Bad Moon Rising

Wouldn’t it be cool if President Trump weren’t an idiot*? We face a health crisis that we should have seen coming many weeks ago, and, as yet, the White House has not taken adequate measures to confront it.

Of course, Trump hasn’t been oblivious to some of the effects of the coronavirus, at least where the stock market is concerned. Since he regards the Dow Industrial Average as his personal report card, he has thrashed about looking for a way to pull it back up from the 20% dive it has recently taken. Where Wall Street is concerned, he cares, he really cares.

But, as Hawaii’s Senator Mazie Hirono declared, our focus should be on the health of our citizens and on the economic pain to be faced by millions of soon-to-be displaced workers. Trump apparently doesn’t see these as key concerns. He has said nothing reassuring about the financial stress of ordinary Americans who don’t buy stocks. And, though we desperately need much more testing for the coronavirus, his Oval Office speech barely referred to testing at all. His promise last week that everyone who wants to be tested can be tested was empty, as was his claim that “millions” of test kits are now available. As of today the number of Americans tested stood at about 11,000.

South Korea, in the meantime, is testing approximately 10,000 people per day. Why are we so far behind the Koreans? Maybe it’s time for us to ask for some help from our friends in East Asia.

Trump, of course, would never accept help from a foreign country. His speech last night suggested that keeping foreigners out of the U.S. was an important factor in controlling the spread of COVID-19. It is not. He even at one point referred to the coronavirus as a “foreign” virus. This obviously does not reflect reality, but simply shows Trump’s deeply weird notion that non-American people are inherently a threat, an idea promoted by his deeply weird advisor, Stephen Miller. The presence of the creepily incompetent Stephen Miller in the White House is a reflection of Trump’s well-known preference for suck-ups over experts. So, we now face a life-threatening crisis with our leadership in the hands of people whose qualifications amount to nothing more than a willingness to suck up to Donald Trump, and a president who can neither think straight nor talk straight.

Hang on, America. It’s going to be a bumpy year.

                         And thank you, Senator Hirono

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* To those who object to my rather harsh phrasing here, let me cite the words of former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson who labeled Trump “a fucking moron.” I believe I have, by comparison, shown appropriate restraint.

 

Creeps and Cowards

Trump is not a drinker. In fact, he’s a teetotaler. This makes it doubly weird that his tweets sound like the crapulous drivel of a drunken buffoon.

But not always.
 

The racist rant that appeared on his twitter feed Sunday was grammatically correct and thoroughly coherent. Because of this, commentators have been speculating that it may well have been composed not by Trump, but by one of his henchmen. 

 Here is what the tweets said:

So interesting to see “Progressive” Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly......

....and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how....

....it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!

                                       -    -    -

Except for a missing question mark, that tweet series was quite coherent - albeit ignorant and racist.

So, who do they think they're kidding? Nobody who tweets about the “Prince of Whales,” as Trump recently did, could compose those lines. If Trump himself had authored these tweets, they would have come across something like this:

Those four Black, Muslim and Mexican girls are DUM and DISGUSTING! They shuold go BACK to the SHITHOLE countries they CAME FROM!

So, who authored the racist tweets? The prime suspect is Stephen Miller. You remember him, right? He’s that creepy, skinny guy who slithered into the inner sanctum of the Oval Office alongside Steve Bannon when Trump first took office.

           Secretary of Bigotry Stephen Miller

The other big question raised by these White House tweets is, “Why don’t Republicans loudly denounce them?” Other world leaders have done so, some with gusto. British Prime Minister Theresa May criticized them sharply and so has her probable successor (and Trump friend), Boris Johnson, who said they were “totally unacceptable.” Johnson went on, “If you're the leader of a great multiracial, multicultural society you simply cannot use that kind of language about sending people back to where they came from…I simply can't understand how a leader of that country could come to say it.” [Editor’s note: I can.]
 

Even George Conway has spoken truth to power. (His wife is, after all, Kellyanne). Conway declared, “That’s racist to the core. It doesn’t matter what these representatives are for or against — and there’s plenty to criticize them for — it’s beyond the bounds of human decency. For anyone, not least a president.”
 

Conway was also scornful of Republican leaders in general for not condemning Trump’s remarks. And well he should be. Their lack of outrage is disgraceful.

I, for one, would like to know what my own senators have to say, especially the Honorable Marco Rubio. Is he, like the other Republicans in Congress cowering in the shadows of Capitol Hill like a fearful mouse? Or is he just playing a soulless, political game.
 

What’s the story, Senator Rubio – are you not the child of immigrants? More to the point, have you no courage?

¿No eres valiente?

If you still see yourself as presidential timber, Senator, speak now or forever hold your peace.