Trump’s abject failure on COVID-19 is the natural product of his malicious ignorance
As the COVID-19 death toll surpasses 100,000 in the U.S., every life has been lost on President Donald Trump’s watch. During his presidency, the country was completely unprepared. His response to continual warnings was to golf, watch TV and tweet rants that he declared to be official policy.
His pandemic record is by far the worst in the world. Obviously, he has not kept us safe. Every other country’s leader has done better. Nevertheless, he brags that his record has been perfect. His supporters, acting much like abused spouses, remain loyal as every irrational thought that pops into his head tweets from his fingers.
Nothing had prepared Trump to be president, not even the popular vote. He had no idea how the office worked, what he should do or what functions government actually performed. Worse, he did not care.
He told Congress that resources were adequate to deal with any pandemic, so he cut funding. Now he whines, falsely, that Barack Obama left him with “empty cupboards,” and ignores the three years in which he progressively reduced America’s capabilities. Trump makes decisions without knowledge, and, astonishingly, operates under the incredible delusion that his “great and unmatched wisdom” functions better that way.
Trump is not an ideologically coherent fascist, but he plays one on TV. Targets of his hatred include dark-skinned immigrants (not Norwegians), poor countries, Democrats (the capable Obama above all) and “enemies of the people” (the media) — in fact, anyone who disagrees.
He cannot tolerate dissent and charges his opponents with everything he can think of, up to and including murder. At his rallies and elsewhere, conformity is essential. He encourages chants of “lock her up,” among other outrages that violate all the standards that have made America great. Even wearing a mask to help mitigate the spread of the virus in some places has become the mark of a “liberal” who must be attacked.
There are signs of this everywhere. This essay no doubt will bring shrieks of protest, such as happened recently when the fine scholar Burdett A. Loomis, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Kansas, wrote a Star guest commentary that presented a thoughtful discussion of the rash actions by Republicans in the Kansas Legislature at the session’s end. Loomis needs no defense from me, but a semi-coherent letter to the editor attacking him days later displays an ignorance that requires a response. “Professors,” the writer says, “should show no bias.”
Nonsense. It is very much the job of professors to be biased — biased in favor of fact.
A great Missourian, Harry Truman, put it succinctly and accurately during his presidential campaign in 1948. He was addressing a crowd when someone yelled, “Give ‘em hell, Harry!” Truman replied: “I don’t give them hell. I just tell the truth about them, and they think it’s hell.”
Trump says the world will pay a big price for China’s early delay in reporting the coronavirus. He neither knows, nor cares, how large a price it will pay because of his early denial of the pandemic and his refusal to act in the face of years of warnings — many from within his own administration. Add to that his repetition of the Republicans’ demonization of science and fact, and their contempt for knowledge in general, and the price constantly escalates. It includes the degradation of our civic spirit and of political discourse.
Some of Trump’s supporters recognize him as a crude bully who resists all restraint, but they argue that his roughness is necessary to bring everything crashing down and substitute the policies they prefer. No terrorist, including those on 9/11, could have come up with a comment that expresses hatred of America more fully.
Today’s Republicans will always act like Republicans when possible and divert funds to the wealthy. Democrats must adhere to the goals of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Truman, and Lyndon B. Johnson’s New Deal, Fair Deal and Great Society. They must go beyond the best of their heritage and protect the planet, while providing health and good living as part of a great country’s guaranteed rights — for everyone.
Max J. Skidmore is the University of Missouri Curators’ Distinguished Professor Emeritus and author of the books “A Common Sense Manifesto (With a Nod to Thomas Paine, Not Karl Marx),” “Presidents, Pandemics, and Politics” and others.
This story was originally published May 31, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Trump’s abject failure on COVID-19 is the natural product of his malicious ignorance."