Donald Trump apparently continues
to con a majority of Americans into believing that he has the country’s
coronavirus predicament well in hand, even though he himself clearly has no
clue himself of what exactly is going on. For once I agree with Hillary Clinton
on something—he is no “doctor,” and people should be taking his claims that
everything will be just “great” by Easter with all the seriousness we would
give to an alchemist trying to convert a pile of manure into gold, or an
astrologer working from a sky chart taken on a cloudy night. Note that Trump
spends very little time during his press “updates” providing useful information
in regard to the coronavirus problem; instead, he treats it as a major
annoyance that the “fake news” media is trying to destroy him with—which, by
the way, is what Fox News is back to doing again.
Trump’s overuse of superlatives
only reflects his diminishing ability to think in logical terms, or find
appropriate words or thoughts that establish why he would think that everything
is “great” when they are not. We are supposed to believe that everything is
“great” just because Trump says it is? Is a majority of the country actually
“crazy” for believing that he is actually “in control” of the situation? When
there are reports that administration officials ignored a “playbook” which
offered guidelines on what do during a pandemic? A man who has been using the distribution
of needed supplies as a political weapon against those who have criticized the
failures of the administration to offer leadership that actually is of
substance and not mere rhetoric? A man who just claimed “victory” over the
virus on a day that 129 Americans died of it? A record 3.3 million apply for unemployment insurance in one week? No big deal. The U.S. passes China and Italy for the most virus cases? What was that? What about that AOC virus thing?
So who is coming to “rescue” us
in the 2020 election? Joe Biden? Biden
finally came out of hiding this week, and one wonders what the heck he had been
doing, because it apparently wasn’t spending a lot of time studying and making
sure he had everything straight in his mind. If you listen to Fox News (which a
majority of cable news watchers do), his media blitz on Trump’s “leadership” on
the coronavirus problem did, to put it mildly, more-or-less confirm fears about the current state
of his mind. He did practically everything wrong—not covering his cough
“correctly,” constantly touching his face, unable to carry on a subject after
the teleprompter malfunctioned, mispronouncing one-syllable words, losing his
train of thought, making silly criticisms of Trump that made no sense. According
to Brit Hume, "like so many people his age, (Biden) is losing his memory
and is getting senile. I don't think there's any doubt about this. I have traces
of this myself. I know what it feels like. Sometimes you're confused, sometimes
you can't remember, 'What are you supposed to do the next morning?'—and I'm not
running for president and it's probably a good thing I'm not."
Look, Sanders supporters told you
about this, and you didn’t listen. Now what? Biden needs to either get with his
doctor pronto and work with him on ingesting some memory-improving vitamin
supplements, or keep his media commentaries to sound-bite level. That’s not
necessarily a “losing” strategy—I mean, look at Trump, or Ronald Reagan. Back
in 1984 during his summation in his first debate with Walter Mondale, Reagan
seemed hopelessly lost and confused, particularly when trying to recall numbers
and statistics. In the next debates, Reagan dispensed with facts and figures,
keeping to what he regarded as “common sense” views on policy. That’s not
necessarily a “loser” if your opponent has trouble making sense even under the
best of circumstances. While it was clear that Biden appeared to be of sound
mind during the last debate, probably due to extensive preparation, an
unprepared Biden sets himself up as an embarrassing clown show. I take no
pleasure in saying that, since we already have someone in office who wouldn’t
know a fact if it hit him in the face.
We would hope that Biden at this point is sure of
himself enough that he knows what he wants to accomplish, if that means
spending some quiet time studying, which obviously Trump does not like to do.
We know that Trump has difficulty absorbing more than one idea at a time;
during policy briefings, aides have to keep hammering home one point until he “gets
it.” Trump has allowed inhuman people like Stephen Miller to take charge of
domestic policy, someone like Mike Pompeo who thinks everything is a “joke”
take control of foreign policy, and William Barr to style himself as Heinrich Himmler. I don’t believe that anyone thinks that Biden is
incapable, and that he will surround himself with humane people to formulate policy.
We should not fear that he is at a stage that CBS News’ Lesley Stahl described Reagan during an encounter in the White House in 1986. Told not to ask him any questions, she found
him
…as
shriveled as a kumquat. He was so frail, his skin so paper-thin. I could almost
see the sunlight through the back of his withered neck…His eyes were coated.
Larry introduced us, but he had to shout. Had Reagan turned off his hearing
aid?…Reagan didn’t seem to know who I was. He gave me a distant look with those
milky eyes and shook my hand weakly. Oh, my, he’s gonzo, I thought. I have to
go out on the lawn tonight and tell my countrymen that the president of the
United States is a doddering space cadet. My heart began to hammer with the
import…I was aware of the delicacy with which I would have to write my script.
But I was quite sure of my diagnosis.
Stahl decided not to make this observation public until in a
book that was published after Reagan passed away. The question for us now is
that we will likely be presented with two candidates, one whose inability to
digest factual information leads him to reject such information in favor of whatever
ill-defined nonsense that he believes will put him in the best possible light
regardless of consequences, or someone who is not as “quick” of mind as he used
to be, which makes his proneness to gaffe-making more subject to inquiry in
regard to his mental state, but who we also know is guided by simple human
decency and true American values, which the Trump administration lacks in
abundance.
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