtown Washington.  Secretary of Defense Mark Esper declared that he would not allow U.S. military forces to be used against Americans on the streets of the nation’s capital and ordered them back to their home bases.  Within hours the president overrode that order and they remain in the D.C. area.

For what purpose, you may ask, does the city of Washington need 4500 Guard troops, 1600 regular Army troops and several thousand federal law enforcement agents?  Good question, as the demonstrations in Washington have been generally peaceful and while large, not as big as in many other cities across the land.

There is one purpose and one purpose only.  They are being used as political campaign talking points by Mr. Donald J. Trump so that he can say that he is “tough” and that the only way to deal with “domestic terrorists” (as of yesterday the FBI stated that they have no evidence of any terrorists among the protesters) is to “dominate” them.  This while he sits in his basement and fortifies the White House — the People’s House — with extra defenses well beyond the grounds, and speaks of “vicious dogs” waiting to get at the demonstrators like some third world despot.

It is political theater.

But political theater with a cost.  Not only does it trample the First Amendment rights of citizens to assemble peacefully to protest against policies — and yes, politicians — of which they disapprove, it significantly increases the mistrust on all sides and with so many elements at play it could easily blow up into a major tragedy where numerous civilians are injured or killed in the ensuing melee.  It also puts law enforcement and troops in difficult situations that may cause retaliation and injury.

I put the heaviest blame on Congressional Republicans.  Most cannot be found anywhere that will speak up against Mr. Trump’s boast to use American troops against American citizens.  There is video available of reporters trying to get a comment from a large array of “name” Congressional Republicans.  They should be embarrassed and hope that the tape gets lost.  Most shuffled off while mumbling that they did not know anything about it.  Some proclaimed they could not comment because they were late for lunch.  Others just tried to pretend they did not hear the question.  Yesterday, only Republican Senators Murkowski (Alaska) and Romney (Utah) finally spoke publicly against the use of troops in our cities.  Shameful.

God help us if American Guardsmen or Army troops open fire on American citizens.  I fear that we are not out of danger of that happening.  In recent days former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, several former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and numerous Admirals and Generals have raised serious objections to the president’s boasts that he will send “thousands and thousands of heavily armed military personnel” to stop the “rioting.”  All military personnel that I knew throughout my 28 year career in the naval service would join me in saying that we signed up to to defend the Constitution and to protect the American people, not to fight our neighbors in our cities’ streets.

There is no organized demonstration scheduled for tomorrow, Saturday 6 June.  That is to say no one organization is planning for people to take to the streets like with the Women’s March.  However, local media and social media are buzzing with news that people are going to come to Washington tomorrow in what could be one of the largest demonstrations so far.  The MPD Chief is on record with his concern that it could be one of the largest the city has ever seen.  More important than whether it is big, bigger or biggest is how the demonstrators and federal law enforcement forces face off against each other.  Pray that it is peaceful but it has all the ingredients of a disaster.

As many of you know, I have worried for three years as to what lengths Mr. Trump will go to consolidate his power.  His autocratic tendencies are well documented.  He feels invincible after no one has stopped his relentless assault on our national norms and values.  As an expert opportunist, it will not take much for him to make good on his promise to send troops into our streets to show that he is “very strong.”  It helps him to successfully deflect from his total screw up in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic.  Once the Army is deployed in Washington, what happens next?  Where does he stop?  How does it end?  What if he loses the election and claims it was due to fraud?  These are dangerous times.

I have faith in my fellow citizens.  I have faith in our collective values.  We will survive the struggle.  In the short run, let’s hope that cooler heads prevail.

 

American Carnage

Posted: May 8, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , | 3 Comments

During his 2016 Inaugural Address, Mr. Donald J. Trump talked about “American carnage” — a dystopian view of the United States that he promised to fix.  Little did we know that actually he was predicting the future.  Our country is in shambles and disarray and the Trump Administration does nothing.

Mr. Trump and his cronies are trying out two strategies moving forward during the pandemic caused by the coronavirus:

  1. Declare victory and go home.  We could have lost 2 million Americans and it looks like we’ll only lose about 150,000 so, as Mr. Jared Kushner said from the White House last week, people should recognize “that this is a great success story.”  The number of deaths is exaggerated anyway.  Open up business because a dragging economy could cost the president the election.
  2. Make the case that all Americans are “warriors” that are fighting to regain the American way of life just like in WWI or WWII and of course there will be casualties along the way. This is war and people die in wars.  Get over it.  Open up business because a dragging economy could cost the president the election.

Meanwhile, over 77,212 Americans are dead.  The virus is spreading into areas that have yet to feel the full brunt of the pandemic.  There is no widespread testing, tracing or methodical isolation.  I have concluded that for most Americans, we are on our own.  We will get no help from the government.  We will have to make personal choices as to what is safe and what is not.  As the song playing in the background during Mr. Trump’s factory visit in Arizona says, “Live and Let Die.”

The federal government, as a reflection of Mr. Trump, has failed miserably in fighting the pandemic.  Mr. Trump’s leadership has been inept, incompetent, divisive, vindictive, callous, resentful and antagonistic.  He’s worked hard to win the award as The Worst President Ever.  In fact, in my feverish mind with too much time on my hands, I believe he has worked too hard to reach this level of destruction throughout the land.  It cannot just be incompetence and a failure to learn from what works or does not.  It has to be deliberate.  Why is that?  Why would he work so hard to destroy the U.S.A.?

There are several possibilities.

  • It is deliberate.  Mr. Trump did not invent the coronavirus or introduce into the U.S.  Once here, however, perhaps he seized the opportunity to use it to fundamentally disrupt our way of life and to bring us down in the eyes of the world — no longer the greatest country on Earth.  There is, after all, a reason that Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted Mr. Trump to be president.  Why would Mr. Trump call Mr. Putin when news broke that General Michael Flynn’s prosecution was dropped by the Department of Justice (DOJ) as he did yesterday?  What were they celebrating?  Did the Russians work on Mr. Trump’s behalf for the opportunity to destroy us?
  • It is a sign that Mr. Trump is mentally ill.  I don’t mean this in any “the dude’s cray cray” kind of way.  I mean it in a serious, albeit judgmental, way that he is ill.  He is a known narcissist.  He claims he is a stable genius.  He acts irrationally.  He has no empathy for the tens of thousands dead.  He seriously suggested that people should inject cleaning disinfectants into their bodies to fight the virus.  He fires anyone that disagrees with him.  He lied about the magnitude of the threat.  He is vengeful.  He seems to enjoy chaos and dysfunction.  Perhaps he enjoys playing a bigger than life figure that commands death or salvation based on his whims.  Perhaps he enjoys the harm done to people, especially, it seems, in “blue” states.  Perhaps he is not just a text book case study of a bad leader but rather an unstable individual emotionally, intellectually and mentally unfit for the office.
  • It furthers his agenda.  The sad statistics are that a disproportionate number of the COVID-19 sufferers and especially deaths are immigrants, minorities and the poor.  For four years, Mr. Trump has raged about the “other” — those not “like us.”  He supports armed white militia members storming state capitals with their guns to insist on “liberation” from the safer at home policies around the country.  In his eyes they are “very good people.”  Just like the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville were “very fine people.” Mr. Trump tends to emphasize that many of those dying are old or with underlying health conditions.  They use the old “they were going to die anyway” meme.  Is this a chance to cull the herd in his mind just as some of these far right groups argue?  Under the cover of the pandemic his administration has implemented draconian measures at the border, denied asylum seekers respite as required by U.S. law, and limited legal immigration — all outside of and in addition to the travel restrictions in place.  From the moment he declared his candidacy for president in front of paid supporters he has railed against non-white (and for that matter non-male) members of our society.  Kids in cages anyone?  What he may or may not believe in his heart does not matter.  His actions are clear.
  • He cares only about himself and making money.  He honestly does not care how many Americans die or struggle financially as long as it does not impact him negatively.  Perhaps he sees an opportunity to profit financially off of the pandemic.  In short, he is an opportunist.  At the very least, Mr. Trump sees a chance to consolidate his position and to remove any impediments to his power within the government and to replace good people with lackeys.  Many Inspectors’ General professional life expectancy is measured in the amount of time before they do their job and call a foul on Mr. Trump.  There are gaping holes in the diplomatic corps and in every cabinet agency in the government.  Mr. Trump claims he does not need them.  Those that are left are not the A-Team or even the B-Team.  It is more like F-Troop.  At this point in time, it is obviously part of the plan to eliminate the “Deep State” as he sees it.  He does not care that the Deep State (of course there is no such thing) of professionals and experts are needed in times of crisis.  Jared Kushner will take care of it.  The pandemic covers nicely for an ever more blatant power grab beyond what we have seen over the last few years.  Mr. Trump has learned that he can get away with anything without consequences.

There may be other scenarios that may be equally plausible or outrageous.  The bottom line is that our national response to the crisis was badly bungled and continues to be an embarrassment.  The sad part is that this not nuances of policy.  People are dying.  The numbers continue to go up.  Many more will die as more and more states are pushed by Mr. Trump to ignore CDC guidelines and to open up their economies without the testing, tracing and isolation infrastructure in place.

Pay attention to what he says and does.  We have learned that he projects his personal feelings onto others and in the process of his complaining he tells us exactly what he intends to do to further destroy the norms, regulations and laws that govern our day to day discourse.

At one point I thought maybe we had Ted Baxter from the old Mary Tyler Moore Show as president.  Ted was not deliberately a loose cannon, he just had no clue. Unfortunately, this is serious business.

Deliberate or not, Mr. Trump changed the American way of life well into the future, if not forever.

The Wrong Leader At The Wrong Time

Posted: April 27, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

Earlier this month I opined that Donald J. Trump was the worst president ever in our great country.  I have had nearly two weeks to reconsider that opinion and upon sober reflection I concluded that I was right.  He has only done more and more to solidify in my mind that he is, without doubt, the worst ever.

Besides demonstrating his total lack of intellectual ability or common sense by advocating for the ingestion of cleaning fluids to rid the lungs of the coronavirus (I hope that Mrs. Trump has child proof locks on the bleach cabinets in their house) and advocating for the revocation of journalists “Noble” Prizes (not a typo as he repeated it more than once — it appears he meant “Nobel” Prize but the actual award is a Pulitzer Prize in journalism), he continues to show a blinding lack of any leadership or organizational ability.  Perhaps we are lucky, in one sense, as his professed managerial acumen resulted in six bankruptcies.  A stable genius, indeed.  But then, what should we expect from a man that tells lies as easily as he breathes?  To date Mr. Trump told over 18,000 lies since assuming office.  Maybe that was cute, or Trump being Trump when he was holding his campaign rallies.  We are long past that.  Now, his lies are costing people their lives.  His response?  “I don’t take responsibility at all.”

We have no national effort to combat the biggest health threat to our country since 1918 and the biggest threat to our economy since the Great Depression.  Instead, we have a hodge-podge of fifty different governors trying their best to provide for their citizens.  Some are doing way better than others.  I live in one state on the East Coast so I cannot pretend to know what is best for the folks in the Dakotas or Kansas or Oregon, but we all know that the COVID-19 knows no boundaries and cares not about one’s ethnicity, social status or wealth.  The virus is truly an equal opportunity killer.

It is not an East Coast or West Coast phenomenon.  On a per capita basis, at the moment the worst hit county in the country is Lincoln County Arkansas.  The second worst is Bledsoe Tennessee.  Three counties in New York state are in the top ten but other top ten counties are in Nebraska, Iowa, and two in Ohio.

Yet, we continue to pretend that the worst is behind us even as the experts tell us the worst is still ahead.  Think of that.  As I write we are approaching one million people in the U.S. known to have been infected, roughly one-third of all known cases in the world.  The death count in the U.S. stands at 56,037 and rising, roughly one-quarter of all the COVID-19 deaths in the world.  Is the U.S. lacking in the knowledge and technical capability to fight this pandemic or do we have incompetent national leadership?

Now states are starting to loosen social distancing requirements and opening businesses, even as we still have a long, long way to go to attain testing levels that can sustain a prolonged effort to protect everyone.  In Georgia today one can get a massage but that same person cannot get a coronavirus test.  The masseuse cannot get one either.  What could go wrong?

Here is my question of the day.  Why did we essentially shut down the country in the middle of March when there were roughly 20,000 coronavirus cases in the entire country if we are going to reopen it when many of those states have over 20,000 cases just in their state alone?  How does this make sense  when experts — not Pollyanna politicians or wannabe “patriots” — say that we will certainly have a second wave of infections and having lifted our basic precautions, it will certainly be worse than what we have experienced.

Don’t believe it?  Look at what happened in the U.S. in 1918-1920 with the Spanish flu.  There was no vaccine then.  They practiced wearing masks and social distancing.  The parallels are startling.  Cities that relaxed their precautions had a devastating second wave.  That pandemic lasted two years with ups and downs.  There were three outcomes:  you died, you survived and gained immunity, or you did not get it.  Pretty much where we are a hundred years later.

Yesterday, Dr. Deborah Birx of the White House Task Force said that we will not rid ourselves of this curse until there is a significant “breakthrough” in medical technology in the form of a new type of testing.  Experts do not see a viable vaccine for the public for at least a year, a time frame most think is wildly optimistic.

Clearly, we can judiciously re-open some businesses as we learn what is doable and what is not.  Take small steps to see how things develop.  There is near unanimity that the only way out is a comprehensive, organized, coherent strategy to implement testing, contact tracing, and isolating those infected.  Period.  Wishing it away, willing it away, or pretending it’s no big deal does not solve the problem.  Pitting cities and states against each other does not solve the problem.  Mr. Trump complaining in his best Rodney Dangerfield impersonation that “I don’t get no respect” does not solve the problem.  It takes money, lots of people, patience, and a will to make it happen across the country.

We know what we have to do.  With no national leadership it is infinitely more difficult.

The Ugly Facts

Posted: April 16, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

In the course of this crisis created by the coronavirus I have been pulling for the federal government to step up and fulfill its duty under the solid direction and knowledgeable leadership of the president.  I have given up hope that it will happen.  This leads me to wonder whether Donald J. Trump is the worst president in our life time or the worst president ever?  In my opinion, he is the worst ever.

Many historians compare Mr. Trump to President Herbert Hoover who is universally considered one of the worst.  He took no action to avert or to mitigate the Great Depression putting all of his faith in the capitalist system and the ethos of the survival of the fittest.  Indeed, he vetoed a 2.1 billion dollar relief bill (about 38 billion in today’s dollars) because it was full of “pork” and what he considered to be unproductive jobs such as federal works projects.

But Mr. Hoover is not considered the absolute worst.  That honor generally goes to President James Buchanan who favored the expansion of slavery and did nothing to stop southern states from seceding from the Union, resulting in the Civil War.  Mr. Buchanan, rest easy.  You are no longer the worst.

Where to begin to count the ways that Mr. Trump has earned this accolade?  To me there is one over-riding fact that cannot be ignored.  The greatest country on earth with the best health system in the world has the largest number of identified COVID-19 cases and the largest number of deaths.  In. The. World.  People are dying.  Over 32,000 Americans have lost their lives as I write this.  It isn’t theoretical anymore.  How can this be?  It is the result of the president’s dithering, lies, inaction, and a congenital need to be the center of everything but the leader of nothing that got us to this place. Precious time was wasted as the president told us it would magically go away.  Over the weekend, two newspapers laid out time lines of what the government knew and when they knew it.  As Mr. Trump told us it was all under control, dire warnings were relayed to him. People tried to take action and he stopped them.  He wants credit for stopping travelers from China from entering the U.S., a necessary but not sufficient action.  He fails to mention that after he declared the border shut, roughly 40,000 people entered the U.S. from China.  He then wasted nearly two months during which serious action could have been taken.  Thank you Mr. Trump.

Beware.  It will get worse in so many ways.  Two important areas of concern are his attempts to do away with all of the safeguards of our democracy and the other is his foolhardy need to “open up for business” in two weeks or less.  He cannot be trusted.  As one pundit put it, to Mr. Trump, truth is an adversary.

Some examples of his intolerance for criticism or oversight include the fact that there are 14 Inspector General (IG) positions vacant in the U.S. government.  Infamously, Mr. Trump fired the IG for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) because he did his job and followed the law in forwarding a whistle blower complaint to Congress.  In the short term, Mr. Trump demoted the IG in the Department of Defense who had been chosen by his fellow IGs in the government to oversee the recently passed stimulus package. Now there is no one. There are no Senate confirmed officials in the entire ODNI.  All have been fired or pushed out.  Mr. Trump likes “actings” as he calls them, because they do not have to answer to the Senate and he can make them do his bidding.

Yesterday he threatened to adjourn Congress by presidential decree so that he can appoint more “actings” without Senate approval and thus do away with all oversight from Congress.  This on top of his claim during his live melt-down on camera Monday that “when somebody is president of the United States your authority is total.”  Clearly he thinks he can run the entire United States like he ran the Trump Organization by just sitting in his office, talking on the phone and telling people what to do with little to no input.  Only, as he says, based on his “gut.”  Speaking of guts, where are the elected Republican members of Congress?  Why is there no rebuke to a president that wants to be an autocrat and is actively working in that direction?

More importantly to many Americans, is the question of how do we address this dual nightmare of a staggered economy and a virulent pandemic?  I do not trust the president to do the right thing.  I never thought I would write that.  I have disagreed with many past presidential policies over the years, but I always at my core thought that while I disagreed with them, they were doing what they fundamentally thought was good for our country.  Not so with Mr. Trump.  He does only what he thinks is good for him.

He is desperate to take credit for anything positive that takes place — such as putting his signature on relief checks to appear as if he, the benevolent monarch, is personally giving away money and not that it is tax payer money — while contorting himself into grotesque statements attempting to blame anyone or everyone for his massive failings.

Here is the ugly truth.  Many people, including the president, do not understand what flattening the curve of this pandemic actually means.  He misleads us on what mitigation means.  The steps that we have all taken to wear masks, practice social distancing and to stay home only buy time.  The coronavirus does not magically go away on 1 May or any time until there is a cure or a vaccine.  This idea that everything will be normal and no one else will die is the biggest lie of all.

Study the curves for yourself.  Most models do not go beyond sometime early this summer.  What do you think happens when the restrictions are lifted?  The number of sick and dying sky rocket.  Study the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-1920.  Even a cursory review reveals that many of the same mitigation efforts that we are using today were used then.  Cities like St. Louis and San Francisco had very strict regimes in place.  Cities like Philadelphia did not.  The differences in death totals is staggering between the two extremes.

How did it end?  When people built up a natural immunity or died.  There was no vaccine.  Just as we have no vaccine now.

Our current measures are designed to buy time.  Time to get sufficient treatment spaces and medical equipment in place to treat those infected.  Time to figure out the best way to treat the virus.  Time to develop a vaccine.  Time to build up our ability to test vast numbers of people.  Time to put a system in place to identify hot spots, isolate those specific people impacted and stop the virus from spreading.

So far we have none of those things and we won’t have them on 1 May.

A very difficult decision lies ahead.  It could be a year or more before all of those necessary conditions are in place.  Our economy cannot continue as it is for a year.  How many lives should be lost in exchange for restarting the economy?  I don’t know. There are those that argue that we should just let the virus run its course.  If hundreds of thousands die, so be it.  It is the natural resolution to the crisis. Just as with the Spanish flu pandemic, one builds up an immunity or you die.  Then it’s over.  Somehow I cannot bring myself to believe that we as a country want or accept that.

So what to do?  In the short term, the emphasis should be on saving lives.  As we try to restart the economy it should be in very small steps in a localized way.  As the saying goes, “build a little, test a little.”  Be prepared to try new ways of doing business.  In every step it will be necessary to be ready to acknowledge that it didn’t work, or that it was too much too soon, and adjust.  When it does work, build on those lessons learned.

I do not think that Mr. Trump is capable of that kind of leadership.  He has already earned his place in history as the worst president ever.  I fear that he will work hard in the coming weeks and months to cement his standing as the worst leader our country ever experienced.

The Road Ahead

Posted: April 10, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

It is obvious that we are not yet through the terrible ramifications of our pandemic and resulting economic crisis.  Public health concerns need to be balanced with economic concerns in order to reach some kind of “new normal.”  I am sure that none of us know what our country will look like in the next six to twelve months but what is clear is the need for some kind of road map for our national recovery that is consistent with the necessary steps to keep all of us safe and to prevent a second major wave of disease that could result from lifting current restrictions too soon.

The president is, according to his remarks on his daily Trump Show, looking forward to reopening the country to business as usual with a “big bang.”  Aides suggest that the date will be roughly 1 May or perhaps earlier in parts of the country.  This makes it sound like some kind of ribbon cutting at the grand opening of a new mall rather than a sober analysis of the pros and cons of particular actions.

As the death toll passes 16,000 Americans, we are still deep into this crisis.  The good news, if it can be called anything like that, is that models seem to indicate that the total death toll by August will “only” be about 60,000.  Imagine.  Only 60,000 Americans dead. That is down from 100,000 to 240,000 but nothing to rejoice about or to suggest that we have this crisis under control.  We are not even a third of the way towards that horrible number and the president seems to want to do away with the measures that have helped to get a small grip on the horrors of this pandemic.

Americans of all political stripes, age groups, ethnic groups and socioeconomic means seem to have come together to embrace, for the most part, social distancing and accepting that things will be tough economically for awhile but that the only way to get this outbreak under control is by working together.  Patience is a virtue.  The results of what we do today will not be seen for two or three weeks down the line.

I have no trouble with the president and his administration looking ahead to what we should be doing in the next month, six months or a year.  I hope that someone or some group of professionals is in fact doing that.  But I see no evidence of a coherent, realistic plan.

During his daily reality show, the president seems intent on focusing only on the next 15 minutes rather than the next 15 months.  He continues to spread lies and misinformation.  For example, health care professionals uniformly declare that the only way to get the country back on its feet is to have a robust testing regime in place to determine who is sick, who is not sick and who may have already recovered from coronavirus without ever going to a doctor or indeed, without ever knowing they had it.

The Trump Administration has made continual promises on testing that have come nowhere near being factual.  As just a few examples, remember that on 10 March Vice President Mike Pence said that over a million tests had been distributed and that by 14 March four million more would be available.  A few days later the president said that 5 million tests were available.  And of course a week before that on 6 March the president said that, “Anybody that wants a test can get a test.  That’s the bottom line.”

A month later roughly two million tests have been administered so far in the entire country.

The president continually points out that the United States has tested more people than any other country in the world, and he is correct.  But he misses several key contextual aspects to that. The state of New York has more confirmed cases than any country on earth.  All by itself.  Obviously the United States as a whole is the sickest on earth so far.  This includes China (which nearly certainly under reported the number of cases), India, Indonesia and several others with much greater populations.

Most importantly, per capita we are failing badly.  Well less than one percent of our country has been tested.  In my state only medical personnel on the front lines and those with a referral from their doctor based on symptoms can get tested.

Just by the force of numbers alone, it is clear that the United States, the greatest country on earth, badly bungled this crisis.  Dithering and wishful thinking frittered away a chance to get ahead of the pandemic and here we are.

So, my question.  What is the long-term strategy?  I have heard nothing from this administration that looks ahead to how we know we are “winning.”  What are the measures of effectiveness (MOEs) that will determine how we are doing and whether it is safe to open up parts of the economy?  So far we only hear about flattening the curve — an indicator that social distancing is working — but not what “safe” numbers of infected may be.  If the curve flattens out at 1500 dead a day is that a good thing?  I think not.  The numbers are not dropping everywhere and across the country the totals continue to increase.

Numbers are great.  To say we have tested more people than any other country is nice, but meaningless. Since this all began, we have tested roughly 2 million people.  Total.  If we test one million Americans a day — a day mind you — it will still take roughly nine months to test everyone.  And a test only shows whether you have the illness at the time of testing.

Am I advocating for every American to be tested and until then we keep our daily lives on hold?  No.  Not realistic.  But what is realistic?  What are the MOEs?  When is the risk/reward equation in our favor?  How do we know when it is safe to eat in a crowded restaurant or go to a sold out college football game? What percentage of testing is adequate to give a good sense of the pervasiveness of the disease in a particular area?  What number of sick people in an area is an indicator that it is safe to go out in a crowd? Are certain precautions sufficient to reopen a particular business that may not work in another?  Until we have some measurable indicators beyond the number of people currently in the hospital we don’t really know where we stand.  This is especially true as we know that some people are asymptomatic carriers that unknowingly pass the virus to others who then become very sick.

Psychologically I think it will take a long time for many of us to feel totally safe in a crowd.  Having actual data from the experts rather than “cheerleading” “aspirational” statements that turn out to be false from the president would go a long way in helping each of us to understand where we stand.

Life has risks in everyday endeavors.  Nothing is perfect.  However it is possible to understand our world around us when presented with facts, not lies, or wishes or wannabe situations.

Many pundits in the right wing media are starting to attack the medical professionals claiming that they are part of the Deep State or to opine that some kind of Social Darwinism is at work with COVID-19 and it should be allowed to run its course. Weed out the weaklings. The president has at times opined that it is not as bad as the media says it is and that they are only trying to hurt his re-election.  Might I suggest that those people go to work in a hospital or a grocery store or a pharmacy without proper protection?  Or perhaps the president could visit a COVID-19 ward without PPE?  Cheer up the troops.  Oh right.  No one can now come into contact with the president and vice president without being tested for COVID-19.  Yesterday they even required testing of the White House press pool before they could attend his daily reality show.

Nothing is impossible for the people that don’t have to do it.

It is time to listen to the experts.  Health care professionals should take the lead and economic professionals base their analysis on what is healthy — literally impacting one’s health — for the country as a whole.  Perhaps a regionally focused approach would work, although I would be concerned that folks with “cabin fever” in stay-at-home states would gravitate to those open for business.

A national approach, based on facts and realistic MOEs is the only way we will find our way out of this crisis.  The worst thing that could happen is to prematurely lift the measures we know are working only because the president is impatient and has a gut feeling that everything is good to go.  A second wave of pandemic would do even greater damage to our country.  If there is a time for a very conservative approach, this is it.

Patience coupled with verifiable facts is the only way to go.

 

 

The Price of Imperfection

Posted: April 2, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The numbers are difficult to comprehend.  100,000 to 240,000 Americans dead from COVID-19 if, as Dr. Deborah Birx from the White House Coronavirus Task Force said, “we do things perfectly.”

There is ample evidence that as a country we have most definitely not done things perfectly, and sadly I see little evidence that we will do it perfectly as we move forward.  As I write, the U.S. passed the 5,000 mark in deaths from the virus.  Most experts do not expect the pandemic to peak until late April or early May.  Recall that the day after the peak likely will be the second most cases, the third day the third most, and so on.  The peak is only a measure of how far along we are in trying to mitigate the impact of the disease, not an indicator that the crisis is over.

In difficult times is it hard to know what to criticize and what to praise.  How to stay positive when things look so bleak.  Does one leave criticism of our leaders out of the conversation because we need to focus on the future and not the past?  Do we dissect what could have been done so much sooner to lessen the impact on our fellow Americans or just deal with the present and see what the future brings?  There is so much that could be said but does it help?  I think so.  If we are to deal with the crisis as it unfolds then we need to learn the lessons it is teaching us in order to deal with what comes along in the course of events.

Good leaders enter the fray with a plan.  As I have written in this space before, no plan survives contact with the enemy.  One must be able to adapt and alter the plan as events unfold, which is easier to do if beforehand the leader has thought through possible outcomes, surprises, and has the resiliency to adjust to circumstances as they unfold in order to bring the right resources to bear at the right time.

As resources start to deplete, it is necessary to assess the gravity of the situation in each sector of the battle.  Some places may need more of one thing rather than another.  Some forces are not currently engaged so extra attention is given to the places that are actively engaged while keeping some things in reserve for when the battle moves to a new front.  Forethought, tenacity and resilience are called for in order to vanquish the foe.

I see that leadership ability with governors in New York, Maryland, Ohio and elsewhere. Mayors and other local leaders are showing themselves to be able to cope with the situation by thinking imaginatively and using ingenuity to face the overwhelming impact of this virus.  Unfortunately, it is not evident throughout the country.  Even as we see the horrible impact of the virus in New York, Louisiana and elsewhere, some governors refuse to tackle the issue head on.  Some put in half measures while across the river in another state very stringent requirements are in place.  Both lose out as people are free to cross state lines and they will seek out what they want where they find it.  Consequently, both states will suffer as the virus spreads when people from different areas intermingle and interact.

Likewise, as the White House Coronavirus Task Force claims that states and cities are getting the supplies they need, we see countless reports, most from front line health care providers, begging for more help in acquiring supplies to keep them safe and healthy so that they can take care of their patients.

All of us have learned a new language and new words that we freely throw around when just a few weeks ago we had no clue about such things.  PPE.  COVID-19.  Social distancing.  Ventilators.  Pandemic.  And on and on.  We have learned a lot but we have more to learn.  So who to trust?

Sometimes two things can be true at the same time.  For example, if the White House claims that they shipped 500,000 masks to New Jersey, it seems like a big number.  It is a big number.  But if hospitals in the state are going through 750,000 masks in a few days then it is not enough.  In addition, many hospitals in hard hit areas have already thrown out best practices in order to save PPE.  Gowns, gloves, and masks should be changed for each patient in order to protect the sick as well as the providers.  Most places now issue one set for a shift.  Some now issue one set for a week.  Regardless of the numbers the White House claims to have provided, it is clearly not enough when it comes to the front lines.  If our first responders and health care workers go down, the entire house of cards will collapse.  Unfortunately, PPE do not help them with the emotional and physical toll this crisis is exacting.  What are the plans to relieve those who have been on the front lines for weeks on end?  Where are the psychiatrists and psychologists to help them deal with the stress and pain of losing so many people they pledged to help?  These issues should also be addressed on a large scale.

It does not help when the president gets up before the cameras in his daily reality show and hints that doctors and nurses are selling the masks on the black market and that is why there is not enough to go around as he did on Monday.  “Are they going out the back door?”  “I don’t think it’s hoarding.  I think it’s maybe worse than hoarding.”

It does not help when the president gets up before the cameras in his daily reality show and says “I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators” as he did last week.

It does not help when the president gets up before the cameras in his daily reality show and says that the governor of New York should be “grateful” to him for supplying ventilators and that he hit “paydirt.”

It does not help that president gets up before the cameras in his daily reality show as he did a few days ago and brags about his “ratings” being better than “The Bachelor” while saying that some projections are for 2.2 million dead in the U.S. and “so if we have between 100,000 and 200,000 we all have done a very good job.”

It does not help when the president tweets as he did just hours ago that “Massive amounts of medical supplies, even hospitals and medical centers, are being directly delivered to states, to hospitals by the Federal Government.  Some have insatiable appetites & are never satisfied (politics?).  Remember we are a back up to them.”

Funny thing.  When your citizens are dying one expects leaders to pull out all the stops to save them.

Maybe if you give everyone a ventilator that wants one pretty soon nobody will breathe on their own?

Again, two things can be true at the same time.  But here’s the rub.  The hospitals, mayors, governors are on the ground and know how much they need.  More importantly, we are dealing with a situation that projects that upwards of 240,000 citizens will die if we do everything perfectly.  That same projection from the president’s Task Force indicates that it could be between 1.2 million and 2.2 million if the right steps are not taken.  The key fact is that the worst is yet to come.  It does not matter whether current needs are being met if there is nothing left for the future.  Governors and mayors realize that if they are barely meeting demand now, there is no way they can meet it when things get really bad.  On top of that, multiple reports indicate that officials at the Department of Homeland Security report that the national reserves are nearly depleted.

Why is the federal government “a back up”?  This is a national crisis.  Why are states, cities, and even individual hospitals all competing against each other to get what they need?  Profiteering is certainly taking place.  Governors report that orders they expect to have delivered get cancelled because another client offered more money to the manufacturer for the same shipment.

The primary function of the federal government is to provide for the safety and security of its citizens.  All else is meaningless if people are not safe or secure.

It is beyond appalling that the president continues to refuse to step up and organize our response on a national scale.  There should be a centralized procurement and distribution system.  There is an old saying, “lead or get out of the way.”  I think it time for the president to get out of the way.  He has a Task Force formulating the medical response to the crisis.  Daily he puts out misinformation, lies or revisionist history and uses the briefing as a substitute for his rallies.  Just stop it.  Let the scientists and professionals give us the straight information.  What they know — good or bad, what they don’t know, and what are facts versus opinions.

Set up a similar Task Force for procuring and disbursing the needed supplies.  Then get out of the way.  The military is skilled at logistics, let them handle it if no one else in the administration knows what to do.

This is a national problem.  While the media’s and president’s focus seems to be on the New York region, the fact is currently Louisiana has the highest per capita hospitalization rate.  The highest per capita infection rate is in Idaho.  A national problem needs a national, coordinated response.

On a personal note, please keep those suffering on your minds and in your hearts.  This is going to be a long haul.  Remember the first responders and health care professionals that so far have been able to keep this pandemic at a crisis level rather than a national collapse.  Finally, keep yourself safe.

Stay calm and wash your hands.

We Knew It All Along

Posted: March 24, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

Regular readers know that I am not a big fan of our President.  When the world-wide COVID-19 pandemic arrived at our national door step I took it upon myself to be quiet. I would give him a chance to deal with this crisis.  I would refrain from taking potshots at every mistake he makes.  It is a new situation that requires new solutions to beat it.  Some will work, some will not. I did not want to get too caught up in the day to day developments.  I gave him the benefit of the doubt and truly hoped that he would rise to the occasion, pull the country together in a common effort and actually lead from the front.

Boy!  Was I wrong.

Mr. Trump proves daily what many of us knew and others suspected.  He is in way over his head with no real idea of what to do as a president facing a crisis.  Great at rabble rousing campaign rallies, bad at leadership.  Textbook bad, in fact.

The president is not responsible for COVID-19 coming to the U.S.  It is his response to the crisis that demonstrates his total inability to deal with facts and to put together a coherent plan of action.

The examples are many but let’s start with the most obvious.  Mr. Trump unilaterally calls himself a “War Time President.”  In that respect he signed an Executive Order (EO) under the 1950 Defense Production Act (DPA) that can be used to direct industries in the United States to manufacture and produce materials or equipment necessary to meet our national security requirements.  So far, he has failed to do so for a variety of reasons.  As I write this, his Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Pete Gaynor claims that it will be used to procure test kits and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for health care workers.  Then he said it will not be.  The president said it would be before he claimed that it was not needed.  Both say that they really do not need to use the DPA because the EO gives them “leverage” and therefore companies are voluntarily beginning to switch their production lines to meet the need.

Besides the obvious “who’s on first” confusion within the ranks of the nation’s leaders, there are practical problems with that approach.  Instead of a comprehensive nation-wide plan for procurement and distribution — which the federal government, especially the military, excels at doing — they are having the states individually buy their own equipment.  This creates unhelpful competition, excessive prices,  and a survival of the fittest narrative as each state competes one against another to get badly needed ventilators, PPE and test kits.

Put another way, we do not have individual Air Force squadrons go to Boeing or Lockheed and procure aircraft on their own.  Marine Corps battalions do not go to weapons manufacturers and buy their weapons and ammunition on their own.

States. like squadrons and battalions, are at the point of attack and know the best tactics to fight the enemy in front of them but the strategy comes from the top.  Likewise, the military departments through the Department of Defense are tasked with raising, training and equipping the force as a whole.  Without coordination and the prudent deployment of assets where needed, the amount of confusion, disarray and waste rises to levels that are detrimental to the overall goal.  And people die.

There is also a business reason for needing to implement the DPA.  If I am GM or 3M or any other manufacturer that wants to help out with producing ventilators, for example, I will put a lot of money into converting my production lines, finding the labor to run the machines, raw materials, etc.  I need to know that there will be a market for my 10,000 ventilators with an average cost of $25,000 a few months from now when we’re cranking them out.  Only the federal government can guarantee that those costs are covered.

Mr. Trump, for whatever reason, refuses to do what is right.  He does give us clues as to why.  In discussing the DPA he talks about it as “nationalizing” U.S. industries and says that such a move is “socialism.”  As he said on Sunday, “Call a person over in Venezuela.  Ask them how did nationalization of their businesses work out?  Not too well.”  The DPA nationalizes nothing.  It is not socialism.  The companies revert to their previous undertakings when the crisis is over or the need is met.  Think Detroit automakers turning out tanks during WWII.  Either Mr. Trump’s advisers are woefully ignorant of the law or the president is.

I have a different explanation.  It is all about Mr. Trump’s re-election bid.  If he centralizes the response to the pandemic under his leadership, and it fails, he will have to shoulder the blame.  This way, he can point the finger at mayors and governors for, as he’s already said, “not doing their job.”  Remember, this is the man that when asked about his responsibility as president replied, “I don’t take responsibility at all.”  War time president indeed.

Also connected to his re-election is the fact that one of his campaign themes is to call all the Democrats socialists.  If he actually (cough, cough) believes that using the DPA constitutes socialism, then he cannot use that accusation against Democrats in the election.

“America First” actually means “Trump First.”

And now this.

He is so concerned about his re-election chances being hindered by the state of the economy as we battle for our families and friends lives, that he announced today that the country will be back to business as usual by Easter, 12 April.  He is ignoring the best advice of 99 percent of health care professionals in this and many other countries.  No one knows how this is going to turn out but there is near unanimous agreement that for the U.S. and other nations, the worst is yet to come.  Think about the circumstances right now in Italy, Spain and other first world nations.  I am not even sure what business as usual will look like in three weeks.

His argument, first espoused by Fox News talking heads, is that the “cure is worse than the disease.”  Rather than suffer some — maybe even a lot — of pain up front to get this under control, he is willing to open the country up to the potential for continuing waves of deadly disease.  Many people when first diagnosed with cancer feel fine.  Chemotherapy and other treatments are not at all fun and can be quite painful.  In the beginning, it is worse than the disease.  However, people understand that in the long run they will be better off with a much higher chance of survival if they submit to the treatment.  Seems pretty basic.  But perhaps it is too much for Mr. Trump to grasp.

With his constant comparisons to the flu and car crashes that kill tens of thousands of people a year but we don’t shut down for them, it is apparent that he does not at all realize what he and we are dealing with today.  Besides the fact that COVID-19 has a much higher rate of transmission, and a higher death rate for those that contract it than does the flu, it impacts all other health care areas.  As a country we do not have thousands of intensive care beds, nurses, doctors and technicians standing around waiting for a pandemic.  The surge capacity is very, very limited in civilian hospitals.  To take on the COVID-19 patients means that someone with a heart attack, or in a car crash or some other emergency may not get the level of care that they otherwise would have gotten.  Those deaths are not attributed to the pandemic but are very real issues of collateral damage.  Some of those people would not have died under normal circumstances.

Life is hard.  Dealing with a crisis is hard.  Dealing with COVID-19 is hard.  But it is harder when you don’t have a clue.  Or worse.  You don’t care to have a clue.

 

Democracy Under Attack

Posted: February 25, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , | 2 Comments

Following his Impeachment Trial, Mr. Donald J. Trump became predictably vengeful and embarked on a revenge tour.  He is now systematically using the power of the presidency to invoke his personal wrath on anyone that did not faithfully and fully support him — personally — rather than doing their duty and supporting their oath to the Constitution.  The purge will only end when the Trump regime is fully stocked with Trump loyalists, regardless of their ability to handle the job, personal background, or knowledge of anything related to the job.  For the most part, expect it to be the “B Team” — or maybe more like “F Troop.”

Mr. Trump is taking another page out of the Autocracy 101 text book.  We should not be surprised.

Recently, I was referred to an article in the New York Review of Books by Masha Gessen.  Titled Autocracy: Rules for Survival it provides six rules based on living much of her life in autocracies and becoming an expert on Russia’s Vladimir Putin.  Ms. Gessen is much better at explaining herself than I could ever be — it is worth the time to read the original — and her November 2016 article is stunningly prescient in predicting Mr. Trump’s behavior in the years following his election.

In brief, these are the six rules.

  1. Believe the autocrat.  They always tell you exactly what they are going to do.  Mr. Trump exhibits this behavior.  What some consider to be exaggeration, hyperbole or “Trump being Trump” is actually him telling you what he is going to do.  Or at least what he wants to do if he can figure out a way to get away with it.  I first observed this trait in Gulf War I where I was involved in a group tasked with the formulation of a policy and a strategy to get Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait and to restore a semblance of order in the Gulf region.  With study, it became obvious that he was telling the world exactly what he intended to do — or what he would try to do — but you had to peel away the bombastic language to fully understand what he was saying.
  2. Do not be taken in by small signs of normality.  When things seem out of control, the smallest sense of normality tends to soothe people’s concerns.  We all need reassurances.  When things are at their worst, anything that makes it seem as if the situation is temporary and that it will all be okay in the end is a salve that may hide the wound rather than heal it.  What is happening today in our country is not normal.  No one-off State of the Union speech or any other glimmer of normal presidential behavior should mask the fact that 99% of the time our president is out of control.
  3. Institutions will not save you.  American values are based on ideas like a free press, an independent judiciary, Congressional oversight of the Executive Branch and leaders within the government protecting the Constitution for all Americans.  It takes about two seconds to recall that Mr. Trump fires anyone that stands up to him, constantly debases members of the media, attacks judges that do not do want he wants, and always succeeds in getting the formerly Republican members of Congress to acquiesce to his every whim.  Mr. Trump and his regime took a steam roller to the established norms of government and continue to test the limits of the law in every corner of government.  There are no longer any safety barriers keeping the regime within safe boundaries.
  4. Be outraged.  While many of us may no longer be surprised by statements and actions from Mr. Trump, one needs to continue to be shocked.  Do not normalize bad behavior especially when it threatens the fabric of our democracy.  Be prepared for ridicule when continuing to call out such awful behavior while others continue with their mantra that it is just Trump being Trump.  As he himself calls it when belittling those that critique him, be prepared for accusations of suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome.  Be prepared for unpleasant attacks from his most ardent supporters.  Do not back off.
  5. Don’t make compromises.  So many former Republicans, especially in the Senate, predicted that Mr. Trump as president would be the worst thing that ever happened to our country.  After three years of his presidency they are now his most loyal and fervent supporters.  Their support is not necessarily a re-evaluation of his competency or ability or vision, but rather it is a compromise of their own values in order to retain power.  Mr. Trump is no different than the person they ardently decried during the campaign.  Those around him have changed.
  6. Remember the future.  Mr. Trump, his regime, and Trumpism cannot last forever.  Look to reform our institutions in order to restore the foundations of our democracy.  Put into law what we as a country previously took to be accepted norms of behavior that our leaders would honor.  Work to project a new vision for our country that is inclusive and that addresses the problems that Mr. Trump was able to cynically manipulate for his own purposes.  Stay in the game.

In the every day course of our own lives it is possible to lose sight of the big picture attack on our democracy.  It’s hard.  Frankly, it’s exhausting.  It is easy to lose oneself in areas outside of politics because it is just so relentlessly Trump.  Every gosh darn day there is some new Tweet or speech or rally that saps all of the energy from one’s soul when it is clear that he has no idea what he is talking about.  Nearly 17,000 documented and provable lies during his presidency numbs the soul and becomes normalized.

And that is the plan.

Autocracy thrives on indifference or exhaustion or just turning it over to the regime and letting them take care of it all as long as my day-to-day life is not impacted.  Mr. Trump and his regime are interested only in themselves and in the amassing of personal power.  Period.  Anything else is a sales pitch presented in the moment to get a cheer or to attack an opponent or to appear to care.  Remember that fundamentally, they don’t care about you or me or the rule of law.  Only themselves.

It is up to us as citizens to stay vigilant and to call out the fouls when we see them.

 

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