One of the minor problems of blogging in the age of Trump is simply keeping up with his perfidy and all of the manifold ways in which it is unleashed upon the rest of us. This week has been no exception. In fact, if you are inclined to think that this week has been the ultimate example of this problem, I'm happy to chime in on your behalf.
As I type this, I am watching MSNBC's coverage of Trump walking slowly and uncertainly from Walter Reed Medical Center into his limousine and the trip back to the White House, having, perhaps, made a successful recovery from infection with the COVID-19 virus.
If, that is, he has truly recovered, and not overruled the best advice from some of the best physicians in the nation.
If, for that matter, he has even needed to recover from an actual infection, rather than needing an elaborate public relations stunt to take public attention away from the most disastrous presidential debate performance in the history of the Republic, a performance that has allowed his Democratic opponent to open up a double-digit lead in the polls. We are being told that he will still be treated as a patient even while being back in the White House, confined to quarters, and kept apart from a West Wing staff that itself has been decimated by COVID-19. Those infections, I do not doubt, are real; I understand that at least some staff members are now working remotely, if they are able to work at all.
But Trump himself? Who knows?
This is the fundamental problem with Donald Trump in the role of a public servant. He has no sense of obligation to anyone but himself, and therefore no commitment to share 100% of the truth, even the portions of it that might harm his personal interests. This is absolutely, positively not about my distaste for him as a Republican, or as a conservative. Cards on the table: I don't think that, on a fundamental level, Trump is either of those things, or anything except an utterly self-absorbed excuse for a human being. Such an individual should not even be president of a washroom, let alone of the United States. When Ronald Reagan, or George W. Bush, were hospitalized and temporarily transferred their powers to their Vice Presidents, I had no doubt that they needed medical treatment, and no reason to doubt that their doctors were telling us what we needed to know. And, I hasten to add, no reason not to wish them speedy and complete recoveries.
But we're in a totally different universe here, folks, when it comes to reality and the extent to which we can feel we know what we need to know.
This much we do know, starting with a week ago last Saturday:
Many of the people assembled in the Rose Garden for the announcement of Amy Comey Barrett's nomination to the Supreme Court are now COVID-19 positive.
Trump, according to his own doctors, was COVID-19 positive as of the time of that announcement, and attended his Monday debate with Joe Biden unmasked (with an equally unmasked family in the audience), and told no one, including Biden and his family.
Trump then went to a rally in Minnesota, unmasked, with a huge and largely unmasked crowd. We, the American people who deserve to know everything about the President's health, only learned thereafter that he and the First Lady were COVID-19 positive, but were assured that we had nothing to worry about, despite the fact that we the American people, were the last to know.
Shortly after getting this cherry reassurance, we were told that Trump was on his way to Walter Reed, where he received the very best care by way of what can only be described as socialized medicine, despite the fact that he has been exposed by the New York Times as an epic tax scofflaw, and despite the fact that, if Barrett does make it to the Court, 20 million Americans will lose their health care coverage if she assists the other Republican Justices in destroying the Affordable Care Act.
Oh, and, by the way, about her nomination: despite the fact that three Republican Senators were infected at that Rose Garden ceremony, and may not be able to participate in the confirmation process (and thus deprive her of votes she will need to be confirmed) and despite the fact that the Senate needs to take up the pandemic relief legislation that the Democratic House has passed (twice), Mitch McCONnell and most of the rest of the corrupt Republican Senate caucus are focused on what they consider the all-important need of turning the 5-4 Republican majority on the Court into a 6-3 majority. Desperate is the polite word for this conduct; craven and corrupt work much better.
All in all, just another week in the life on the most criminal President in over 200 years of American history, and the Senate that stands behind him, no matter how much the truth betrays the true nature of their character, or lack of it.
Frankly, I've had a very hard time processing all of this, much less writing about it. Summing it up isn't much easier. I'll give this a try.
If Donald Trump's doctors are to be believed (and I give them the benefit of the doubt), then Donald Trump is a super-spreader President. And the majority of the United States Senate are his accomplices.
Let that sink in. And let it make you fight like hell to stop them.
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