The Plan

There is no plan.  There never was one.

Because there is no plan, the United States is being pitied by the rest of the world.  Our response to the pandemic has been a consummate embarrassment—Trump simply surrendered to the virus.  We have a President and governors and mayors who pledge their sycophancy to Trump and are responsible for the sickness and death all around us now.  6 months into this pandemic we are having PPE shortages, hospitals with no capacity for all the sick people, medical supplies in short supply or non-existent, shortage of testing material and supplies, impossibly long waits for testing, results for testing sometimes taking as much as 10 days(which makes testing essentially useless)….all because there was never a plan.

We have a President who decries mask wearing while his supplicants cry, “ Mask wearing is unconstitutional!”.  Trump never had a plan, in fact he has turned into an ‘ally’ of the virus.  He pushed re-opening our economies too soon; he is now pushing opening our schools in spite of the danger to our children and to those they will come in contact with—our teachers, their parents, their grandparents.  He still says, “It’ll simply go away, I hope.”  

He conducts rallies with his supplicants in closed spaces with no masks.  He constantly is telling us how he has flattened the curve.  Well, I have eyes—when I look at the curve, it is anything but flat….  Just ask the people who are in hospitals (if a bed can even be found for them) in Texas, Arizona, Florida, California, South Carolina, Georgia if they feel like the curve has flattened.

What is his plan for a second term?  There is no plan.  He has none.  He only wants to turn American against American.  What is his platform----elevate the Confederacy again?  Stop teachers from “teaching our children to hate America”?  Make voting more difficult for people?  Defund the Post Office?  He is distracting us from his failure to lead.

This man has done more to injure America’s democracy than any other human in our country’s history.  He has destroyed relationships with most of our allies; withdrawn us from all meaningful global treaties and agreements, endangered our national security by encouraging foreign governments to play havoc with our electoral process, made us the laughing stock of global diplomatic circles, purged our government of career professionals in the State Department, the Intelligence Community, the Department of Homeland Security, and every other department where he attempts to increase his personal aggrandizement.  He has moved to oppose voting by mail and absentee balloting with false cries of ‘fraud’ to try to inhibit voting.  He does not care that people might have to risk their lives by forcing them to physically go to the polls because of the pandemic that he has done nothing to diminish.  Oh Yeah, let's withdraw from the World Health Organization--that's a good idea!

Unfortunately for Trump, his utter failure at creating national leadership against the pandemic is visible for ALL to see.  He can’t hide it, even as he tries to distract us with superfluous issues like 'putting pressure on states to open the schools’.  The people of America can read the graphs and see the numbers.  Even more, they feel the pain in all their families because of the strictures we all are suffering every day as well as the loved ones we are losing.  He can’t hide behind his plan, because….there never was a plan.  Even now while the scientific and medical community unanimously promotes mask wearing because it could possibly save as many as 40,000 lives between now and November, he says, “not necessary—we’re open now and all will be fine.  We’ll learn to live with the virus.”  

No---many of us (130,000 of us to date) will die with the virus.  He has no conscience….doesn’t really care.

This is a lying, lawless man who, if re-elected, will spell the doom of the American experiment.  The damage done to date on our institutions is pervasive.  The effect on our children for the past 4 years has been morally corrupting.  Lying has been made acceptable.  Breaking the law is ‘de rigueur’. 

If Trump somehow manages to successfully win 4 more years, many of us will consider moving to a safer, freer place I am afraid.  It will be the proof that the lunatics will have taken over the asylum….  And you can depend on the fact that he will have won by cheating. 

Expect the further inexorable decline of America, our America, the country so many died for and sacrificed for.  Makes me want to cry…..  I may have to start taking Prozac again.