Here are two columns, one from the New York Times, by Timothy Egan and the other by Mona Charen. They pretty much sum up the situation as it stands today. Egan's words are nothing new. (My blog posting of July 30 suggested the military might end up escorting a defeated Trump from the White House.)
For years, however, I felt that conservative Mona Charen was out of touch with America as it is today, but now, even Ms. Charen has seen the light and she blames the Republican Party, which deserves defeat at every level for continuing to support a President, only elected because democracy ain't all that it's cracked up to be.
Read them both. These copies were lifted from the Palm Beach Post's copyrighted web site. I suggest you subscribe, even if only to their online edition!
But remember what H.L. Mencken said many years ago ... "As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron." These gullible and ignorant people still vote so it is important that all others make sure that they are registered and vote so that the horrible miscarriage of democracy which occurred in 2016 can be corrected!
But remember what H.L. Mencken said many years ago ... "As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron." These gullible and ignorant people still vote so it is important that all others make sure that they are registered and vote so that the horrible miscarriage of democracy which occurred in 2016 can be corrected!
Trump, please quit before you’re fired
It was clear when President Donald Trump woke up Thursday morning, with no pollster left to lie to him, and not enough Fox News sycophancy to fill his cereal bowl, that he would have to play one of the last tricks in the dictator’s handbook.
He floated the idea of breaching the Constitution by illegally delaying the national election. It follows his logic on a pandemic that has taken more than 150,000 American lives. If there were less testing for the coronavirus, cases would go down. Ergo, if there were no election on Nov. 3, he couldn’t be booted from office in a wipeout. The stable genius strikes again!
Here’s a better suggestion: As a mortal threat to those looking for life-and-death guidance from the White House, he should do humanity a favor and surrender now. He can quit while he’s only behind by 10 points or so. More important, by walking away today, he can save many lives of supporters who have listened to the lethal quackery from the presidential podium.
He gave up in the war on COVID-19 from Day 1, when he declared that there was nothing to worry about, it would all soon disappear like magic. And his throw-in-the-towel tactics continue to this day, as he promotes the harmful and bizarre suggestions of a woman who also believes in demon sperm transmitted through dreams.
And here’s the net result of a country run by a crackpot: On a single day last week, there were nearly twice as many COVID-19 deaths in just one American state, Texas, than in the five major countries of Western Europe combined. On that same day, Thursday, the COVID Tracking Project reported 1,400 American deaths, the most in a single day since May 15.
Trump publicly quit on his country two years ago, when he chose Vladimir Putin’s word over that of U.S. intelligence officials, the infamous sellout in Helsinki. So it was no surprise when the two leaders spoke by phone this week, that Trump did not even raise the question of Russians paying a bounty to have American soldiers killed in Afghanistan. That is dereliction of duty, son.
He quit on the economy in early spring, when he pushed for a widespread reopening, even though health experts warned that the results could be catastrophic. And thus, this week we saw the largest drop in economic output on record, as people were afraid
to resume normal commerce in a country fevered with viral hotspots.
If Trump were to quit, he would join Richard Nixon in disgrace — he’d be an impeached president (Nixon quit on the brink of impeachment) forced from office. Except, Nixon is a notch higher in the hellscape, given his diplomatic openings in China and his signing of landmark environmental laws.
Quitting before an election would deprive Americans of the satisfaction of rejecting him by an overwhelming margin, a national shower to clean off four years of his grime and grift.
But there’s another image, equally satisfying. Trump could play one last gambit in the dictator’s checklist and refuse to leave office on Jan. 20 — election or no election — as required by the Constitution. If he does this, a weary nation would be rewarded with a presidential perp walk, as Trump is escorted out of the White House and into infamy by military police.
Timothy Egan
Egan is a Times columnist based in Seattle
The Charen Column:
Who is really burning things down?
My friend David French, one of the most admirable voices in America today, argues that conservatives need not vote against Republican Senate candidates in order to send a message about Trumpism. I disagree. He writes, “A rage, fury, and a ‘burn it all down’ mentality is one of the maladies that brought us to the present moment.”
This assumes that the reason some plan to evict Republican senators is simply a matter of anger. But voting against a candidate or even a whole party is not nihilism. It’s the legal, constitutional way to express approval or disapproval. The current Republican Party has chosen to become the burn-it-all-down party. The most demoralizing aspect of the past four years has not been that a boob conman was elected president but that one of the two great political parties surrendered to him utterly. David suggests that voting against Republican senators ignores that they had bad choices. It’s certainly true that Republicans perceived their options to be limited. If they speak up, they say, they will flush their careers down the drain. Look at what happened to Jeff Flake, Mark Sanford and Bob Corker!
But this overstates things. A number of Republicans have stood up to Trump and maintained their electoral viability — especially when they challenged him on matters in which he has shown little interest, namely public policy. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., for example, voted against the president’s USMCA trade agreement and (gasp) wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal explaining his reasoning.
Where Republicans have shrunk into their shells was on matters that are even more critical to the health of our republic. They have, by their silence, given assent to his cruelty, his assaults on truth, his dangerous flirtations with political violence and his consistent demolition of institutions.
Institutions are like scaffolding. When a society’s institutions are weakened, the whole edifice can come crashing down.
Donald Trump undermined the institution of the free press, urging his followers to disbelieve everything except what came from the leader. He weakened respect for law enforcement and the courts, suggesting that he was the victim of a “deep state” and that “so-called judges” need not be respected. He scorned allies and toadied to dictators. He has cast doubt on the integrity of elections.
He ran the executive branch like a gangster, demanding personal loyalty and abusing officials such as the hapless Jeff Sessions, who merely followed ethics rules. He ignored the law to get his way on the border wall. He violated the most sacred norms of a multiethnic society by encouraging racial hatred. He made the U.S. guilty of separating babies from their mothers.
Elected officials, terrified of their own constituents, have cowered and temporized in the face of a truly unprecedented assault on democratic values. They believed that they were powerless and acted accordingly. Since they were powerless when it counted, perhaps we should make it official?
Patting Myself on the Back
Back on July 4, on this blog, I pointed out that the number of positive Coronavirus tests by itself was not particularly informative without knowing what percentage of the total number of tests administered those testing positive comprised.
Five hundred positive tests
out of 2,000 tests administered is a “positivity” percentage of 25%. That’s bad.
Five hundred positive tests out of 20,000 administered is a “positivity”
percentage of 2.5%. That’s good. Quite a difference. Go back and read that blog posting. You can get there by clicking on July postings over on the right!
Is it my imagination, but
during the past month, have newspapers (not so much on TV) been increasingly
using this “positivity” percentage in reporting on the spreading of the
Coronavirus pandemic? I am not implying
that they got the idea of doing that, which they had not been doing earlier,
from this blog but certainly, the fact that these journalists’ minds came up
with the same thoughts which mine did is validating to me.
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