Doing the Right Thing

Tomorrow is election day and with it comes the opportunity to either continue with more of the same or to change the face of government beginning with 2021.  I'm no different than roughly half of my friends, family and acquaintances - we have Trump fatigue.  After four seasons of reality television governance I've had my fill of chaos.  It's time to move on.  

Those of you readers who know me - already know that I'm no fan of Donald Trump.  I have never been a fan of Donald Trump.  When I first became aware of him some three and a half decades ago I pretty much figured him for something of a con-man and braggadocio who was the star of a really lame television production.  I never did - and still do not - understand the attraction.  

Nevertheless, he was elected president and I had some hope that he would evolve and grow into presidential material. That did not happen.  What followed was bad trade policy, ad-hoc domestic economic policy, inconsistent foreign policy, random agricultural policy - almost all of it directed by means of absurd tweeting.  

And the interesting thing about all of this was that the economy Donald Trump inherited from Barack Obama remained strong.  If not for the stifling impact of punitive tariffs GDP growth would have been stronger - but I'll take strong any day of the week.  Under ideal circumstances - at this point in time - there would have been a high probability that Donald Trump would be sailing to another electoral victory on the coattails of the economy.  He may yet sail to an electoral victory - but there is the very real possibility we won't know that for sure until the end of the week. 

Unfortunately for Donald Trump he made a strategic error.  He allowed his singular fixation-upon the investment markets as the key to reelection get the best of him.  And at this point in time it is now all about the pandemic.  From the interweb are a couple of historical factoids to provide perspective. 

In the depths of World War II American soldiers were dying at a rate of 9,200 a month.  That is less than one-third the pace of deaths from this pandemic.  

By 1945, Henry Ford’s Willow Run assembly plant was producing a new B-24 bomber every hour of every day.  Donald Trump hasn’t demonstrated the leadership necessary to ramp-up domestic  production of a sufficient number of simple and uncomplicated N95 masks.  

I’ve been following this closely since the early part of 2020.  I am struck that Donald Trump’s leadership sabbatical from managing the pandemic stems largely from his preoccupation with reelection.  More concerned about ‘spooking’ the markets Trump’s strategy was to soft-peddle the virus and push back on the very real danger to this nation in an effort to keep the economy roaring. 

Leadership on a comprehensive plan to fight Covid was replaced with willful blindness. 

This was further complicated by the embrace of anti-intellectual sentiment and dismissal of science in the face of wishful thinking.  At the end of last February Donald Trump had this to say about the virus - 'It’s going to disappear one day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear.' 

Donald Trump proceeded with the following:  

He politicized and discouraged mask wearing.  

His administration bungled an initial attempt at testing. 

His administration delayed a roll out of contact tracing. 

His administration failed to isolate the infected and exposed.  

His administration failed to protect assisted living communities and nursing homes.  

Trump contributed to the initial confusion with his bizarre, incoherent and nonsensical advice about injecting bleach into the bodies of the infected, exposing the sick to intense ultraviolet light and the use of an untested and dangerous antimalarial drug - hydroxychloroquine. 

True to form - Trump refused to lead and rejected responsibility.  Predictably, he dismissed any unified countermeasures instead shifting all responsibility to the states and local municipalities to persecute the war on Covid.  Chaos prevailed.  And blame-shifting is what Trump does.   

To be fair – he did yeoman's work accelerating the pace of vaccine research and development. Better late than never.  

Great leaders are endowed with great qualities.  Among them are an ability to act immediately and to place the interests of the citizenry above their own. Great leaders seek advice, embrace experts and science. They speak the truth.  They unify and lead states and municipalities for the greater good.  

Alas, Donald Trump devalues science and denigrates and expresses contempt for experts. He refers to them as idiots.  He divides the nation and pits Republican states and municipalities against Democrat-leaning states and municipalities.  Trump is not a unifying force. 

He is not a leader.

He is a chronic liar and seemingly incapable of telling the truth even when it is in his own best interests to do so. 

Doing the right thing is not in his lexicon.

As evidence of his bungling the best tool for saving our economy was to control the virus.  Sure, I understand that this pandemic would challenge any president.

Nobody can control it completely.

Donald Trump chose to ignore the virus. 

As a consequence we have a seriously wounded economy.  It took more than three months for the first 500,000 Covid cases to be tallied in the US.  Just last week the US smashed another record with more than an additional 500,000 cases in a single week - 92,000+ in a single day. 

Even as the Trump administration announced last week that it has ended the Covid pandemic as a first-term scientific accomplishment - hospital admissions climbed more than fifty percent in one month.

At last count there are more than 9,300,000 coronavirus cases, more than 233,000 Covid deaths - growing by more than 1,000 a day.  Hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of additional individuals have dodged a death sentence only to be hobbled by chronic Covid complications.  

Millions of my countrymen are unemployed, three-fifths of U.S. businesses that have closed since the start of the coronavirus pandemic will never reopen.  Donald Trump has blown thru the previous bankruptcy record set in 2008.  Foreclosures and evictions are manifest. 

It is a mess and because he has lorded over all of it Donald Trump owns all of it.  

I do not make it a practice to take politics personally.  Explain to me the rules and I can navigate life with a reasonable degree of success.  I can do a decent job of compartmentalizing the emotional element to the politics. Nonetheless, I hold Donald Trump personally responsible for taking from me a valuable year of my remaining life. 

No grand-kids.

Multiple vacations cancelled.

No foreign or domestic travel. 

No school garden with the local kiddos.

No socializing with friends.

No nothing. 

It did not have to be this bad.

Ample-enough reason for him to be fired.  Harsh words from a guy that typically has been a reliable supporter of Republican presidents.  Not this time.  I'd like to see the GOP I knew rid itself of the decay, stain and sin of Trump and Trumpism.  

That said, the remaining half of my friends, family and acquaintances are to some degree Trump supporters.  They range from die-hard personality-cult Trumpers to others that hold their nose and vote for him because they are single issue anti-abortion voters, desire to pack the courts or harbor some other personal or policy grievance.  For them a vote for Trump is doing the right thing.  I get it.  

To these people I would say that I bear you no animus.  Many of you are counted among my closest friends.  Some of you are family.  All of you are my countrymen.  We share a difference of opinion.  

After this election is behind us and the winner is duly declared roughly half the nation will likely be in a dark place for a spell.  

Yet, the sun will surely rise every day as there are some laws of nature that are immutable.  Life will go on.  What never changes is that we have a duty to each other as contributing members of society to look out for one-another and advance the greater good.  

Let's all get on with life continuing to do the right thing.