By Sid Schwab / Herald Columnist
Stop me if you’ve heard this one: An adjudicated rapist and multiple-convicted felon and a war criminal under an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court walk onto a red carpet in Alaska …
Dang. I can’t remember the punchline but I don’t think I was laughing.
At his base camp with war crimina and free-world pariah Vladimir Putin, Donald “Day one war-ender” Trump humiliated himself and our country. Having forced U.S. troops literally to kneel and roll out the red carpet for Putin (CNN News18: tinyurl.com/rollred4u), welcoming him like storied royalty rather than the murderer he is — “his excellency Vladimir Putin,” as designated in left-behind plans for a luncheon that never happened, post-thud — Trump showered gifts and all but begged the KGB-trained liar for praise. Which he got, probably scripted in Moscow. Like all world leaders, Putin knows he can hustle Trump by feeding his unquenchable need for adulation. Played him like a three-ruble balalaika.
After predictably made-for-MAGA tough talk, Trump predictably caved (YouTube: tinyurl.com/DJTcaved). No ground given (literal or figurative) by Putin. Sealing the no-deal, Russia’s dictator told America’s that if it weren’t for vote-by-mail he would have won in 2020, after which Trump announced he wants to ban it. And Putin “confirmed” Trump’s perseverating confabulation that if he, Trump, had been president at the time, he, Putin, wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine. If Putin feared Trump then, why hasn’t he yielded to him now, when he is president? Does he, as rumored, have “something” on Trump?
Totally believable. If I’d become a nuclear physicist instead of a physician, I’d have solved cold fusion.
Ensorcelled by Putin’s weaponized fluffery, Trump surrendered his demand for a ceasefire and defended Putin’s claims to the Ukrainian territory he stole by kidnapping children and by bombing hospitals, shopping centers and homes. In response, because, unlike Trump, they understand history and world affairs, European leaders reasserted their support of Ukraine. Humiliated, Trump slunk to Sean “Safe-haven” Hannity to serve up Putin’s talking points, assuring the Fox host and his credulous listeners that the meeting was a “10 out of 10.” The self-congratulatory gaslighting he produced online afterward was emetic. And Kim-ian (MTN: tinyurl.com/heloveshe).
As expected of anyone Trump hires, NATO ambassador Matthew Whitaker, integrity-free because if he had any he’d not have been appointed, suggested that Russia could keep the parts of Ukraine it “earned on the battlefield” (RCP: tinyurl.com/2Bearned4u). Earned! Then he puffed that “only Trump” could end the war, because he’s a “peacemaker.” He must have forgotten Jan. 6.
Monday, Ukraine’s President Zelensky arrived at the White House, along with seven European leaders who, because they don’t trust Trump, rushed there to protect Ukraine’s interests. Meekled by men and women of resolve, he ended up pledging to support them. We’ll see. Tuesday, he backslid (HuffPost: tinyurl.com/2backoff). Living eternally in opposite world, MAGAs thought the leaders’ presence signaled respect for Trump. Maybe because, knowing the drill, they performatively thanked him (Washington Post: tinyurl.com/thanks4D).
Trump’s failure to art a deal is so unambiguous that, for now, we’ll leave it there. Instead, here’s something that, because I’m a physician, troubles me greatly: Through Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his hand-picked, Republican-senator-approved science-illiterate crank, Trump is making it harder for doctors to do their jobs (AAFP: tinyurl.com/2bad4docs).
Busy doctors don’t have time to read every new research paper. To stay current, they rely on reputable sources for their findings and their summaries of the work of others. On an online Q&A forum in which I participate, I’m often asked how to trust online medical information. Till now, along with places like Mayo and Fred Hutch, I’ve advised searching Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Institutes of Health websites, which many doctors also do. Now, not only can laypeople no longer rely on them, neither can doctors. Bobby J stripped those institutions of their most important researchers and fired members of oversight and advisory committees, replacing them with science-deficient hacks who’ll fill third-rate journals with crap research showing predetermined results. Because of ArfKay’s brainwormed delusions, your docs will fly a bit blinder.
It’s worse. Trump is the first president actively trying to lose the war on cancer. Well, sure, he has more important issues than caring what Babbling Bobby does. Growing the billions he’s made from his bitcoin scam since Inauguration 2.0., for example (New Yorker: tinyurl.com/heis2rich). If he cared more about Americans he swore to protect than about personal enrichment, he’d have stopped Junior from drastically defunding cancer research. Also mRNA vaccine research, which has encouraging potential for treating many, if not all kinds of cancer (NIH Library of Medicine: tinyurl.com/NOvax4cancer). It’s idiotic and deadly and MAGAs voted for it twice. But they’re too busy loving ICE brutality to care.
I know people who voted for Trump to stop the “woke mind virus,” which threatens an epidemic of thoughtfulness. There’s another virus, though, whose deadliness isn’t imaginary, infecting the White House and Congress: Trumpism. In the next election, America needs decontamination by massive, enlightened voter turnout. Which is why Republicans hate mail-in voting: it eliminates deliberately created long lines in minority districts and makes it easier for workers’ voices to be heard. Democrats, mostly.
Thank you for your attention to this matter (Daily Kos: tinyurl.com/2thankU).
Email Sid Schwab at columnsid@gmail.com.
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