Who are these forty-four percent of Americans who think Trump is doing a fine job? Who are these forty-three percent who are satisfied with Trump’s handling of this pandemic? I know I don’t answer my phone to unidentified callers and no one is leaving me a message asking for my opinion. Who exactly is being polled and where are they getting the information that warrants this unwavering approval rating.
Because what I’m hearing, what I’m reading from news sources around the world, what I’m seeing every single time I turn on the television is that we, the United States of America, the once proud leader of the world, is handling this pandemic like a third world country bereft of resources—unprepared and clueless. A plethora of thoughtless, callous responses from the man in charge. And yes, he is responsible. The buck does stop with him.
How could it be any different? He thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room. He trusts no one. He doesn’t read and he refuses to take advice from those who are smarter than him. His mind is closed to everything except the praise and adulation he demands from those riding his coattails dreaming of wealth and power. He has failed miserably at everything he has attempted in his life. And if not for experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci, would have the country hugging and shaking hands on their way to one of his rallies instead of sheltering in place.
Trump, with the backing of his sycophantic enablers in a heartless, corrupt Republican Party has remade the country in his image. He has gutted the government. Laid waste to any government service that protects Americans. Diminished the FBI and marginalized our intelligence services, replacing career professionals and patriots—dedicated Americans—with bozos and lackeys. He has turned the State Department over to a religious zealot, a nut job hankering to bring about the rapture.
He has put the National Parks up for sale, handed out windfalls to his billionaire buddies, trashed our credibility around the world. He has defied the Constitution, ignored Congress as a co-equal branch of government, obstructed justice repeatedly, and demolished any and all programs, regulations and procedures put in place to protect the country from the very people who populate his Cabinet.
This is not someone to admire. This is not someone to have your children emulate—a liar, a thug, a dishonest, angry man without principles. A man who thinks he knows better than career professionals who have dedicated their lives to their profession. People who work tirelessly serving their country.
No, this is not someone who deserves your vote. So why do forty-four percent of Americans say, good job; keep up the good work; you’re my guy no matter what? Who are these Americans who vow to follow this perpetual whiner who refuses to take responsibility for anything—even as the country is grinding to a halt under the weight of his incompetence. Who are the people who think, in spite of his sad, almost inhumane responses to a rapidly spreading deadly virus that will ultimately affect hundreds of thousands of Americans, with his innate inability to understand the awful suffering that has been spreading around the world for months now, that he is doing a good job? This is not a war time president, this is a man who could care less, who sees the spread of the virus as an impediment to his plans for stamping out democracy and turning America into Trump branded banana republic.
I wonder, do they approve of his multiple golf outings after being warned the virus was likely already quietly spreading across America? Are they happy with his prioritizing the stock market over sick people as he worries out loud about his reelection prospects? His musings about declaring a victory over the virus and sending everyone back to work on Easter? Or his preposterous sniping at governors who are ordering people to stay home to slow the spread of this killer virus?
Do they not understand the power of the states—the governors—to determine what is best for their citizens? That it’s the Federal government’s job to support the governors, not criticize them or call them snakes or tell suppliers not to sell badly needed medical supplies to the State of Michigan because its governor is mean to him? Do they not understand that people are inadvertently making other people sick just by walking around or eating in restaurants or getting drunk on the beaches of Florida?
Do his Republicans voters not see that the virus doesn’t care whether a person is a Democrat or Republican, white or black, Latino or Native American? The virus doesn’t care if a person is gay or straight, Christian or Muslim or Jew. The virus doesn’t care what you believe, it simply is what it is, a killer.
So who are they listening to? Where are they getting their information? What or who is influencing their thought process? Is it Fox News? Sean Hannity, or the mighty Rush Limbaugh? Is it the deluge of false information and hate spreading across Facebook? Is it from the fairytales that spew forth daily from the White House press briefings—now standing in for his missing campaign rallies—trying to convince red state America it’s all under control, that it’s another Obama failure or a deep state plot by Democrats to dump Trump?
Is that it? Or is it the attraction to his celebrity? Is it the belief that in spite of all we know about Trump and his affiliation with mobsters, his greed, his aversion to work, his empty bravado and incompetent leadership, we, the majority, are making it all up? That this is just about hating Trump?
Well, they’re right about the hating him part, wrong about making it up. It’s all there in the public record if they’re willing to look. Since the 1980s when he started laundering money for the Russians and his lawyer pal, Rudy Giuliani, while prosecuting the Italian mafia, welcomed the Russian mob to New York.
It’s all there if they care to look. The failed businesses. The fake university. The misuse of his fake charity for self gain. His constant bullying and use of the courts to sue anyone and everyone just to shut them up, even Deutsche Bank, the only bank that would loan him money. It’s there in the public record: they loaned him money and he had the gall to not only stop paying it back, but to sue them claiming their loan was making him lose money.
His squandering of his multi-million dollar allowance from his racist immigrant father. His finagling of an Einstein Visa—reserved for people with unusual talents of value to America—for Melania, his immigrant porn star wife. His hiring of undocumented workers at his resorts while turning ICE into a modern day Gestapo charged with rounding up and forcibly kicking brown and black immigrants out of the country. The “birther” movement—his relentless racist campaign to prove Barack Obama was not an American citizen knowing full well he was lying. His insistence on the death penalty for five black and latino young men falsely accused of rape for no reason other than his world would be whiter without five persons of color. His paying off porn stars and the multitude of credible accusations of sexual assault from numerous women. His fawning over Vladimir Putin, his bizarre love letters with Kim Jong Un and his covering up for the brutal murder of an American journalist by his pal, Mohammed bin Salman, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.
Or maybe that’s what appeals to them. His tabloid life—the sex and murder and never ending scandals. The racism, bigotry and the hatred of non-whites. Maybe he scratches an itch deep within, gladdens their heart, gives voice to their own deepest desires. I hope I’m wrong about them, but I worry I’m not. I wish they could see what the majority of us see, what the world sees, before he truly turns America into another one of his failures, because whether they can see it or not, they are going down with the rest of us.
