Trump has the "total authority" to stick his lack of real leadership up his fundament

Donald Trump’s claim that he can overrule the executive orders of governors to lockdown their states should be taken for what it clearly is: a crass, cynical and selfish move to save what he thinks is the most important issue facing America—his own political skin, meaning that he thinks that human life can be sacrificed in the service of his reelection, and doing whatever is necessary to keep “his” economic numbers looking “great.” With the number of unemployed piling up, Trump clearly believes that it is better for his reelection chances if people would simply be agreeable to follow his wishes and go to work in a building that is a fire hazard, taking no heed to the possibility that it might burn down—and naturally if it does, you won’t hold Trump personally responsible for it. His immigration policies might excite his racist base, but for the rest of the population Trump seems to believe that his unethical, immoral and in some cases criminal behavior can all be “forgiven” as long as the economy stays “great,” which the COVID-19 is having the bad manners of interfering with. 

The problem is that Trump has lied and denied and misinformed us about the nature of the COVID-19 issue and what should be done so often that no one should take anything he says on the matter at face value. Maybe he can’t be blamed for everything that is wrong with this country, but his narcissistic focus on himself condemns him as unfit for his office.  This is a man who is so lacking in self-awareness and empathy that he not only refuses to acknowledge any mistakes, but is equally reluctant to “fix” those mistakes if it reflects poorly on his decision-making, or lack thereof. 

Trump is a man who is apparently so thin-skinned that he will like a dog follow anyone who feeds him and shelters him from his self-made harm. He has taken on as  “advisors” anyone on Fox News  who only care, like Trump, about their own skins and maintaining a stranglehold on public policy no matter how destructive it is. George W. Bush didn’t watch Fox News constantly for “advise” on policy like Trump does. How about some news that isn’t “fake”: Fox News has so tied itself to Trump, and vice versa, that if Trump is defeated in November they will both go down in that stinking ship together. Fox News has so discarded all credibility as a purveyor of real, factual news—in fact it has become what one analyst says is 10 percent news and 90 percent opinion—that it has become little more than a 24/7 Trump campaign advertisement, save for the hour that Chris Wallace hosts. It is simply worthless as a hard news outlet, dealing almost exclusively in liberal conspiracy theories, and because Trump himself thinks that if you do not “love” him, you must be “destroyed,” like a spoiled, pampered, thoughtless child he is eager to be so misled. Trump has never once shown than he is willing to do what is right out of simple human decency—only what Fox News most flagrantly bigoted far-right commentators tell him what he must do to maintain the allegiance of the most dark-minded elements in America.

Trump is now using his alleged press updates to mostly whine about non-Fox News coverage, as usual claiming that they are delivering news about the COVID-19 that is “totally fake.” More than 25,000 people have died in this country from the virus; is that “fake” news? Every day Worldometers.info counts 2,000 more new deaths in the U.S.; is that “fake” news? At the current rate, we should see one million infected and 60,000 dead in this country by the end of the month—with no vaccine yet on the horizon; the question is can it be said now with even the slightest confidence at what future date will it be safe to lift the various state restrictions? Who should we trust to make that determination—state governors or Trump? It is frankly insane to trust Trump to make that decision; sure, his faithful base will believe anything he says, as will corporate executives eager to refill their pockets at any price, and the “ordinary” uninformed who believe the story that the virus is just some made-up thing to hurt Trump politically. But Trump’s “base” has no right to tell the vast majority of the people in this country to lay down for someone as inhuman as Trump.

States like Washington and California took measures to prevent the spread of the virus before others did, and despite being nearer to the source of virus the result is that the pandemic has been largely contained in those states. Yet some conservative media outlets are providing Trump with the notion that social distancing doesn’t help prevent the spread of the virus, so why even do it? Just go about your daily workaday life and it won’t make any difference on the number of people who are infected, and maybe even die. But according to a study published by the British science journal Lancet on March 30, 

The world is currently experiencing the early stages of a global pandemic. Although China has succeeded in containing the disease spread for 2 months, such containment is unlikely to be achievable in most countries. Thus, much of the world will experience very large community epidemics of COVID-19 over the coming weeks and months. 

A price was paid for a slow reaction to problem. On March 25, the U.S. had a little less than 52,000 confirmed cases of the virus; today as noted, it has over 600,000 cases and only a small percentage of cases have been “cured.” Partisan politics in this country shouldn’t be playing a role in how to stop the virus. Trump claims that he has “total authority” to tell states what they can and cannot do in absence of any prior national guidance. States in the northeast and on the West Coast have their own plans, and are basically telling Trump that he has the “total authority” to stick his own outrageous lack of leadership that has led to so many deaths right up his fundament.