Alexander the Great and Dumb Donald

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qw0T9RK0GrA

After prefacing a question at Donald Trump's press conference Friday (March 20, 2020) by recounting current statistics of the sick and deceased due to COVID-19, NBC's Peter Alexander asked the president a straightforward question: “What do you say to Americans who are watching you right now who are scared?” Instead of offering comforting words or giving practical advice, (i.e., being presidential) Trump shot back, “I'd say that you're a terrible reporter . . .” and called it a “nasty question,” accusing Alexander of “sensationalism.” He topped off his rant with the schoolyard taunt of calling the reporter's employer (NBC owner, Comcast) “Con-cast.” Brilliant stuff from the mind of an eight-year-old who's been given the keys to our nuclear arsenal.

It was a perfectly valid question, the kind of question to which understandably frightened Americans deserve an honest, measured, useful answer. Unfortunately “useful” is not an adjective that can be remotely applied to this narcissistic, ignorant conman. Instead of giving Alexander's question the answer it deserved, Trump immediately sensed that he was somehow being attacked (because of course, everything is always about him) and responded like the pouting child he is.

Newsflash, Donald: So you wanted to be president. Well, guess what? Presidents get hard questions. It's part of the job. Just because a question in inconvenient to you and your titanic ego, doesn't make it a bad question. Quite to the contrary, your answer was a bad answer. An answer (like the eternal font of asinine things you say) that demonstrates how categorically unprepared and unfit you are for office.

As I previously noted in this space, COVID-19 is not Trump's fault. But everything about his response IS his fault. First, he denied it was a problem. Then he minimized the problem. And when he could no longer deny it, he finally addressed the problem – at least a month too late. (Of course he now pretends that he was on top of it from the start.) That delay has cost many, many lives. Not to mention that, compounding his incompetence and making matters worse, in 2018 he actually dismantled the NSC pandemic response team that President Obama had created.

Trump has amply demonstrated that he's a corrupt, incompetent liar. He avoided impeachment only because his Republican enablers have refused to acknowledge the truth about his wrongdoing: Ukraine, nepotism, the emoluments clause – take your pick. But now he's clearly demonstrated that he's fundamentally unqualified for his job. A job that's far beyond his capabilities to fulfill or even remotely understand.

November can't come soon enough.

Combating the Trump Virus

COVID-19 is not Trump's fault, but his initial denials, consistent lies and the resulting slow response are very much his fault.

In 2018, he disbanded the National Security Council unit focused on pandemic preparedness. This hampered the speed and resources with which we could combat the disease. This also was Trump's fault, a blunder he aggravated by blaming it on his administration and claiming not to have known anything about. Someone please tell me, in what universe does a U.S. president NOT accept Truman's maxim, “The Buck Stops Here?” But then again, in Trump's universe, he consistently throws people under the bus.

In 2014, President Obama led a swift and effective response to the worst outbreak of Ebola virus ever seen (in West Africa.) Under his direction, the U.S. Sent 3,000 DOD, CDC, USAID and other officials to Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea to assist with response efforts as part of a 10,000-person U.S.-backed civilian response. The disease was quickly brought under control. This experience informed his executive decision in 2016 to create the NSC pandemic response team to combat new health crises that would inevitably occur.

The team was dismantled, ostensibly, to cut costs (and how's that working out for us now?) But Trump has consistently attempted to dismantle much of Obama's legacy throughout his presidency. In doing so, it often seems as if he's being petulant and vindictive, cutting programs primarily because they were Obama's programs. If that's his motivation (and nothing about Trump's character would convincingly suggest otherwise,) it would be just one more example of why Donald Trump's presence in the White House is an obscenity and why he must be removed in November.

A Viral Failure of Leadership

https://www.pbs.org/video/shields-and-brooks-on-leadership-in-a-time-of-crisis-1584140287/

Shields: “'America First' fails.”

Brooks: “This is what happens when you elect a sociopath as president.”

If you're a supporter of Donald Trump, don't think these commentators are biased against him. The facts are biased against him. Maybe that's why he doesn't like facts.

For You Were Foreigners in Egypt

“When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.”

                                                                              Leviticus 19:34

                                                                                                  

Accordingto Pew Research, 69% of white Evangelicals support Donald Trump while 44% of white Catholics (my own demographic) and 36% of Catholics overall support him. (Pew shows no category for “black evangelicals,” but they list “black protestants” as giving Trump 12% support.)

To be clear, I myself detest Donald Trump and want nothing more for our country than his sound defeat at the polls in November. While I find some comfort in the fact that he finds considerably less support among my own denomination, it's disheartening to me that any serious Christian abides his racist, hateful and quite non-Christian worldview. (And that doesn't even begin to address the danger of his upsetting the Western order with his policies and behavior abroad.) While certainly those polled likely can be found across the spectrum in what may be called “seriousness” about their faith, it's surely true that many of the people polled are quite devout.

I live in a relatively wealthy parish whose church attendance I gather to be nearly 90% white. Every week at Mass I hear constant injunctions to treat refugees and foreigners with love, kindness and hospitality. And every week I do a slow burn in my pew as I reasonably suppose that roughly half my fellow parishioners support a president who is the poster boy for everything that flies in the face of that injunction.

So it especially pleased me to read this article in our diocesan newspaper (The Observer – Rockford, IL diocese.) It's heartening to know that at least some of my fellow Catholics take Jesus seriously.