“Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away. One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear. Just stay calm. It will go away. The Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. This is their new hoax.” A few weeks later as deaths mounted, big flip-flop:
“There will be lots of dying [from Covid-19].”
President Donald J. Trump continues to spew nonsense about this pandemic, using it as a power grab and war against anyone who dares disagree with him (i.e., Democrats, living or dead; Republicans who’ve maintained a healthy distance from his chicanery). And he’s shamelessly making money from the misery of citizens he’s vowed to protect, pushing chloroquine as a cure for COVID-19, despite lack of scientific evidence of its efficacy. Could it be that he has a personal stake in the manufacture of the drug — a fact he’s neglected to mention?
To governors who disagree with his pandemic response, Trump spoke like the authoritarian he longs to be: “When they disrespect me, they’re disrespecting our government.” Explaining why he’s not helping certain states fight the pandemic, Dear Leader demanded, “I want them to be appreciative.” Trump claimed that New York’s top-of-the-hit list Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo was overreacting when he asked for tens of thousands of ventilators for a state whose death toll is over 5,500 along with 140,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19.
“I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators,” Trump claimed. “New York should be fine. Based on the numbers we see, they have more than enough.” Not content with withholding protective equipment from perceived “enemy” states, Trump talked stink about heroic medical workers. “‘How do you go from 10 to 20 to 300,000 masks? Where are the masks going, are they going out the backdoor?’ Indeed, the masks are going in the trash after they’re used. The masks are one-use masks….” (Rawstory.com)
Trump calls himself a war president, but his is a war on the American people. While it’s true that hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens could die in this pandemic, it’s also true that federal resources needed to fight it would have come Day one from a coherent, educated, honest, and empathetic administration.
Stay safe, dear readers. And vote.
Janice Palma-Glennie is a resdient of Kailua-Kona.