Freak Out Friday – March 27, 2020

You know, it occurs to me that I need to spell out something to the right wing blowhards who are still howling about Obama and Hillary rather than face the facts of the President’s incessant failures when it comes to managing the Coronavirus.

When Trump was—well, not elected, but rather chosen by the Electoral college over the actual winner—I was rooting for him to succeed.  As opposed to, say, Mitch McConnell, who swore that his job was to make sure Obama would be a one-term president and spent eight years stonewalling damned near everything that Obama wanted to accomplish.

Make no mistake:  I was certain Trump wouldn’t succeed.  I opened up betting on my website asking people to guess how long he’d last in office; few opined that he’d make it through all four years.  Meanwhile his supporters swore, without evidence, that he would grow into the office.  That his racist effrontery, his relentless insults, would dissipate.  That the responsibility of the position would elevate him, rather than that he would lower it.  They were sure of it.  I was not.

But I was hoping they were right.

Because I still remember 9/11.  Not in the current abstract, “let’s list all the people who died” manner, but from when it was actually happening.  Back when my panicked next door neighbor asked me, as the towers were smoking, whether we should send our kids to school or would the terrorists attack that building next?  Absurd, I know, but that’s what fear does to you.  It makes the ridiculous seem plausible.

At that time, we looked to our leaders to calm us down.  To provide guidance.  To tell us that everything was going to be okay.  To tell us what to do next.

Initially, George W. rose to that challenge.  His approvals skyrocketed because in times of crisis, there is an impulse to rally around the flag and support whoever is in charge.  And Bush did okay…until he then used that approval to guide us into decades of warfare in order to maintain that approval and not be a one-term president, repeating the “mistakes” of his father.  But at least he started off strong. 

I wanted Trump to rise to the occasion.  I wanted him to become the man his supporters swore he could be, because ultimately we are all in this together.  Despite the howls to the contrary from the right who claim that anyone with opposing opinions is a traitor who despises America, I love this country and what it stands for.  I want it to succeed, and a lot of how well it does rests on the shoulders of the man in the Oval Office.  I was certain he would fail, but very much wanted to be proven wrong.  

Unfortunately, the coronavirus has proven beyond all question that I was absolutely right.  

Bereft of his beloved mob gatherings, Trump has instead been holding press…I dunno, “briefings” doesn’t seem the right word.  “Praisings” seems more accurate.  Contradicting or ignoring the words of medical experts who have spent their lives studying and fighting pandemics, Trump has used these praisings as platforms to talk about the most important subject of all:  himself.  New York needs respirators?  Screw that:  do you know how much money the poor fellow is not making as president?  “It cost me billions of dollars to become president” says the man who has charged taxpayers millions upon millions to support him during his countless golf trips.  While medical expert Anthony Fauci vanishes into the woodwork, Trump stands there and asserts that the country will be up and running by Easter.  This despite the fact that the experts assert such a thing would be calamitous.  Trump still insists on likening the pandemic to the flu.  People die from the flu and we don’t shut down the country, he points out.

That’s correct.  That’s for two reasons.  First, the flu has a fatal rate of .1 percent while the coronavirus is anywhere from three to four percent.  Second, the flu doesn’t overload hospitals.  When you have to convert the massive Javits Center to a hospital, just to handle sick patients for whom there’s no room in the existing facilities, something is seriously out of whack.

And yet we are now seeing, on a daily basis, indisputable proof that Trump is completely and utterly bereft of empathy.  This is one of the classic definitions of narcissism that put it far beyond the simple fault of being an egomaniac.  Hell, to some degree, I’m an egomaniac:  most writers are.  We believe that what we have to say is so important that it should be distributed to as many people as possible with our names attached, ideally in large letters at the top.  If you’re a writer and not an egomaniac, you’re in the wrong profession.

But I care about my wife, my children and grandchildren, my siblings, my friends and family.  I care about what happens to them, and typically will put their concerns above my own.  

A narcissist doesn’t do that.  He is incapable of it.  He cares only about himself, how others can serve him, and how he can use them until they are no longer of any use, at which point he can discard them and move on. 

That’s Trump.  At a time when we need someone who desperately cares about others, who values life above all other considerations, who wants only the best for everyone, we have a strutting narcissist who takes the time to point out the sacrifices he’s made in order to stand up there and promote himself and his brand.  He doesn’t care about the wife that he cheated on with a porn star.  He doesn’t care about the national health.  He cares only about the stock market and the economy, and that’s because he figures he needs it to be strong in order to be reelected.  So by all means, have everything be back to normal by Easter so that he can boast he managed to beat the coronavirus, restore the economy, and be the hero.

Do not let yourself be fooled as his supporters have been.

PAD