We live in a time when, if you read or watch the news in any format, from any outlet, there is truly only one story. It is, of course, a story with many different dimensions, almost as many as there are people, and the impact of which is felt in many different ways.
I'm talking about the coronavirus pandemic, of course. But, when it comes to the United States, I could just as easily be talking about something else, something that is now inextricably linked to the pandemic, and whose future will be entirely defined by how and when the crisis is ultimately resolved.
Not something, actually. Someone.
The 45th President of the United States. Donald John Trump.
There, I did it For the first time, based on my recollection I've actually written out his full name, without using asterisks to conceal it. I adopted that style to refer to him because I though it would be a way to discuss his odious term in office, and its disastrous consequences, while denying him the lion's share of the one thing he craves, above all else: publicity. To Trump, as it was to P.T. Barnum before him, all publicity is good publicity. That's the way it has been for him, in his mind at least, for just a bit over four decades. As they say in show business (which has been Trump's only real business), a helluva run.
But, to quote a line that Robert Downey Jr. made famous last summer (speaking of show business), part of the journey is the end.
And the end has come.
Trump may not see it. His most devoted followers, that portion of the country's populace too stupid to see through him, may believe, as he does, that there is some brilliantly conceived plan or incredible stroke of luck that will bail him out again, as it has done any number of times in the past. Most of that luck, of course, came in the form of his father, Fred, who is no longer around to bail him out. And this time, in any case, his problems go way beyond money. All of the Russian loan sharks that have paid his bills over the past decade or so can't get him out of the scrape he's put all of us in, not even with an assist from Trump's number one political patron, Vladimir Putin.
As of this weekend, the U.S. leads the world not only in the number of coronavirus cases, but also in the number of coronavirus deaths. Over 20,000, in fact. With no end in sight. Sometimes, despite what many Americans believe, it's not a good thing to be able to say "We're Number One."
To be sure, this is a worldwide crisis. In its early stages, the virus claimed thousands of victims in other countries. China. South Korea. Italy (which is still suffering greatly). Spain. France.
But all of those nations have been able to flatten the statistical curve of cases. Many others have been able to limit the number of cases within their borders. In the case of New Zealand, the government has been able to keep the death rate down to one.
Why not here?
Very simply, because Trump is single-handedly responsible for a series of policy failures that has exposed the U.S. to what is already its greatest public health crisis in over a century, and may well end up being the worst one in its entire history. It has been, to paraphrase Shakespeare, a tragedy of errors so extensive that it has been difficult to keep track of them, although, both for the record and as a guide going forward, doing so is essential. I recommend this as a method for doing so, especially as it is written by a Never-Trump Republican, so it cannot be fairly accused of partisan hackery.
To sum up, Trump has taken what could have been a difficult but manageable crisis, and turned it into a full-scale disaster right out of a Hollywood movie, complete with empty streets, shuttered businesses, overwhelmed hospitals, and panicked unemployed wondering whether they can buy next week's groceries. And his response? Not merely the ugliest form of partisan politics I've witnessed in over a half-century of following events in Washington, but a near-complete abdication of his most basic responsibilities as an elected official--an abdication that, in many ways, borders on the criminal.
Instead of using the full power of his office to battle the pandemic, he is using it to conduct an ever-meaner advancement of his political agenda, whether that means promoting pollution, blocking access to health insurance, or settling personal scores within and without the nation. One particularly egregious example of the latter tendency: forcing states to act on their own to obtain medical supplies, and then confiscating them when those states do so. One is forced to wonder whether the goal is to use these supplies for political payoffs, as opposed to distributing them based on who has the greatest need for them. I'm not alone in raising that concern. Even some conservatives think that Trump is willing to let people die, so long as he looks good in the process.
And then, there's the evidence that comes from the mouths of Trump himself and his fellow-travellers in the media. Here, Trump begs his blindly loyal followers to vote for him, even if it means dying from infection by coronavirus in the process. And, if that happens, well, that's just the way the breaks fall, if you're looking at it from Bill O'Reilly's perspective. These statements and others like them, taken together, amount to a confession that Trump and everything he represents is finished. After all, he's admitted that voter suppression is the only way his party can win elections.
The fundamental cause of all this, as I've said before, is the fact that Trump is a narcissist, and all of the characteristics of the narcissistic personality are on display in his response thus far to the pandemic. Again, if you want a concise recap of this display, I can do no better than to direct you to the New York Times on this subject. I do, however, have a few things to add to it.
One of the worst aspects of narcissism is a tendency toward magical thinking, a belief that everything will always break your way, so you can avoid dealing with potential problems by ignoring them (after all, why ask for trouble?).
So, you ignore them, In fact, you do so more than once. And you go out of the way to avoid the blame.
And, since you can't stand giving others credit for anything, you destroy their good works.
.
And, since you're addicted to pleasure, you abuse your body to such an extent that you can control neither it nor your thoughts.
And, since you crave popularity, losing it may be likely to make you "act out" in ways that don't take into account the interests of others, especially if it goes this far.
All of this leads inevitably to one conclusion: Donald Trump, as President of the United States, is a menace to the survival of the nation and its people. He cannot be allowed to stay in place. He has to go. Now. Not tomorrow, and certainly not all the way to next January. NOW.
As I'm writing this, I'm watching MSNBC and listening to an interview with Jon Meacham, the historian. He's just said that this moment in our history is not merely about the character of our leadership, but also about our character as a people Character, he is saying, is destiny. Or fate. And, with a narcissist in the White House, our destiny--or fate--is on all of us.
So, what should we do?
In the film version of Alistair MacLean's "The Guns Of Navarone," the soldiers attempting to destroy a German artillery installation face, in two separate instances, a crisis which requires them to ponder three different, difficult choices. In each case, the third choice involves shooting an unarmed individual. In the first instance, the third choice is avoided; in the second one, it isn't.
I'm about to broach a subject where it is incumbent on the person raising it to tread carefully. So I want to make it clear that I am not now, nor have I ever been or will be, an advocate of any form of violence. But, as a student of both American history and human nature, I am painfully aware of the fact that not everyone in this country feels this way. And, when it comes to discussing the future, I am frankly tired of doing so one day at a time. Just as we need to get ahead of the curve when it comes to responding to the coronavirus crisis, we also need to get ahead of the curve when it comes to the American people's response not only to the crisis as a whole, but to its impacts on individual people.
It's not in the American character to deal well with restrictions on their freedoms, especially freedom of movement. We can tolerate it for a period of time, but not a long one. And we can only tolerate it at all if we have full confidence in leadership at the top. That confidence no longer exists. And, given the violent nature of the American character, I worry a lot about someone, somewhere, deciding that the third option is the best option. And again, I speak as someone who is virulently opposed to the third option.
Which, for discussion purposes, leads me to conclude that there are only, in fact, two options. Trump's impeachment, and Trump's resignation. And we need to discuss them urgently, as much as for any reason so as to avoid the third option, which is a path to tragedy for everyone.
Impeachment? Well, we've been through that already, due to a different form of malfeasance other than ignoring and then failing to mitigate the spread of a pandemic. The current malfeasance, in my judgment, is more than enough to justify a second bite of that apple. The political circumstances, however, do not. The previous impeachment trial demonstrated what has been already demonstrated more times than I care to admit: the United States Senate is currently being controlled by a cabal of lobbyist agents who will do anything, quite literally, to keep Trump in place. Even if that means holding a trial that isn't really a trial, and that worked overtime to thwart every effort to make it one.
Which leaves us with only one option.
Resignation.
Trump won't want to do it. He loves being President, which is to say that he loves the perks of the office. The publicity. The access to taxpayer money for personal purposes. The immunity to prosecution.
But not even Trump would be able to resist an outcry from the public so overwhelming that it virtually amounted to a national consensus. And I believe that we are at that point. He is, slowly but surely, losing his party. He is even, slowly but surely, losing the press.
And, if the press has finally lost the timidity with which it has tiptoed around him for the past four years, why shouldn't the rest of us? Why wait, at this point for next year? In the face of this much suffering, why wait at all? True, it would lead us with Mike Pence in the Oval Office, and he hasn't shown any independence from Trump. But having him there, with Trump's bad behavior as a model of what not to do, and with Trump having paid a price for it, gives us some chance for an improvement in the decision-making process going forward.
It's a chance I'm willing to take.
Quite frankly, it's a chance I think that all of us need to get behind.
Right now.
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