From the New York Times of March 7, 2020:
Barr appears focused on undermining the Mueller Report
www.nytimes.com/…
21 Coronavirus Cases On Cruise Ship Near California
www.nytimes.com/…
With Test Kits In Short Supply, Health Officials Sound Alarms
www.nytimes.com/…
And from Bret Stevens’ OP, “If Joe Biden Wins” www.nytimes.com/...
In that case, I won’t have to worry about the president trying to criminalize his political opponent. Not with demagogic chants of “Lock her up,” nor with quiet attempts to strong-arm an ally for the sake of digging up dirt on an American citizen. I won’t have to worry about White House officials being forced to choose between their ethical obligations and their loyalty to the president. I won’t have to worry about an attorney general who chooses loyalty over obligation — and, a year later, is bluntly reprimanded by a Republican-appointed federal judge for doing so.
If Biden wins, I won’t have to fear that the president might order the abrogation of a free-trade agreement with a major trading partner — only for a watchful adviser to
snatch the order from his desk before he can sign it. I won’t have to read about frantic aides wondering if the president is really serious about his
threats to withdraw the U.S. from NATO. I won’t have to cross my fingers hoping that a clever general will convince the president that the reason we shouldn’t betray our desperate Kurdish allies in Syria is so we can
keep the oil.
If Biden wins, I won’t have to watch another press conference like Trump’s at Helsinki. I won’t have to wonder why the president seized his own translator’s notes after a meeting with Vladimir Putin. I won’t have to hear paeans of praise sung for North Korea’s ogreish tyrant, or for Turkey’s pernicious strongman, or for China’s cult-of-personality despot.
If Biden wins, I won’t have to read that the president has told fellow American lawmakers to “go back” to their countries of birth or ancestry. I won’t have to watch the U.S. close its doors to desperate refugees on the view that they hail from “shithole countries.” I won’t have to cringe in shame and disgust as the attorney general cites the Apostle Paul to defend a vile policy of separating children from parents as a useful deterrent against illegal immigration.
If Biden wins, I won’t have to listen to the president call members of my profession the “enemy of the American people.” Or people of my political viewpoint “human scum.” Or colleagues “stone cold losers.” I won’t have to spend time wondering whether being an unindicted co-conspirator in a hush-money scandal rises to the level of an impeachable offense. I won’t have to steer family conversations away from politics lest they veer into X-rated territory. If Biden wins, the word “Stormy” will refer only to weather, and “Daniels” only to whiskey.
If Biden wins, I will write column after column opposing him on policy grounds. But at least I’ll feel relief that the American people didn’t vindicate Trumpism and the nativism and meanness it represents.