Cannon Fodder, if needed, for a home-town paper “Letter to the Editor”
Dear Editor, Your Home-Town Paper, USA:
While it’s unclear if there are any American voters who have yet to decide how they’ll vote for President this fall, just in case there are, I’d ask them to consider the following when deciding if Donald John Trump deserves four more years:
There’s no other way to describe The Donald’s handling of the Covid pandemic by any objective standard other than to say it’s been and continues to be “incompetent,” with proof in American death count compared to any other country. The body count, Trump’s “death count,” has proven he’s a covid pandemic “serial mis-manager,” notwithstanding America’s vast resources and superior medical technologies. What’s most important to remember here is that it just didn’t have to be this way, and it didn’t need to be this bad.
Convinced? Well then, no need read further.
Unconvinced and undecided? If you are still not sure, giving Trump the benefit of the doubt on his handling of the Covid pandemic, then buckle up buckaroo – let me count the ways his leadership and Administration falls grossly short:
Character Traits & Personality Faults: Trump clearly prizes personal loyalty, he’s said as much, to the point that he rewards and demands loyalty over competence, integrity, and patriotism. He’s proven himself to be a volatile, impulsive, truculent, weak, bully, and a misogynist too. He bluffs, broods, boasts, bemeans, belittles, bears false witness, bullshits, bullies, and breaks promises. According to Doris Kearns Goodwin, the traits of an effective leader are: humility; acknowledging errors; shouldering blame; learning from mistakes; empathy; resilience; collaboration; connecting with people; and controlling unproductive emotions. That’s the exact opposite of Trump and explains why The Donald is such an ineffective leader.
Multilateral Disengaged Affairs: There’s his legion of international relations shortcomings, impressively all committed in less than four years’ time, including: prizing dictators over democracies – he’s befriended Putin, Erdogan, Orbán, Kim, and Duarte, and picked fights with allies Australia, Canada, France, Mexico, and even Denmark – come on, who does that? He’s mismanaging the international order and trade system that America created after WWII, and doing same by executive fiat. He’s chasing away our allies, so that they’re inclined to go it alone, since under Trump they can’t trust US to do the right thing in support of the international order we built. Canadian Foreign Minister Freeland said: “The fact that our friend and ally has come to question the very worth of its mantle of global leadership puts into sharper focus the need for the rest of us to set our own clear sovereign course.”
The Age of “Pax Americana,” intact when he entered office, has been dismantled for “Americae facit magna,” and we’ve entered a trumped-up Age of “Packed Up ‘n Gone America.” The US is no longer a guarantor of the international order we created 75 years ago and that’s served us and the world so well, economically and politically. He’s creating, and will be leaving us, a legacy of weakened and corrupt institutions while deserting America’s world leadership position, which amounts to a self-inflicted potential mortal wound to American hegemony. We may never be able to pick up the Pottery Barn broken pieces of America’s reputation for leadership and international diplomacy.
Bilateral Botched Relations: Even in bilateral relations his leadership is lacking – so far, he’s botched:
(a) North Korean nuclear disarmament talks to the point that North Korea doesn’t want to talk to US anymore;
(b) China and Taiwan relations, both, to the point that we’re in a most dangerous and precarious position with many potential flashpoints with China — Tik Tok, a time bomb is ticking;
(c) Iranian relations by withdrawing the US from the Iran multilateral nuclear deal resulting in Iran increasing its uranium stockpiles, making US and the rest of the world a far more dangerous place;
(d) our position in Syria, grossly, to the point that his American withdrawal made things far worse, and Syria and Russia have seized American bases and military assets – oh, and many of our allies in Syria, Kurds and others, have been captured and tortured or killed;
(e) talks with the Taliban, crazily inviting them to make a deal on American soil at Camp David; and
(f) our standing up to the Saudis for their state killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi on Turkish soil; and (g) the process of withdrawing the US from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia, with no replacement game plan seriously being pursued.
Let’s just put Afghanistan to the side, since that’s what he’s done more or less with his withdrawal plans – although duly noted that just in the past few days he committed another negotiating sin, rolling over and undermining American diplomats, by stating a draw down to under 5,000 without requiring the Taliban make concessions or honor peace treaty commitments.
All this amounts not to leadership, but “made-for-TV” posturing (an “all bark, no bite” president), setting our national interest and safety back literally decades.
Executive Orders and Domestic Agendas: His domestic policy and leadership also has been dismissal:
- he’s used executive orders (executive fiat our conservative fellow Americans would complain if he was a Democrat) to roll back consumer friendly environmental regulations, like Clean Power, Clean Water, Clean Air, and he removed the US from the Paris Accord, rolled back Methane Greenhouse Gas regulations, and made regulatory policy changes favoring coal that are known (by his own Administration’s calculations) to increase American deaths, while, not surprisingly, air pollution has increased for the first time after a seven-year decline;
- he’s tried to cut Medicaid, Medicare, Food Stamps, and Social Security, hurting seniors, vets, service member families, and the working poor – thus further the have – have-not divide and shrinking the American middle class even further;
- his tax cuts provided a windfall to wealthy donors, but barely helped the average American whose tax benefits will soon expire (the 1%’s tax reductions will not);
- he’s partially repealed the Dodd-Frank Act, designed to prevent another 2008 financial system debacle;
- he’s emasculated the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau preventing it from protecting consumers, especially students and seniors, from predatory pricing and other detrimental practices;
- he botched his attempted repeal of the Affordable Care Act – even John McCain, his fellow Republican, gave him the thumbs down, and now he’s looking to get rid of it again, or not fund it, in the middle of a pandemic — just when Americans have lost their jobs and ergo their employer-provided health care;
- his tariffs and trade wars have hurt farmers, forcing the Federal Gov’t to practice an elevated level of extreme socialized farming, handing out billions in additional Farm Aid to big-agri corporate farm companies, but not so much to small, family owned farmers, and yet he’s unwilling to back the average American needing financial support in the covid pandemic that he’s exacerbated with his conduct and statements (the pandemic relief has literally kept the economy and American families afloat, and now he wants to sink the very economy he demands we open damn the cost in lives;
- under him, foreign investment in the US is way down, our trade imbalance is the worst ever, and we now have the highest deficit ever, even before Covid relief spending kicked in;
- he botched his attempted Muslim Ban – it was held illegal – and what his Administration has subsequently implemented by executive order after two or three attempts has crippled our immigration worker policies to the point that some farm produce has been left rotting in the fields for lack of farm hands;
- he failed to do anything constructive about our overall immigration crisis, unless you think that putting kids in cages and hanging the DACA kids out to dry was, or is, a good thing;
- he shut down the federal government to get more border “wall” dollars, but has only built a total of 16 new miles of “wall” where there was no border barrier before, all while ignoring our outdated, crumbling national infrastructure – our dams and bridges are literally crumbling before our eyes;
- he’s botched bringing back manufacturing to the US – just look at Carrier where workers say “he pulled the wool over our eyes”; and
- he’s botched relief for Puerto Rico, failing to adequately aid our fellow Americans; and he refused to help at first, and then only helped begrudgingly, California deal with its unprecedented wildfires – for political reasons – who does that to their countrymen? It would seem he’s working to remove the word “United” leaving us simply the desperate, disparate, disunited “States of America.”
Staffing with “Be Best” People: He’s proved an executive nincompoop when it comes to staffing – to the point of running either a “three ring circus” or a “clown show” – depending on whether the hat you wear is MAGA red. His 2016 campaign staffers Manafort, Flynn, Stone, Cohen and others have served jail terms for lying under oath and proved to not be the “best” kind of people; his own conduct, trying to exact a quid pro quo from Ukraine’s President, resulted in his Impeachment – just the third President ever to suffer such ignominy and embarrassment; he’s failed to properly staff the State Dept or the Ambassador corps, to the point that many positions are still unfilled after 3.5 years – how do you get decent trade deals, relations, or eyes and ears on the ground without at least staffing up?; he’s failed to keep his Cabinet intact as demonstrated by record setting departures – Sessions – AG, Tillerson – State, Mattis – Defense, Zilke – Interior, Acosta – Labor, Price – HHS, Perry – Energy, and Nielson – Homeland Security, plus Prebus, Kelly, and Mulvaney – Chief of Staff; and then there’s the embarrassingly strange case of Presidential Physician, Dr. Ronny Jackson, withdrawn from Veterans Affairs before his nomination ever got going, and the even more embarrassing and singularly bizarre case of Scaramucci as WH Comms Director; he’s fired multiple non-partisan Inspector Generals, who are there to protect the American taxpayer and our democracy from executive transgressions – seriously, who but dictators in banana republics do that kind of stuff?; and he fired the Vinman Bros., Comey, Yates, McCabe, Sessions (ironic since Jefferson Beauregard was the first big name to endorse him), and the highly competent Marie Yovanovitch, among others (don’t forget his campaign donor, Gordon Sondland!). He claimed to fire John Bolton, but Bolton says he quit first – now who do you believe with Trump’s track record for telling whoppers?
Lacking in Domestic Tranquility: When it comes to domestic affairs, he’s had many, including payouts of payola to porn stars, and he believes there are very fine people on either side of race relations issues, giving a boost, a literal vote of confidence, to David Duke and other domestic White Supremacists. With Trump defending the confederate flag, amazingly, he’s now even on the wrong side of the State of Mississippi. He’s refused to support mail-in ballots to accommodate concerns of voters during the pandemic, and yet he’s also against proposed domestic election integrity legislation, including paper ballots, for a national election he’s intimated he might suspend, and says he claims he’s been unfairly treated when it comes to what looks like his Administration’s favoritism toward Putin’s Russia, which, ironically, is known to be working to interfere with our elections. His policies and positions, overall, have been so bad, for various reasons, that the following groups have written public letters (signing their names for all the world to see) denouncing his policies: American college presidents, American foreign policy experts, American national security experts, West Point alums, and even republican party leaders.
Covid-19 Irresponsibility: And then came Corona… And no, he didn’t ever have it “under control” as he claimed, although he truly “doesn’t take responsibility at all” for his poor handling of the pandemic, to date, because, perhaps, he’s not man enough to take responsibility for much of anything. With the buck never seeming to stop at his door, or on his desk, it’s safe to say he’s no “Harry Truman.”
The man:
– doesn’t read intelligence briefs, but has time to golf, at taxpayer expense, at his properties padding his pockets, and apparently relies on biased Fox News personalities for information on which to make policy;
– refuses to follow democratic norms, like disclosing his past and current personal tax returns — how much of a crook or a deadbeat is he if he can’t even live up to Dick Nixon’s precedent of disclosing his taxes (resulting in Nixon being caught in a tax evasion scheme while claiming he wasn’t a crook)?; and
– lacks an ethical bone in his body, so much so that he fires ethics and government watchdog experts.
He’s a democratic norm breaker, creating dangerous precedents, to the left and right, but mostly to the right. He tolerates staffers without security clearances, using insecure communications. He’s the most “fact challenged” President in American history. He claims the Free Press, the backbone of our democracy, is nothing but “Fake News.” And he’s weakening the foundation of our democracy, the rule of law, by, for example, claiming judges are biased against him, to the point Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts had to issue a public statement, that: “We do not have Obama judges or Trump Judges, or Bush Judges or Clinton Judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their best to do equal right to those appearing before them. That independent judiciary is something we should be thankful for.” He’s concocting constitutional crises by trying to do unwelcome federal policing of state and local matters without invitation. Think of his “photo op” at St. John’s Episcopal Church across from the White House, and how he used his unmarked federal police force to illegally remove protestors – literally tear gassing American citizens, denying them their First Amendment rights of assembly and speech. Then think about how he’s abused the Emoluments Clause by all his investment conflicts of interest and favors, from foreign dignitary stays at his Trump hotels to his “Mar-a-Lago” gang disclosures of classified information. And then there are those pardons of war criminals and his convicted cronies, like Roger Stone. It’s like a dictator ruling by personal edict, without checks and balances, no?
If the Republican Senate doesn’t have the spine to check Trump’s foibles, “We the People” need to check them at the ballot box – put an end to his “American Carnage.” When Carter failed to show strong crisis leadership, we voted him out. Trump’s failure to show strong covid crisis leadership should be reason enough to vote him out too. Winston Churchill once said that Americans will always do the right thing, but only after they have tried everything else. Let’s not go that far, please. Let’s just change horses while at least the rider is still above water, not drowning in any more bad decisions and misconduct. Let’s do The Donald a favor, schedule him permanent “executive time.” Historians say they’d rank him 45th of 45 Presidents. Let’s give him back the rank of private citizen and get him back to running his personal empire, and stop running our country like it was just that. We know how that goes, given his bankrupt airline, casinos, university, vodka brand, who knows what else. Let’s not let him do that to US – let’s end Trump’s “American Carnage,” our collective “American Tragedy.”
Please vote this fall like your life depends on it because Trump’s pandemic mishandling demonstrates it does. It’s time to say good night, good luck, and good riddance, now that we have the answer to his question “What have you got to lose?” – our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor — really, our world — and America’s position in it.
Yours,
A Concerned American Who Votes
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rwb historically speaking 