The Real Test

 

 While testing is one of the keys to getting the coronavirus pandemic under control, and thus is constantly in the news, the pandemic is actually just a component of the crisis we are all going through right now. What we are actually facing is probably the most fundamental test that America has gone through since World War ll. It is a test to answer the question:

Can America survive in the world inside Trump’s head?

 

Let’s look at this world in light of the news of just the last few days:

In Trumpworld the fact that the US, with five percent of the world’s population, has thirty percent of the world’s Covid-19 cases is “a badge of honor” – proving that America is better at testing and finding infected people than any other country.

In the real America, Trump misinformed the American people, by minimizing the coronavirus threat for far too long, because he did not want it to affect his reelection chances. He thus caused America to have the worst record in the world in handling the situation – with over a hundred thousand deaths now projected before the end of May, compared with fewer than five hundred Covid-19 deaths in South Korea, which recorded its first death on the same day as the US. Today the true US unemployment rate is probably over twenty percent. South Korea’s unemployment rate is below four percent.

In Trumpworld firing the State Department Inspector General – who is investigating Mike Pompeo, the Secretary of State, for both personal and official violations – because he was appointed by President Obama; plus firing three other Inspectors General in the past month because they were not Trump loyalists, is the thing to do. Loyalty to Trump, not integrity and impartiality, is the primary qualification for the position.

In the real America, Inspectors General are non-political. They are loyal only to the constitution and their job is to bring to the attention of Congress possible wrongdoing within the executive branch of government.

In Trumpworld blaming the World Health Organization for the Coronavirus pandemic – and withdrawing from it – is consistent with Trump’s America First foreign policy.

The real America supports and exercises strong influence within the World Health Organization, considering it to be a vital tool in recognizing and combating multinational health problems.

In Trumpworld creating Obamagate – a phony scandal about what happened four years ago – and painting President Obama and Vice-President Biden as criminals who should be put in jail, is a legitimate way of deflecting attention from the disaster that Trump has created on his watch.

In the real America the Obama–Biden administration was one of the most scandal-free administrations in American history. President Obama sought to bring the known collusion between the Trump organization and Russia, that was taking place prior to the 2016 election, to the attention of America on a bi-partisan basis. He was stymied in doing so by Mitch McConnell.

In Trumpworld it is OK to make the pandemic a political issue – by attacking blue state governors, (particularly Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, a key state in Trump’s 2016 election victory) who are controlling the spread of the virus, for not opening up quickly enough – while praising red state governors for opening up in non-conformance with White House guidelines, resulting in rising infection and death rates in their states.

In the real America, the coronavirus is not a political issue for blue (and very few red) state governors – who are following White House guidelines by carefully opening up their states. However, such red states as Georgia, Texas and Wisconsin are ignoring the guidelines and opening up in a way that virtually guarantees they will experience a severe rise in infections and deaths. Whether this will cause them to pull back – or to continue to put commerce ahead of people’s lives – remains to be seen.

In Trumpworld  the president can promote and take hydroxychloroquine, a drug that his own administration advises against – and flout his administration’s advice regarding masks and social distancing – providing a very bad example which many of his supporters will follow.

In the real America, a vast majority of people are way ahead of Trumpworld in recognizing the severity of the pandemic. It is heartening to see how many people – both Democrat and Republican – are continuing to observe stay-at-home, social distancing and mask-wearing precautions.

In Trumpworld the president can flout the law for his loyal cronies – having his stooge attorney general act as his personal attorney: by withdrawing charges against former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, who had twice pleaded guilty of lying to the FBI and was awaiting sentencing;  by transferring former campaign manager Paul Manafort, from a seven year jail sentence to home confinement for the remaining four years of his term, for phony coronavirus protection (there was no actual threat); and by preparing to pardon close friend and advisor Roger Stone,  who is awaiting sentencing for campaign fraud. At the same time he can punish former close associate Michael Cohen (with whom he is an un-indicted co-conspirator) – who told the truth about him in court – by cancelling his planned release from jail to protect him from a real coronavirus threat.

In the real America the Attorney General is the head of an impartial non-political justice department.

Virtually every day since his inauguration Trump has done outrageous  things, such as  ignoring presidential norms, defying the constitution, cozying up to dictators, appointing cronies and loyalist political hacks to key positions, lying (now over eighteen thousand lies and misleading statements) and ignoring the law. Each time it has seemed that he had hit bottom and could not sink lower, but every time he has found ways to do so. The fact that all of the above Trumpworld events have happened in just a few recent days seems to indicate that this trend is now accelerating as Trump becomes increasingly disturbed about his diminishing prospects for reelection.

Having gone from early indications of a threat to American democracy to actually beginning to exercise almost dictatorial powers, Trump’s next steps are likely to be attempts to interfere with the election process itself. These will probably include such things as taking steps to make it more difficult for minorities to vote, trying to postpone the election and preparing to overturn the vote if it is close, using the his captive Attorney General, his pro-Trump Supreme Court and his puppet  Mitch McConnell’s control of the senate.

One early indication of this strategy is Trump’s opposition to universal voting by mail in the upcoming election,  on the baseless  assertion that mail-in voting is rife with fraud. It is not coincidental that Trump recently called the Postal Service (which is mandated by the constitution) “a joke” – and that he is  threatening to refuse to provide it with the extra coronavirus funding it needs to stay in business, if it does not quadruple its package delivery rates (primarily to Amazon). While this is presented in the media as part of Trump’s feud with Jeff Bezos, who owns what Trump calls “The Amazon Washington Post”, it is really an attempt to hobble the Post Office ahead of the election in order to reduce its capacity to handle voting by mail. In fact the postal service actually makes money from its deal with Amazon – and if these rates are quadrupled Amazon will switch its  USPS business to UPS, FedEx and it’s own “Prime Air” freight service, resulting in greater losses for the Post office and no harm to Amazon.

So, while the threat of the coronavirus to both American lives and the American economy is enormous, the threat of Trumpland to the real America – including FDR’s Four Freedoms: Freedom of Speech; Freedom of Worship; Freedom from Want; and Freedom from Fear – is existential. The real test we face is whether the Great American Experiment can outlast the autocracy in Trump’s head. The result of that test will be decided at the ballot box:  Biden – Yes; Trump – No. There has never been a more important choice.