When does America’s Grim Reaper stop being electable?
“Mass mortality spiked on my watch” is hardly the most fetching campaign slogan. Thus, the great question, whomever dismal Dems pick: “What critical mass of Trump-tied fatalities will doom his second term?” Not managing, let alone worsening the pandemic is bad enough; but must we now leverage human die-off as election shape-shifter?
Let’s propose a new, riveting motto — MADA: “Make America Desolate Again.” And the most painful joke is on Trump himself, for only he — and his unstable pathologies — are to blame. The viral spread that America’s least capable doctor dismissed as a “hoax” keeps battering the world’s most transparent purveyor of snake oil.
Bad gets worse. A day ago, a competent VA report smacked down Dr. Donald’s wildly speculative anti-malarial scam (that doesn’t fix the virus, plus triggers heart attacks). So what does this unstable birdbrain learn from over-reaching? Nada, as he now touts ingesting lethal bleach and disinfectants. Some “sarcasm” per later WH lies. And why — because the Embarrassment-in-chief cites the devastation to toilet bowl germs from Lysol or isopropyl alcohol. Why not, asks doctor death, splash lethal cleaners on lungs and see what happens? Why not gobble rat poison because it also kills vermin? Why not jump off high bridges for that will do in any Covid, once and for all? Keep grabbing the mic — and Biden, like 19th C presidential campaigners, never has to leave home.
Even a lifetime career of deflection and blaming everyone else won’t wash away such whoppers. We await, with horror, how many sucker Trumpers die from ingesting lethal cleaners.Will it be simple truth, that besieged virtue, or medical knowledge, even reality that exile this ever so predictable, mortality-dealing fantasist? Reality resists noxious nonsense just as Covid-19 resists life-threatening anti-malarial drugs. And the circle rounds, with so many sick chickens coming home to roost.
The most fatal ‘war president’
We’re not talking a little battleground blood on the hands of the worse “war president” since the last minority (illegitimate) rightwinger took office in 2000. We’re talking never-ending, viral body counts, greatly surpassing today’s 50K Americans — and barely started in red states rushing to re-open. The outcome is as lurid as it is undeniable — a gruesome Trump dance with death that defines the definitive campaign issue. Imagine leftwing protesters, reminiscent of the ’68 Vietnam War outcries, “Hey, hey, Donald J, how many oldsters did you kill today”? This is not simply gallows human but an activist proposal.
So how does a phony war president (and wretched at that) wish away pandemic death rolls that far surpass 57,000 soldiers lost in the multi-decade Vietnam debacle. How can Trump justify our having by far the worst death numbers on the planet? Pro-Vietnam war-mongers at least could offer up weak justifications the fallen didn’t die in vain, winning glory by self-sacrifice (even in a bad cause). How can any pretend PR president, a disaster at crisis management, begin to defend a hundred thousand American deaths, far higher than necessary? Where’s anything but shame by not preventing so many rest-home fatalities to compromised residents unable to self-isolate? Where’s anything but shame from fanatic Trump protesters (following his insurgent exhortations to “liberate” states), thus inviting the virus to their front doors? That’s neither about freedom nor liberation, but abusing the license of free speech to jeopardize lives– their own and innocent victims.
Killing your own?
So, if this grim legacy prevails — Trump as
irresponsible, ultimate grim reaper — how many won’t
immediately recall his arrogant, outrageous 2016 boast: “I
could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot
somebody, and I wouldn’t lost any voters”? With approval
ratings shooting downward, his numerous Covid-19 failures
have already cost more than a “few voters.” Compounding
blunders, his needlessly lethal “medical advice” represents
a death kneel for a campaign it was this incumbent’s to
lose. It’s almost too bad the made-up Fifth Avenue
gunslinger didn’t shoot someone — no doubt a “crooked
Hilary” NY liberal. That would have confirmed both a direct
parallel and precedent linking Trump to gratuitous violence
— and an infinitely more compelling trial than the Senate’s
disgraceful impeachment concoction.
Worse than infamously playing the bad doctor who kills patients, Trump’s re-election must overcome thousands of American fatalities, including his own older, whiter, medically-neglected fans. Does it matter by November whether Trump implodes because of medical malpractice, stupidity, corruption, or an obsession with getting re-elected? That’s the tragic, political beauty of this calamity: mass die-offs, like the virus, don’t pick parties. However so many Senate Republicans get linked — by omission or commission — to lethal outcomes will be held responsible. That represents the final telling irony to a morally corrupt non-leader who refuses to take any responsibility for anything that undermines his perverse self-interest. The mismanagement of one disease becomes by other means a party-killer.
Reality will out
November will come down to not only this
president’s inability to understand, let alone take
responsibility for this already worst-case scenario. The
election will be decided by doubting thomases who distrusted
Trump (just perceived benefits) and now clearly wonder how
they supported a creep who worsened the pandemic, thus
advancing lethal outcomes. If only a fraction of the dead
are laid at Trump’s feet, that’s still upwards of 10,000.
Ten times that number could well decide the election. That
greatly benefits the Democrats by shifting the debate from
conviction of guilt to the magnitude of the crime.
What do we call any self-serving organism that latches on and drains the life force out of others, without giving anything in return? Right, a predatory parasite. Trump always said he’d be a disruptive force, yet so invulnerable he’d get away with shooting some innocent party. But what candidate survives being tarred with thousands of needless fatalities, “on his watch”? Mass deaths in your first go-round hugely deflates any incumbent’s “resume.” Even the less than brilliant Biden can manage that task.
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