Increasingly I find myself asking why millions of Americans continue to acquiesce or actively support a second term for Donald Trump. I find it crazy, unbelievable, so much so that it must be fiction or a fantasy movie playing out on late TV to titillate audiences given over to absurd and bizarre tales. It must be “fake” news as it smells of something that would only happen in an imaginary country. Even in real life, in Germany of the twenties and thirties where evil prevailed, it didn’t happen like this.
Since November 2016 the United States has been put through hell largely by the hand of a megalomaniac bent on feeding his ego and a small handful of suck-ups who prey on discontent and the disaffected. There are too many looney and downright nasty examples to dwell on here that most of you already know as they played out in plain sight ad nauseam during Trump’s administration. Who can forget his genuflecting to Putin in Helsinki, his attempt to bribe the newly elected President Zelensky for aid to Ukraine, or his disparagement of John McCain? And who doesn’t remember that he was pro-choice before switching to pro-life to gain evangelical votes, that he imposed tariffs that hurt American companies and consumers, cut taxes to the super wealthy and boasted that he would build a wall financed by the Mexicans? Who can forget the barrage of lies?
Still the above examples and sundry others might be debated, denied or given nuanced interpretations by political spin doctors and MAGA true believers. For too many people, truth has been replaced by lies, repeated incessantly by Trump and his allies.
There are, however, two actions, two overwhelming truths, about the Trump presidency that stand out and cannot be rationalized, lied into obscurity or dusted under the national consciousness – Trump’s handling of the Covid pandemic and his election denial and role in the attack on the nation’s capitol on January 6, 2021. These alone should disqualify him running or ever holding office again. The fact that he is a viable candidate in the current election is embarrassing and potentially lethal for our democracy. Why would free citizens entertain voting for a leader who presided over their deaths and led a coup against their constitutional government?
Americans kept dying while then President Trump refused to use his bully pulpit to warn of the dangers saying the Coronavirus disease was like the flu and would be over in a couple weeks. Despite repeated warnings from medical experts he continued to discourage people from taking precautions such as wearing masks or distancing themselves from others or avoiding crowds. Instead he sought political advantage by playing to skeptics and embracing quack medical prescriptions. Who can forget his cockamamie suggestion that we might inject ourselves with disinfectant to kill the virus? Perhaps most egregious was his discouraging taking the very vaccine that his administration so successfully and rapidly had developed. The United States had 1,193,165 confirmed deaths from Covid-19, the highest of any country, and the 17th highest per capita worldwide. We all saw this play out day after day and we saw and heard Trump sabotage remedies for political gain. He clearly has the blood of many thousands of Americans on his hands. That he is personally responsible for Americans dying cannot be expunged from the record.
Trump’s actions after losing the 2020 election were especially appalling. He denied that he had lost and immediately began working to overturn the election results, intimidating election workers and concocting a scheme for fake electors in several critical states. His crowning effort to stay in power was his abortive effort in fomenting an attack on the Capitol on January 6th to prevent the certification of the election results. The violence led to five deaths, scores of injured police officers and 2.7 million dollars damage, all while Trump did nothing as he watched the riot unfold on television from the White House.
This is the man who is the Republican candidate for President of the United States. Go figure.