I'd Say You're a Shitty President

 “If someone wants to blame someone or complain about someone, blame me. There is no one else who is responsible for this decision.” - New York Governor Andrew Cuomo
“I don’t take responsibility at all.” - "President" Donald Trump

(By American Zen's Mike Flannigan, on loan from Ari.)

I'd usually say, since it's often the case in this rolling dumpster fire of an administration, this is what anarchy looks like. And, really, I think those of us who still have cognitive functions left after the daily Koolaid parties of the past week presided over by Russian Vice President Donald Trump can agree that, at least in an academic sense, this is anarchy. There is plainly no leadership at the top of the trash heap of future history. But this isn't mere anarchy. This is something worse:

    This is anarchy masking itself as authoritarian control, just nasty enough and with just enough snarling to keep some of us in line and give us the illusion that, if not a president guided by democratic principles, at least we have a strongman in charge.

     We. Do. Not. It's a projected image, little better than a hologram.

     We used to make jokes about Michael Bloomberg during his "Torpedo the Socialist" presidential campaign that he didn't really exist outside of a television screen, a right wing Max Headroom minus the funny glitches. But these days, we're all Michael Bloomberg. For now, only news anchors and skeleton crews of technical staff are allowed on network sound stages and quarantined guests are doing their segments in their own homes. Stephen Colbert is doing shows from his own home and it's excruciating to watch him trying to get laughs without a live audience to laugh at the punchlines.

     There's nothing much to laugh at, these days. The scenarios we used to watch for entertainment in dystopian and post apocalyptic science fiction movies are coming true- Washington DC, the nerve center of our government, possibly the most powerful and valuable real estate on the planet, is slowly turning into a ghost town before our very eyes. This is what may be referred to in the future as the "Before Times" when future archeologists or alien visitors pick through what was left of our homes and see cases of putrid spring water and palletes of toilet paper stockpiled in our basements and garages.

     This is the legacy we will leave behind for the future.

     Because in the "Before Times", we had no leadership. And because during this time of anarchy masquerading as strong leadership, the guy nominally in charge had an approval rating of 55% because he waved phantom $1000 checks under our noses and gave us, as with everything else he's done, the illusion that something was being done.

      And that's what Donald Trump is, an incompetent, more umber version of David Copperfield, the man who's making coronavirus disappear with a Google system for drivethrough testing that doesn't exist, by invoking the Defense Production Act that was never followed through in a Phase Two and a vaccine named chloroquine that hasn't had many trial tests. You don't have to squint to see the piano wires.

     Meanwhile, he's snarling at the press, as usual, telling NBC's Peter Alexander, who'd yesterday asked Trump what he'd say to a frightened American public, "I'd say you're a terrible reporter." As if impugning the media and personally insulting a journalist was a credible response aimed at allaying a nation's justifiable fears.

     His so-called Surgeon General, Jerome Adams, an anesthesiologist who has no more experience in dealing with infectious diseases than the CDC Director Robert Redfield, which is to say absolutely none, a week ago castigated the press and told them what types of stories to write and not write. "No more bickering. No more partisanship. No more criticism or finger-pointing," he said to Jake Tapper, apparently forgetting that Trump spent time at the CDC a couple of weeks ago calling Washington Governor Jay Inslee, "a snake." (Incidentally, it ought to be mentioned here that Vice Admiral Adams used to be the public health commissioner for Mike Pence, who proudly put the axe to a needle exchange program that immediately resulted in the worst HIV/AIDS outbreak in Indiana's history.)

     Meanwhile, our frontline warriors in this health care crisis, our nurses, doctors, EMTs, nurse's aides, orderlies and other support personnel, have little to nothing with which to fight this double-headed dragon called coronavirus and COVID-19. Medical TV shows such as Grey's Anatomy, Station 19, The Good Doctor and The Resident have cleaned out their costume and props departments and donated their inventory to hospitals. Yes, some of our hospitals are using Hollywood costumes and props. Meanwhile, Pence is apathetically promising masks to hospitals in weeks. They're out now. (For a more visceral and hands-on assessment of this emerging crisis, read this article by Dr. Dipti S. Barot.)

A Tale of Two New Yorkers

As of yesterday afternoon, while Trump was holding court in Washington, New York City had reported 5,683 cases and 43 deaths. New York State accounts for just 6% of the nation's population but accounts for about half of all confirmed cases of coronavirus in it. One of the nation's most important and populous states needed leadership and they got it.

    And more.

   As well as announcing a clampdown on the state, telling New Yorkers to go out only when absolutely necessary and shutting down non-essential services and businesses such as bars and restaurants, the governor had this to say about us then his quarantined daughter:

“People are in a small apartment, they’re in a house, they’re worried, they’re anxious. Just, be mindful of that. Those three-word sentences can make all the difference: ‘I miss you.’ ‘I love you.’ ‘I’m thinking about you.’ ‘I wish I was there with you.’ ‘I’m sorry you’re going through this.’ ‘I’m sorry we’re going through this.’

“To tell you the truth, I had some of the best conversations with her that I’ve ever had. She was alone for two weeks. We talked about things in depth that we didn’t have time to talk about in the past or we didn’t have the courage or the strength to talk about in the past — feelings I had, about mistakes I had made along the way that I wanted to express my regret and talk through with her.”

    Andrew Cuomo at that moment wasn't Governor Cuomo, he was a Dad who had had a little reckoning with his daughter, apologizing for the mistakes he'd made, that we all make as fallible human beings, strengthening the ties that matter and setting one's emotional affairs in order... just in case.
     Compare that to Donald Trump's, "I don't take responsibility at all" and giving his response "an A+" when asked what grade he'd give himself for it. Trump and his costumed rodeo clowns are giving us empty promises, lies and half-truths while people like Gov. Cuomo, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau (whose wife has the coronavirus) and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, all three unsurprisingly among Trump's biggest antagonists, are giving their people the facts they desperately need.

     Trump's daughter Ivanka, out of camera range at stage left yesterday, isn't quarantined and, even if she were, it's laughably impossible to imagine Trump having his own reckoning with his eldest daughter, or any of his offspring, much less taking blame for any mistakes he'd made, much less apologizing for those mistakes. While Andrew Cuomo may be privately confronting the possibility of never seeing his daughter again (as many of us with far-flung family are, as well), Trump is sunnily looking forward to Election Day and the prospect of getting reelected as "a wartime president" who beat an invincible enemy such as COVID-19 with props, costumes and empty promises.