The pathetic downward spiral of the American Presidency reached new lows in the past week.
Tacticians in the White House have been desperately trying to re-cast the Administration’s actual dismissive and sluggish pandemic response as totally competent considering the World Health Organization’s “failure to adequately warn the U.S.” back in January.
However, America was warned early. The W.H.O. learned of the potential pandemic threat in late- December, 2019. At that time, our C.D.C. had a dozen staff embedded in the W.H.O. team sent to China. They knew as soon as anyone. They reported back to their superiors in Washington D.C. In January, top Administration officials knew of the potential pandemic and briefed the President and his Cabinet.
In January and February, the President publicly dismissed the potential pandemic, “There’s one guy coming from China. That’s all.” He followed up in subsequent public pronouncements that “it’s a Democratic hoax”, and, “it’s like the flu, it will be gone by Spring”. In press conferences, our President assured Americans that “we’ve got this under control”, and he praised the Chinese Premier a dozen times for his deft handling of the situation.
Fast forward to “Spring”, after 41,000 American deaths: President Trump now claims that the W.H.O. let us down, the Chinese were lying to us, and, besides, the States are in-charge of this pandemic, not the Federal government.
Flip-flop.
As the pandemic-caused slide of the U.S. economy headed toward a modern Depression, desperate President Trump tossed caution to the wind and announced that he intended to “re-open” the economy within a few weeks. This announcement, running contrary to what his public health advisors were saying publicly, shocked beseiged health first responders across the Nation.
Flip-flop.
Trump said, on TV, that he was “calling the shots” on this, and that he had “total authority” to do what he felt, instinctively, had to be done. On the day he made this bold assertion, the Covid-19 death toll was averaging between 2,500 and 3,000 souls per day. Many states like New Jersey, Louisiana, and Michigan were seeing their numbers spiking upwards.
Governors of severely impacted states immediately responded that the President had no such authority. In the absence of Federal leadership, they had enacted “stay-at-home” prohibitions under their health and safety police powers, and they, not the Federal government, would be rescinding them when health and safety could be assured. Governors from three regions (West, Midwest, and Northeast) announced that they were working together to develop strategies in their regions.
The President then flip-flopped and said, “We’ll work with the Governors” on re-opening the economy.
The Administration then announced a proposed set of guidelines on how to gradually re-start the economy as the pandemic slowed in various regions. The Governors seemed to be pleased with this idea, as it was consistent with the staged-approach that they had been urging, with the immediate focus on public health instead of the economy. The President said, but “you’ll be calling the shots on this.”
The very next day, a large mob arrived in Lansing, Michigan to publicly protest the “stay-at-home” orders there. The theme was “Liberate our citizens”, “we have the right to leave our homes”, “let us get back to work”, “the Governor is a Nazi”, and similar themes. Trump 2020 campaign flags were in abundance.
The President of the United States then Tweeted his support of the demonstrations: “LIBERATE MICHIGAN”. He then added, “LIBERATE MINNESOTA” and “LIBERATE VIRGINIA”.
All three of these states were then, and are now, following the Administration guidelines announced on television the day before by the President.
A flip-flop from a guy who supposedly supports States’ rights.
It appears that the Trump re-election strategy is boiling down to this: (1) Applaud the President for his brilliant strategy of marshalling Federal forces to combat the coronavirus, despite being “sandbagged” by W.H.O. and the Chinese; (2) Blame the infections and deaths on incompetent State Governors; (3) Blame the State Governors for over-reacting by issuing “stay-at-home” orders; (4) Side with unemployed workers and closed businesses by blaming the State Governors for not “re-opening” the economy soon enough; and, (5) Take 100% credit for Federal funding approved by Congress to ameliorate the economic collapse.
As is his standard operating procedure, the President insists on not taking responsibility for anything that happens on his watch…unless it is a positive accomplishment. Administration failures are someone else’s fault. He’s “in-charge”, but he conveniently denies knowing what his employees are doing.
Like this past week, when the economic stimulus checks went out to Americans with Donald Trump’s signature on them. At the C.A.R.E.S. stimulus signing ceremony in the White House last month, the President commented that it would be nice if his signature was on the checks. When those checks arrived in people’s mailboxes last week, they were signed by Donald Trump, the first checks ever signed by a President.
When the tacky stunt was raised by the media, Trump claimed that he didn’t know about it, hadn’t approved it, etc., despite publicly suggesting it on national television.
Flip-flop.
One wonders what the Trump Administration is doing day-to-day to kill the time.
It would seem, just from their titles, that several departments under Donald Trump should be actively involved in protecting Americans from a global pandemic. Some examples: “Homeland Security”, “National Institute of Health”, “Center for Disease Control”, “Food and Drug Administration”, “Federal Emergency Management Agency”.
These are the Federal agencies which are, theoretically, tasked with protecting our Nation’s borders, planning for National pandemic response, testing for exotic viruses which have invaded our Nation, developing and approving drugs and vaccines for Nationwide use, and handling the logistics of National and regional disaster response. Their responsibility is National in scope; there are no corresponding agencies at the State level.
Yet, we are being asked by the President to believe that they have no role or responsibility in this crisis, that it is the States’ responsibility to rescue all of us. The States say, “We need more ventilators and masks”, the Administration says, “Find your own”, or, “We’ll give you some if you ask nicely”.
When someone runs for President, and wins, they take on the job of running a Federal government. This involves doing many things nationally that the States cannot handle on their own, like Interstate highways, border protection, regional disaster response, aviation management, etc. It is not the President’s option to decline to administer these tasks, which were established and funded by Congress. Those functions are what make us the United States of America.
President Trump took an oath to faithfully execute those laws. Now, he wants to pretend that they don’t apply to him, that the States need to pick up the slack.
Flip-flop.
What actually happened in the past four months? A pandemic started, President Trump ignored it, then minimized it, the Federal agencies tasked with handling things like this were caught flat-footed, the pandemic got a foothold in the U.S., the Federal government wasn’t nimble enough to keep pace, the States took matters into their own hands, the economy crashed, and tens of thousands of people are now dying, week by week.
The “greatest nation in the world” appears to the rest of the world as a bunch of clowns, scurrying about, as their country dissolves into itself. It almost appears as if we are trying to Make America Un-Great.
And, then, we get the political spin.
Lie, exaggerate, blame.
Repeat as necessary.