Call this a
knee-jerk reaction from a leftist, call it a simplicity in interpretation of
representative democracy and governance; however, the gloomy times we all are
enduring this moment, has made me reevaluate how Donald J. Trump became the
President of the United States of America. Ignore the notion of Russian
intervention in the 2016 general election, exclude the debates over using
Electoral College to determine winner of the White House, or the
recommendations and summations of former CIA director Mueller’s report, as to
what transpired during the last general election. Now, visit for a moment, the
realities of the inaction or belated and begrudged support of state
governments' health system under stress from the volume of coronavirus
infections and daily deaths of Americans; coupled with harassment and
intimidation of state governors by the President of the United States, in the
quagmire of a world-wide pandemic?
From this
backdrop, you are led to surmise that, Our nation has been led to a nightmare,
one no one probably anticipated when voting in our last general election; a
nightmare that has imprisoned everyone in their respective states and homes, a
nightmare that tanked the economy, eradicated whatever galloping gains Dow Jones
Industrial Averages had shown in the Bonds, Stocks, Gold, Oil markets, since
the onset of the current Republican Administration. Our nation had put its bet
on a reality television show host with ample, or no knowledge of how our
federal government works; and, we are now paying the prize for taking risk on a
presupposed outsider to the Washington D.C. Political establishment.
The
quizzical paramount question for today therefore is this: did American voters
and electorate miscalculate in electing to the White House, a non-conventional
politician, Donald J. Trump? The supplementary questions are: were the
problems he was expected to resolve as contemplated by the far right
ideological supporters of the current White House, unregulated immigration, job
losses from poorly negotiated NAFTA agreements with Mexico and Canada,
overbearing government subsidized healthcare system, development of new and
modern infrastructure, among others, justify the national bondage of suffering
from the Coronavirus Pandemic? Had the President of the United States of
America responded to the initial coronavirus outbreak report, speedily, would the spread
of the virus have upended the lives of majority of Americans and become a real
threat to the nation’s economy and public health? Are the personal impacts to most
of our daily lives worthy of the partisan politics that have now grounded the
administration of American democracy under Donald Trump?
Donald J.
Trump, messiah of the Republican far-right, poo-pooed the spread of a virus
that already killed five thousand Americans and projected to kill between
100,000 and 250,000 Americans in the coming months. Mr. Trump was elected to
de-regulate and overturn whatever the first brown President of America did; and
as of to date, his supporters would argue he has probably accomplished what
they wanted or projected. If he hasn’t, he will probably accomplish them by the
time of his reelection campaign expiration. The questions once again, are: Is
America better-off today than she was at the inauguration of the 45th President
of the United States? Has Trump really made America Great? Has the coming of
the messiah of the ultra-right, Donald J. Trump, answered all the grievances of
his supporters?
Are the
general losses of liberties and freedoms, enjoyed for centuries by most
Americans, under the previous Republican and Democratic Presidential
Administrations, materialized for what the rightists anticipate four years ago?
Are the current fears and apprehensions under an overburdened healthcare system
due to inaction or deliberate hold back by the current Republican White house,
despite a heads-up on the possible impact of the pandemic from America’s
Intelligence Agencies and World Health Organization, made America great? Are
the stressed-out doctors, nurses, paramedics working, and putting in donkey
hours of work, to avert suffering and carnage of a pandemic, made the election
of Donald Trump, a worthwhile dispensation? Who do we now blame when the
current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, deny taking responsibility for
late reaction or inaction, when important and necessary, to prevent more deaths
of Americans?
Maybe this
leftist is just unusually ill informed, let’s take a glossary look at what has
taken place since February 21, 2020; roughly two months after the President of
the United States was alerted to the coming of this pandemic. Across the globe,
businesses started counting the cost of COVID-19 spread. As of February 21,
2020, the World Economic Forum was discussing the notion that generally,
epidemics are: 1) standalone business risk and amplifier of exiting trends of
market vulnerability; 2) all forward looking businesses therefore, investing in
strategy, operational, and financial resilience in emerging global risk markets
are better positioned to recoup wealth from an epidemic or pandemic; and, 3)
the COVID-19 outbreak is bringing about unexpected challenges to global
governance and actuates cracks in the concept of global inter-dependency. By
February 28, 2020, the Forum was rather concerned that the outbreak that
started in China was spreading faster than can be imagined, already showing up
in Italy, Iran and South Korea; with the stock markets of those countries
reflecting a resemblance to the SARS epidemic of two decades ago, and a
potential spooking of other counties’ stock exchange. As contemplated by the
World Economic Forum, an earthquake descended on the world’s economy with the
Dow Johns Industrial Average dipping over 1000 points on Monday, February 24th and
the next day, Tuesday, February 25th, with the shock reverberating
and repeating similar trend with the average tumbling, 879 points, again.
All bets were off by midday, February 28th, with trading stocks across world’s
markets, choppy along, and closely reflecting economic fallout and uncertainty,
from the spread of COVID 19. Any combination of politics with trade wars
emerging during this time, will culminate in uncertainties that will hammer
further instability in the global market and tear down market confidence.
By March 14,
2020, the world was in a race against time. As the global spread continues to
ravage countries, challenged health care systems, even in initially categorized
great healthcare systems were diabolically challenged. The rate of infection
was overwhelming many healthcare systems, importance of fast action to combat
the spread across the globe was being put out by every sources, until a team of
University of Washington researchers, called out the spread of misinformation
regarding the spread of the virus in a co-authored book: “Calling the Bull
Shit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-driven world”, by Jevin West and Carl T.
Bergstrom. Misinformation at this time was hampering efforts at fighting new
infections now known to be threatening the status of world’s health. Albeit, by
March 28, 2020, the global search of google was introducing notion that the
spread of coronavirus was creating increasing economic anxieties across the
globe. The fear of recession, conspiracy, coupled with stock market crashes
were introducing survivalism into the search lexicon on google.com. Imminent
contraction in the economic growth rates was being deeply associated with
coronavirus's spread. The World Economic Forum was calling for the containment of
the virus to reduce the loss of lives; and, asking policy makers to act quickly
to avert economic fallout of the worldwide spread of the pandemic.
Unfortunately, there had been no vaccines capable of doing the job anywhere
across the globe.
As the pandemic
crisis grows, here are some contradictory view on China from President Trump as
documented by Associates Press on April 2, 2020: 1) At the instance of knowing
of the virus spread, President Trump praised the Chinese government for being
on top of the spread's containment; however, when Beijing attempted unsubstantiated claim of
the virus coming from the United State, Mr. Trump excoriated the Chinese
government. Recently though, the President is once again pussy-footing to
Beijing, offering niceties; 2) By March 19, the President was lambasting the
Chinese for not coming clean regarding the spread of the virus, so the world
knows what exactly happened at Wuhen University, China; 3) While Beijing was
busy placarding the world, her National Health Commission was struggling with
dispensing objective information on how the virus was spreading even within her borders: Was it now at
the stage of person to person transmission, or is it contaminating from
inhaling or having any form of contact with COVI1D-19 victims?. To make the matters
worse, Dake Kang, Associated resident journalist wrote from Beijing,
the Chinese were already taking draconian decisions – all social media
application discussing the spread of COVID19 were censured and blocked; and,
government officials jailing their citizens found trying to tell the truth
about the spread within China; and probably outside of their country.
Politics and partisanship have complicated best way forward to combat spread of the virus in America. Based on the
data collected by the Pew Research Center between March 19 and 24th,
there is a partisan gap between the perception of the Republicans and the
Democrats regarding response of Donald Trump, the President of the United
States of America, to COVID-19 outbreak. If being partisan was very relevant in
time of a pandemic, well, the Republicans and their sympathizers’ default to a
high mark, 83% positive rating, and Democrats and their sympathizers, 18%
rating for the president. The perception of the members of the two political
parties are too disparate to conclude that the discords that has persisted
since the election of Donald Trump into office, making trust absent and
governance of the Republic challenging had evaporated since the spread of the Coronavirus.
The overall perception of how Donald Trump is handling his job, is just as
lopsided as the experience with the instance of the pandemic. While 85% of
Republicans approve of how the president is handling his job, only 12% of the
Democrats concur. Thus, even at difficult instance, when and where, it is
possible to conclude that death is wiping off America gradually, the partisan
divide still exists. (Source:
www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/FT_20.04_PartisanCOVID.png). Was this what the rightist anticipated in a National Economic and Health Crisis when they put their faith in the hand of a novice on how the federal government truly works?
If the
ineptitude of the current White House is not giving you a smoking gun to fire
the whole team, including many Republican lawmakers in US Congress
who have enabled an inefficient President in the coming general election,
maybe the aroma of deaths oozing out of American States hemorrhaging causalities from the spread of Coronavirus, would do? If the haphazardly arranged Coronavirus Updates from the Donald
Trump's White House are not misinforming you enough, maybe the flagrant
decision to fire the Inspector General of Intelligence Community and a
Navy Captain on USS Theodore Roosevelt Carrier, that alerted the top brass at US
Navy of a possible impeding slough of deaths at sea, in the mist of the
coronavirus outbreak would do; or, make you question the veracity from the
White House of making that decision at this very difficult time. If still
apprehensive of the poor call to fire the Inspector General of Intelligence
Community by a scandalously inefficient President, maybe, an issued
statement of Michael Horowitz, Chair of the Council of Inspectors General
of the Department of Justice, regarding the meritorious and
laudable career service of Inspector General Michael Atkinson would
convince you. Our nation is in a peril because of the inaction of Donald J. Trump, President of the United States. We are all imprisoned in our
houses, with limited liberties or freedom because of the failure to act of
an inept President who cares very little about all of us, but rather, in
his re-election chances. We have an opportunity to correct our
failure of electing an egomaniac in November, 2016, who is only interested in himself and
what his family can make from the commonwealth. It is time to tell Donald
Trump, we are no guinea pigs of his fantasies! It is time for Donald J. Trump to go!
Label: How did American Voters get it so wrong in the last general election?
