By Sid Schwab / Herald columnist
“I alone can fix it,” he announced, to delirious cheers, after which he proceeded to prove he couldn’t: budget deficits, health care, Mexico/wall, coal, 4 percent growth, etc. It’s a long, well-known list.
More recently, he claimed “total authority” over when states end stay-at-home rules. Then, maybe realizing he couldn’t avoid responsibility if he failed to fix this, too, he punted to governors. Which brings us to now, when, in a functioning democracy, the 25th Amendment would be halfway to dethroning him.
We refer to fomenting armed rebellion against those governors to whom he ceded authority. “Liberate Minnesota,” he tweeted. “Liberate Michigan.” “Liberate Virginia.” In the last instance, he added, unsubtle and mendacious, “… and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege.” This “president,” having told governors it was theirs to decide, is inciting citizens to rise up — armed, by implication — against those governors and their decisions. Did he mean it? He said it. Like a dangerous lunatic, not a president. Not even a “president.” This should be obvious to everyone.
It isn’t. From sea to temporarily-shining sea, answering the bawling of their golden calf, people are protesting. Saying, in effect, “We’re not sick, and if we’re asymptomatic carriers who end up infecting others, and if that overwhelms our hospitals, causing more deaths, it’s OK. We may be waving swastikas and Confederate flags along with the Stars and Stripes, wearing armor, packing, urging fellow citizens to die for us, but we’re the real patriots.”
Like their tea party predecessors, they’re acting in the interests of wealthy Republican donors (Family DeVos and gun promoters this time around) and against their own. Possibly fatally. Perfect timing of reopening is impossible, especially with inadequate testing; but these virulent protests are helping the wrong people.
The point, though, is less about the comparative handful, so far, of protesters than it is about an Oval Office malefactor who encourages sedition. Who’s appealing to the worst of us, intentionally turning America upon itself. Like his transparently cynical, base-pleasing ban on green-card applications. To “protect” us. It’s what he considers leadership.
What he doesn’t consider leadership is creating coherent policies to address this crisis; especially a coordinated, federally managed process for getting protective equipment and testing capability to every state, rather than causing hospitals and states to resort to subterfuge to get and keep them. Instead, it’s thievery and grift from a lifelong crook and grifter, likely so he can dole it out as political patronage: (New England Journal of Medicine: tinyurl.com/2getPPE) Governors of both parties are speaking out, too: (NBC News: tinyurl.com/govscallout)
Unironically carrying signs saying “My body, my choice,” these easily exploited protesters are beyond reach. They reject the personal sacrifice and common sense that real patriots have always delivered when America needed them. If this slice of Americana is small for now, the cultish cake from which they’re cut is not. But surely there are former supporters and true conservatives who see how this “president” is undermining his own government, suborning rebellion, to save his particularly personal @$$.
And, equally importantly, who see what he’s not: an able and empathetic leader, more concerned for others than himself. Who see how he’s preparing to shift blame onto governors (after China, Democrats, President Obama and the WHO) for his own failings; and who’ve come to recognize he doesn’t care about the consequences for our republic.
The current occupant of the White House is but one disturbed man, whom we should ignore. The problem, then, is us. Those who’ve become so inured to being lied to that they neither notice nor care. “You’re a commie POS,” was the entirety of a recently received email. Asked, in response, what he’d read that’s remotely like communism, the sender disappeared. (I didn’t dispute the POS part.) “You’re a liar,” write others, who refuse to provide examples.
“Say hello to George Soros,” smirked yet another Foxicant, who declined information about the work Soros does defending democracy and supporting resistance to dictators around the world. Giving less to Democrats than the Koch Brothers give to Republicans, my pal George is nevertheless a knee-jerk boogeyman for propagandized rightists. Hook, line, Foxified sinker, regurgitated word for word, mindlessly.
People like that are why the 25th won’t be invoked. Integrity began leaking from the Republican Party with the election of Saint Ronnie. And those were the good old days. Fox “news” didn’t exist, and our pernicious “president” was just a pampered draft-dodger who hadn’t yet filed his first bankruptcy.
Email Sid Schwab at columnsid@gmail.com.
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