Imagine a person infected with a serious case of the COVID-19, and because it causes great physical and mental deterioration that leads to a serious secondary illness, or exacerbates an already present illness, and the person dies, and the medical examiner lists the COVID-19 as a the “probable” cause of death. Imagine that a person with a similar case lives in a state that ignores CDC requests to report such cases, and thus its virus death counts are greatly underestimated despite having, like other states in its region, record increases in positive tests for the virus. Imagine too that state officials are thus deliberately endangering the lives of its citizens by maintaining the pretense that the COVID-19 isn’t that “dangerous,” clearly for partisan political reasons.
That state would be Tennessee, but we can safely assume that this is true of other “red” states, particularly in the South. The person described above was the grandmother of one Stephen Miller, and the mother of one of Miller’s uncles, who recently posted about the hypocrisy of the Trump administration’s policies and Miller’s part in it. Predictably, the White House issued a statement denying that Miller’s grandmother died of the virus, ignoring the medical examiner’s written cause of death, which the uncle also posted. If anyone other than Trump and the familiars he surrounds himself with these days was occupying the White House, it is hard to believe that they could be as inhuman—especially in regard to one’s own kin; but then again, Miller has brought shame and embarrassment to his family, and he doesn’t care.
I turned on the television this past Saturday afternoon and I was shocked to see a real, live baseball game in progress, between the Milwaukee Brewers and the Chicago Cubs. I spent my formative years in Wisconsin (and not “formed” too well), and naturally I had a soft spot for the Brewers, although I am much more into football. I left it on as background noise while I was doing something else. But then I heard Joe Biden’s voice and there he was on a campaign ad talking about how the country needed real leadership that put people’s lives first instead of deceiving people for personal political survival. Not long afterward came a Trump campaign ad, showing a fearful old white woman inside an apartment, listening as somebody with a crowbar was attempting to break in. We are told she called 9-1-1, but no police officers were available because of defunding of police, which Biden supposedly supports.
So there you have it. That is what this campaign will be about in a nutshell. Biden is calling for a return to people-centered policies and not those centered on the conceits of one man who thinks only of the accumulation of power, by unlawful means when necessary, to transform petty personal grievances and racial paranoia into the new “national anthem.” Biden is addressing all the citizens of this country; Trump is addressing only “our” people. He has been doing this since at least when he started that “birther” business, and then kicked-off his 2016 campaign railing against immigrants and black athletes taking the knee. It is now being reported that Trump’s decision to do a few more “briefings” on the COVID-19 pandemic was not because of any real concern for “all” the people, but because the virus’ present rampage through “red” states led to his “advisers” prodding him to show more “concern” about “our” people—meaning Republican and independent voters in Florida and Midwest “swing” states who may no longer trust Trump, seeing his rhetoric about how “great” things are as being in fact evidence of a serious disconnect with what people are actually experiencing.
It has been pointed out repeatedly that the Trump campaign has been deceiving people with various misrepresentations and outright lies about Biden, and the claim in the above mentioned ad about his stand on police funding is an example of this. Biden told CBS News on June 8 that "No, I don't support defunding the police. I support conditioning federal aid to police based on whether or not they meet certain basic standards of decency and honorableness. And, in fact, are able to demonstrate they can protect the community and everybody in the community." He later said that “The last thing you need is an up-armored Humvee coming into a neighborhood. It’s like the military invading. They don’t know anybody. They become the enemy. They’re supposed to be protecting these people.”
This isn’t about “defunding” police or “demonizing” them; Biden would be foolish to make such a case. This is just about common sense. Trump and his familiars are not about common sense. Had Trump shown real leadership, these many weeks of protest would have ended long ago. But nobody trusts Trump to do the right thing—except “our” people, mainly white nationalists nursing their “grievances” from whom you can’t expect any sensitivity from in regard to what other communities are experiencing. With their help, Trump has been about nursing division in this country along racial and ideological lines so long that nobody believes anything he says that has anything to do with justice or healing. His idiotic statement that George Floyd is “looking down right now” and “saying this is a great thing that’s happening in our country” betrays the shocking lack of appreciation that Trump has of what is really “happening” in this country, and his call for “fair” and “equal” treatment in “every encounter with law enforcement” shows that the nuances of social discourse completely escapes him.
Just as his failure to address the COVID-19 issue with any sense of urgency early on only made things worse, so too did his failure to change his spots long enough to convince anyone that he was “sincere” in recognizing the danger of not providing a coherent, consistent message of one nation that does not tolerate abuse of power, especially when it is used to a lethal fashion. Quite the contrary, Trump’s actions in sending his DHS militia to Democratic cities only furthers the evidence of his authoritarian inclinations to support and engage in the abuse of power. Calling protesters “terrorists” and sending out his Stormtroopers is like throwing gasoline on hot embers; these protesters know Trump doesn’t give a shit about their concerns—if he did he would have gone on television in prime time and given a “heartfelt” call for national healing. He didn’t do that because it would upset his “base,” as I’m certain Mark Meadows and Stephen Miller “advised” him, and people wouldn’t have taken him seriously in any case.
I mean, we are talking about a president who just doesn’t understand anything save his own petty needs, and a heartless crew of supporters who only recognize the existence of “our” people. As another example of what Trump and his people believe is a “tremendous accomplishment” is the cancelling the Obama-era “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule,” at least according to Stanley Kurtz, who is called a “senior fellow” at the so-called Ethics and Public Policy Center, another “non-partisan” far-right “think tank” that has done little thinking in regard to the massive ethical and moral criminalities in the Trump administration. One might say that it is incredibly ironic that the Trump administration is at this time ending this rule which aimed to require communities that receive federal housing grants to make extra effort to insure racial discrimination in housing is not occurring. But then again, the people that was supposed to help are not “our” people.
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