The Sucker Presidency
Covid 19 “affects virtually nobody,” Trump told his base at a rally last night, a night when the death toll from the disease passed 200,000.
“Now we know it effects elderly people, elderly people with heart problems, and other problems if they have other problems, that’s what it really effects. That’s it. You know in some states, thousands of people, nobody young, below the age of 18, like nobody. They have a strong immune system. Who knows. Take your hat off to the young, because they have a hell of an immune system…..it’s an amazing thing.”
“But it effects virtually nobody,” He added. “By the way, open your schools, everybody open your schools.”
Bob Woodward’s book Rage uncovered, for all to see and hear, that President Trump knew and believed how truly dangerous this virus was back in February, and despite that decided to withhold it from the American public “because he didn’t want them to panic.” That’s like silencing the smoke alarm in your house because you don’t want the family to panic when the fire starts.
Trump believes he can continue to act in public like he doesn’t even believe Covid-19 is dangerous, even now. He does that because he believes the voters, especially his base supporters, are suckers who will believe whatever he says in the moment, history be damned.
And, so far, he’s been right about that.
When we first heard the report from the Atlantic, a couple weeks ago, that President Trump had called the US soldiers buried at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris “Losers and Suckers”, many of us had little doubt that our president had used those exact words, even to describe military heroes who gave their lives to preserve the country he was elected to lead.
We’ve heard the words before. But it wasn’t until this story, confirmed by five different national news organizations, that I realized this is exactly what he thinks about just about everyone, including his own supporters. His list of suckers and losers is enormous, in fact it’s almost anyone who isn’t him, or who isn’t richer of more powerful in their country than he is here.
Many of those who supported him during his election are suckers for believing he would become someone else after he was elected, that he would become the president of the entire country, not just the red states.
He believes the people of Puerto Rico are suckers because they believe he cares about them because he has finally sent some disaster aid, years late and coincidently weeks before his second election day.
Republican Senators are suckers because they believe they can earn his loyalty and support by sucking up to him and ignoring all the historic norms and respectful behavior that used to define greatness in our Congress. Watch what happens to several of them in this coming election as they throw away whatever integrity they still had and change their stories about how the Republicans would respect the Democrats ability to delay an election year Supreme Court appointment just as the Republicans did just four years ago. Some will lose their own elections and he will do nothing to help them.
Everyone is a sucker when they believe anything he says. Last weekend, after he ended a rambling campaign speech and boarded a plane to go home, he was asked by a reporter what he was going to do about the death of Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg, and he looked mildly surprised and asked if she had just died. When told yes, he said he hadn’t heard that yet, and in a rare impromptu show of respect for a liberal, he gave an uncharacteristically brief comment about her greatness as a person and said he would address it tomorrow. Later we learned his aides had already told him she had passed.
Then there were the times Democrats believed him when he told them he wouldn’t separate children from their parents at the border, and he would protect children of the DACA program. Suckers!
There have been several examples, besides the speech in France, where he insulted the military. He called Sen. John McCain, a decorated war hero who was captured in Viet Nam, and former President George H. W. Bush “losers” because McCain was captured and Bush’s plane was shot down in war time.
And of course, there were the billions of dollars he added to the military budgets, while claiming to be the best president ever for the military. It was only a matter of months later that he made his own supporters suckers, by quietly diverting huge amounts of already approved and designated pentagon money to build his “border wall”.
Oh, there was also the matter that Mexico was going to pay for the wall.
If you’re a cop, you probably believe he’s the “law and order” candidate. SUCKER! He refuses to authorize legislation to reimburse the states and cities that are dealing with the shortfall of billions of dollars Covid-19 has cost them. He is forcing them to cut essential services and lay off thousands of police and fire fighters because the Feds won’t make up their massive shortfalls. But he is paying billions to huge private businesses to stem their losses.
Much of the entire population who believed they were getting a tax cut were suckered into believing that they were getting free money. Unless they were billionaires, many lost deductions that more than offset the value of a lowered tax rate. And the billionaires have watched their networth grow by billions of dollars during the pandemic.
The latest Trump-ordered “bonus” $300 payment to employed individuals — the “forgiveness” of playing the so-called payroll tax, is really a loan which many or most will have to pay back in next year’s taxes. It will be added to their 2021 social security contribution, or it will lower what taxpayers will get from social security when they are paid back years from now.
His hardcore base believes in him, and because of his messaging that the Coronavirus is a “hoax”, many have not followed any of the CDC guidelines and have certainly refused to wear masks. Ask how that worked out for former presidential candidate Herman Cain, an early supporter of Trumps who was front and center at the infamous Tulsa indoor rally. Cain died a little more than a month later of Coronavirus. And how many of the 200,000 who have died from Covid-19 were Trump supporters, and therefore suckered by Trump into living their lives without the government-recommended safeguards?
Kristin Urquiza perhaps said it best at the Democratic National Convention when she spoke of her father whom she said believed in Donald Trump and ignored the Coronavirus and went to a Karaoke Bar with friends. One of the last things her father said to her when he was dying was that he felt “betrayed” by Trump. She said of her previously healthy father’s death that the “only pre-existing condition he had was that he believed Donald Trump”.
There is still time for all of us to wise up.
About 6 weeks.
