Our failed ‘wartime president’

On Tuesday afternoon as I wrote this, and according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there had been more than 135,000 deaths attributed to COVID-19 in the United States. The first having occurred on Feb. 29 of this year. And many more expected to be recorded as the days pass.

Compare this fact to these: If you add up the deaths suffered by American soldiers in Korea, Vietnam, and every conflict this country has been involved in since the middle of the 20th century, casualty numbers add up to approximately 105,000.

So over a period of less than 150 days, and under the direction of a man who in March labeled himself a “wartime president,” the U.S. has lost more men, women and children than in all the wars this country has been in over the past 70 years. It is something to consider as we near the election for president of the United States in November. Because there is no other way to say this: Donald J. Trump has been a total failure as a wartime president — a label he placed on himself when he said we were fighting an “invisible enemy.”

This is the same man who just a few months ago said, “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China.” He then boasted, “One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear.”

The true disappearing act is the one being played out by Trump himself, who now wants to blame everyone (but himself) — including his scientists — for the coronavirus disaster created by the administration he leads. But even worse, and this after losing almost two months when the president predicted that the virus would disappear, and that it was all just another Democratic Party hoax, almost five months into the pandemic this country has yet to come up with a comprehensive plan to attack this deadly enemy that has made our commander in chief look totally unprepared to lead a country — much less the U.S. — he promised to make great again. 

Comparisons to most of the rest of the world are staggering, and make Trump look like the mental-midget, and foolish make-believe reality star that we’ve always known he is. Trump couldn’t change a burned-out light bulb in the kitchen, much less lead a war against a pandemic he was warned of months before the virus attacked the U.S.

To think that the U.S. has almost a quarter of the deaths recorded worldwide because of COVID-19. That’s with a head start to get ready for the virus before most of the rest of the world. And yet, places like Italy, Germany and France, and most of Europe for that matter, have by now mitigated the effects of the virus. No wonder they are not allowing American tourists — once the apple of the rest of the world’s eyes — to travel there. 

All because Trump is, as I recently wrote, the type of idiot who’s been spoiled all his life into believing that if you think it, you can make it happen. I don’t doubt that Donald was the type of child who put his dropped baby teeth under his pillow only to complain the next morning when he only found a hundred dollar bill the tooth fairy had left him.

Trump believes that he can make this thing disappear, like magic. It’s how his life has been patterned… he couldn’t get into Wharton at the University of Pennsylvania; no problem, dad will build a new wing at the school, or else he’ll pay the smart kid to take the entrance exam for him.

But this has been going on for so long that he now thinks he’s the smart kid. Remember… before he was a “wartime president” he was a “very stable genius.” The true idiots, I guess, are the people who follow him blindly. Worse yet, though, are those allowing him to get away with murder and mayhem because it allows them to do as they please. Think Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. 

The problem now is that the situation has become so precarious — a likely defeat in November if things continue on this path — that he’s standing at the edge of the precipice, and wants us to jump in order to save him. For example, and this should have every single American screaming with fists raised in anger, he insists on sending children back to school in August, as if nothing was wrong.

It’s just another example that Trump cares only about Trump. We must not forget that Trump insisted on opening up the economy way too early and it’s the reason our coronavirus cases have again spiked to record numbers — expected to swell to 100,000 a day, according to one of the few officials who refuses to follow Trump blindly, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

I will be perfectly honest. As a citizen of this country, I am very nervous. Nobody really knows what is going on. And worse yet, since there is no leadership, at all, especially from the top, nobody really knows what to do next. It is worrisome…

As for sending my child back to school in August, Trump and all his acolytes, including the Mini-me governor of Florida, can kiss my ass until this killer on the loose is controlled.