By Sid Schwab / Herald columnist
Dr. Robert Redfield, Trump’s head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is a virologist, which is good. One investigated for questionable research, which isn’t.
He called AIDS God’s judgment on gays; opposed, on religious grounds, providing needle exchanges and condoms to at-risk people. Has no management experience. Also not good. He’s the guy smiling lovingly as Trump brags about his aptitude for science, lauding him on cue, laughing appreciatively when Trump called our governor “a snake.” Might Redfield’s Trump-fluffing have something to do with CDC’s tardy, disjointed response to Covid-19?
Soon after Donald “Chinese-hoax-windmill-cancer-virus-will-disappear-like-magic” Trump revealed he hadn’t known people died from influenza, he claimed “a natural instinct for science.” Some 675,000 Americans died in the flu pandemic of 1918, and our “president” didn’t know. Previously, he’d asked why the flu vaccine wouldn’t work on Covid-19, and expected a vaccine in two months. For him, that’s natural, all right, but instinct it’s not. It illuminates, however, how he bankrupted six businesses before becoming “president.”
In 2016, Republicans overlooked Trump’s prior failures. Now, like those businesses, we’re imperiled by a person convinced he knows more about everything than anyone. Who ignores expert advice. Who’s more devoted to protecting his image than fellow Americans, fabricating lies to maintain it. Who, visiting the CDC, presumably to appear in charge, instead let loose an astounding string of falsehoods, self-congratulation and gibberish. His unfit leadership was writ large as the gilded name on his hotels. Then he absconded to Mar-a-Lago, compounding the $131 million in taxpayer dollars for his golfing; not including hundreds of thousands in inflated prices his properties charge the Secret Service.
Issues like climate change, budget deficits, capitalism-destroying disregard for middle- and lower-class Americans while enriching the already-wealthy, are too removed, too arcane to concern hardcore Trumpists. Nobody who’s much beyond voting age is likely to die anytime soon from those things. And if some will die from such destructive policies, his supporters figure it’ll be people they never cared much about in the first place. Like minorities and the post-born.
But this virus thing? People are dying. Now. Close to home. Not just poor people. Parents. Grandparents. The impacts are universal. Countries are shutting down, and, God help us, Costco ran out of toilet paper.
By now, isn’t the danger of a “president” like Trump obvious? If not to the “Trump was sent by God” people, then to hypothetical supporters who retain a toehold on reality? Isn’t it disquieting that Trump tweets infantile, fact-free vitriol and baseless braggadocio in the middle of a crisis, heads off to golf, tells infected people it’s OK to go to work? Expert advisers afraid to be candid, complicit henchfolk saying the virus is “contained,” even as cases — and deaths — mount? Are no Trump voters wishing for a leader in whose words and competence they could believe? Who had experience in rational problem-solving rather than getting bailed out or leaving employees and contractors in the lurch?
Have none considered the benefits of having a “president” who didn’t squelch government scientists, wasn’t holding presumably political coronavirus meetings that excluded experts, hadn’t disbanded our pandemic response team; whose advisers were chosen for expertise rather than sycophancy? One who didn’t fire people for acknowledging truths he denies, who’d act on facts, rather than dismiss them or lie about them or sue news organizations over revealing them? Assuming he could tell the difference?
Knowledgeable people are admitting they’re having to sneak truth into the conversation in ways that won’t anger Trump. How did being honest with a “president” become something risky? Who’s not endangered when professionals are deferring to Trump’s pathological self-regard and fantastical thinking? Are there no supporters on whom it’s dawning that we’re living in a Lewis Carroll novel?
On Wednesday, trying to appear serious, attacking the European Union for who-knows-why, Trump, in his usual monotone, announced travel restrictions which do nothing about the biggest issue: community spread. He completely ignored testing and the growing prospects of hospitals becoming overwhelmed. Immediately, the White House said he misspoke. But he’s still shaking hands. This isn’t leadership. It’s nuts. And it’s the opposite of reassuring.
Trump and rightwing media claim it’s Democrats trying to take him down. It isn’t. It’s Trump taking himself down. After decades of getting away with cheating and fakery, never held to account, he hasn’t the tools of a competent leader. He never has. Now, the bill is coming due, and, once again, Trump has gone bankrupt. This time, though, he’s bankrupting us all.
Email Sid Schwab at columnsid@gmail.com.
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