“Trump’s Last Year in Office: Two Impeachments and 400,000 Funerals ” © Tom Ersin 2022. This is the current installment from the serialized publication of this distinctive historical book.
THIS WEEK’S HEADLINES (skip to article)
- “PANDEMIC: Trump Muses Seriously About Injecting ‘disinfectant’ Into COVID-19 Patients; Lysol Corp. et al. Feel Compelled to Issue Warning Statements That Ingesting Disinfectants Can Kill You” (4/23/2020)
- “PANDEMIC: After Supporters Denied Trump Said ‘injecting disinfectant,’ ‘strong light treatment’ Remarks, He Admits Saying It but That He Was Being Sarcastic, Baiting Reporters to ‘see what would happen’; Denies Addressing Dr. Birx; of Course, Video Evidence Confirms ‘sarcasm’ Lie” (4/24/2020)
- “PANDEMIC: U.S. Death Toll Surpasses 50,000” (4/24/2020)
- “PANDEMIC: After Heavy Lobbying From Advisers Who Fear Major Political Damage, Trump Will Cut Back on WH Briefings Because They’re ‘not worth my time’ Dealing w/ ‘hostile questions’” (4/25/2020)
- “PANDEMIC: WH Ups Efforts to Cripple WHO, Shift Blame From Inept WH Response” (4/26/2020)
- “ECONOMY: WH Mismanaged Small Bus. Paycheck Loans, Allowing Big Business Benefits” (4/27/2020)
- “PANDEMIC: FEMA Co-opted (Stole) 5M Facemask Shipment From Veterans Association” (4/27/2020)
- “PANDEMIC: 10 Days Ago, CDC Expanded Symptoms List, but Was Kept Quiet” (4/27/2020)
- “PANDEMIC: CDC Issues Meat Plant Guidelines, but They’re Only Toothless Suggestions” (4/27/2020)
- “PANDEMIC: Trump Ignored PDBs w/ Repeated Red-Flag Pandemic Warnings Starting Early Jan.; Famously Didn’t Read, Barely Listened to Dumbed-Down Oral Briefings 2-3 Times Weekly” (4/28/2020)
- “PANDEMIC: Trump Orders Massively Infected Meat Plants to Stay Open, Reopen w/ No Safety Orders, Will Provide Increased PPE Supplies; CDC Rules Downgraded to ‘suggestions,’ ‘if possible’” (4/28/2020)
- “PANDEMIC: CDC, OSHA Have Developed Life-Saving Rules; Trump Won’t Enforce” (4/28/2020)
- “PANDEMIC: VP Pence Only Person NOT to Wear Mask, Violates Mayo Clinic Policy at Photo Op, Ignores Opportunity to Role Model Intelligence, Safety, Humility to American People” (4/28/2020)
- “Rep. Justin Amash (I-MI), Only Then-Republican to Vote for Trump Impeachment, Will Run for President on Libertarian Ticket” (4/28/2020)
- “Unfounded Biden Assault Accusations Picking Up Steam on Right, in Media” (4/28/2020)
- “PANDEMIC: U.S. Surpasses 1,000,000 Confirmed Cases; Experts Say Number is Way Low” (4/28/2020)
- “PANDEMIC: U.S. Surpasses Total Vietnam Death Toll of Americans: 58,220+” (4/28/2020)
- “PANDEMIC: Trump Blatantly Lies: Announces Virus Will ‘go away,’ Experts Believe ‘worst is behind us’; Calls for ‘rapid reopening’ of U.S. Economy” (4/28/2020)
- “PANDEMIC: Trump Co-opts Stimulus Notice w/ Vanity Letter Taking Credit, Campaigning” (4/29/2020)
- “PANDEMIC: Trump Endangering West Point Grads, Forcing Them Back From Across U.S. to Hear His Hastily Scheduled Commencement Speech for Photo Op” (4/29/2020)
- “ECONOMY: 4.8% (1st Qtr.) Quarterly Shrink, Largest Fall Since Great Recession” (4/29/2020)
- “Trump Melts Down at Advisers, Bad Poll Numbers: ‘I will not f***ing lose to Joe Biden!’” (4/29/2020)
- “PANDEMIC: 21 States (Mostly GOP Governors) Will Ease Restrictions This Week; None Have Met WH Minimum Standards of 14 Consecutive Days of Decreasing Virus Case Numbers” (4/30/2020)
- “PANDEMIC: WH Social Distancing Guidelines Expire, Won’t Be Renewed” (4/30/2020)
- “PANDEMIC: Neb., Iowa GOP Govs. Order all Workers Back, No UEI Benefits if They Refuse” (4/30/2020)
- “ECONOMY: U.S. Jobless Claims: This Week, 3.8M; 6-Week Total, 30M+” (4/30/2020)
- “PANDEMIC: U.S./World: 1,040,488/3,209,984 Cases; 60,999/228,057 Deaths; 8:14 a.m. E” (4/30/2020)
COVID-19 Deaths
2/06/2020 — U.S.: 1 | World: 620
3/05/2020 — U.S.: 12 | World: 3,293
4/02/2020 — U.S.: 5,137 | World: 48,284
4/30/2020 — U.S.: 60,999 | World: 228,057
(COVID-19 Dashboard by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University; approximately 8 a.m. each day)
Trump Presidency Is Deadly
The astonishing deadly circus that is the Trump presidency is like the Grand Canyon. Standing at the abyss, one person’s two eyes are incapable of comprehending the vastness. It overwhelms the consciousness.
The staggering state of Trumpian havoc can be perceived only through the big picture of reading books and consuming media reports throughout his tenure. Sadly the average person can’t or won’t do this. So the lethal clown show lumbers on.
With spray-on tan, million-dollar comb-over, and both raccoon eyes focused firmly upon reelection — and only reelection — President Trump needlessly is allowing Americans to die in the following ways:
1) He’s forcing heavily infected meat plants to reopen or stay open while refusing to order workplace safety rules enactment and enforcement.
2) But he’s (still) refusing to mandate national testing production and implementation. He wants to keep the “numbers” down. (After declaring a national emergency 48 days ago, and 77 days after his partial China travel ban, the U.S. per capita testing rate is still at the bottom among developed nations.)
3) He’s castrated the CDC and OSHA, stifling their influence and rule-making authority that would enforce life-saving safety measures at U.S. workplaces.
4) He’s openly and tacitly influencing states to reopen their economies prematurely, “rapidly,” almost guaranteeing a second deadly wave of the pandemic.
5) He’s threatening to withhold aid to states with Democratic governors and has played favorites with PPE shipments.
6) He’s telling dangerous lies saying “experts say the worst is behind us,” the virus will “soon just go away,” and that the U.S. has done sufficient testing. This provides fodder for the Diamond-and-Silk, anti-deep-state crowd pushing for premature reopening and elimination of social distancing.
7) He’s refusing to extend the White House social distancing guidelines — even though they’re only weak suggestions — past April 30, though U.S. deaths have exceeded 60,000 and still are climbing.
Trumpism Kills
“On Tuesday, Trump showed support for commentators Diamond and Silk after they were dropped by Fox News over their repeated nonsense about the virus: suggestions that the ‘deep state’ is to blame, that the virus is ‘engineered’ and that people should go ‘out in the environment,’ not shelter in their homes. Most recently, the pair hosted a scientist — part of the fire-Anthony-Fauci crowd — who argues that the coronavirus can be cured not with vaccines but with vitamin supplements.
“‘I love Diamond & Silk, and so do millions of people,’ Trump tweeted in their defense.”
(Milbank, Dana; “Trump Tests His Most Promising Coronavirus Antidote: Lies”; The Washington Post; 4/28/2020.)
Complicating truth and reason are the president’s tacit messages to his cult members. He states publicly that COVID-19 is a serious tragedy and he is doing more to fight it than anyone else on Earth could: We’re doing a “beautiful job”; it’s a “success story.” Then he winks to MAGA devotees by tweeting his love for the ultra-right buffoonish comedy duo masquerading as political pundits, Diamond and Silk.
Donald’s evil genius lies in his ability to send two completely conflicting messages simultaneously. This is apart from the galactic fire hose of patent mendacity. Trump can say in the same press briefing: 1) testing is important and that’s why he’s responsible for the U.S. conducting the most testing in the world; and 2) but it is states’ responsibility to do testing and, besides, more testing is not that important to opening up the economy.
The result is that cultists hear one thing: The importance of testing is overblown, probably even a lie perpetuated by the deep state. Critics hear another thing: Trump is playing down the importance of testing while the U.S. per capita testing rate is dismally low. Then when they call him on it he can say, “Testing is important. Testing is not a problem. We’re testing more — twice as much — as any other country in the world, combined.”
Meanwhile every credible scientific and epidemiological expert in the country says that widespread testing is the only way out of this crisis and U.S. per capita testing still is woefully inadequate.
President Trump implies at his briefings: 1) there is no virus conspiracy, it’s real; 2) people should continue social distancing; and 3) he has no intention of firing Dr. Fauci.
Then he tweet-throws love at Diamond and Silk — whom even Fox News thinks are over-the-top conspiracy nuts — who: 1) say the deep state has “engineered” the virus to topple Trump; 2) encourage people to ignore the safety guidelines and go “out in the environment”; and 3) host a fire-Anthony-Fauci-crowd scientist who advocates vitamins not vaccines.
Confession
I have a confession to make. I pose on Facebook as a liberal anti-Trump evangelical Caucasian man. (There are a few of “us.”) I started this about a month ago and even I was shocked, thunderstruck at the venomous invective hurled by “my fellow Christians” as I respectfully pushed back on their phantasmagoric conspiracy theories and — still to this day — Hillary Clinton vitriol. Donald Trump is their man, a true Christian, and they will walk through rhetorical and maybe even literal fire for him. The cult mentality is frightening.
And while I was in a coma or something, Microsoft co-founder and world-class philanthropist Bill Gates has become a boogeyman for the right and Christian right. Instead of being lauded as a man donating 95% of his many billions of dollars to help citizens of Earth not die, he is pummeled falsely for 1) having decided the world is too populated, 2) conspiring secretly to engineer the coronavirus, and 3) spreading the virus to cull the herd and depopulate the planet. Oh, and Bill is the chief architect of the coming one-world government. White Christian ladies hate him the most.
Whatever happened to Ten Commandments enthusiasts?■
[Tom Ersin has been a full-time professional writer and editor since 2010 and holds degrees in communications and counseling. He’s a long-time political observer and has written a half-dozen nonfiction books on 21st century U.S. politics.] Click here to purchase book. Please leave a rating.
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