How Donald Trump’s ego is hurting America
Not to mention the economic recovery and his chances for reelection…
Today’s cartoon was inspired by a story about people vacationing in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and the rise in COVID-19 cases in that area.
Unfortunately, Myrtle Beach is not an isolated example.
Here in Kansas City, we just set a new single-day record for COVID-19 cases for the second day in a row.
The same thing is happening all across America; according to Johns Hopkins University there were more than 37,000 new COVID-19 cases reported on Thursday, which broke the previous single-day record set on April 24th.
As just about everybody with any expertise in epidemiology warned us, reopening the economy comes with a cost and the cost gets even higher if you reopen without restrictions.
According to an analysis by the Philadelphia Inquirer, states that don’t require face masks in public are seeing spikes in new coronavirus cases; in 16 states where wearing a face mask in public is not mandatory, new coronavirus cases have risen by 84 percent in the last two weeks.
Health experts say we know what to do to reduce COVID-19 cases, but our political leaders (and yes, I was being sarcastic when I used the word “leaders”) don’t have the guts to do it.
Chickenshit politicians
For starters, my computer is telling me “chickenshit” is not a word and if it’s not it ought to be because it’s the most appropriate adjective to describe how a bunch of politicians are behaving right now.
Politicians get re-elected and avoid real jobs by being popular, so a bunch of them don’t want to make wearing masks mandatory because they’re afraid the knuckleheads out there might actually get off their asses and vote against them.
(According to my computer “knuckleheads” is a word, so thank God for that because I plan on using it a few more times before I’m through.)
The knuckleheads don’t like the government telling them what to do which strikes me as bullshit because I assume they stop for red lights – although now that I think about it, some of them don’t.
Anyway…
The government tells us what to do all the time and we’re often fine with that because a world without traffic signals would be pretty damn chaotic. We accept that we have to follow some rules of the road to prevent four-car pile ups at every intersection.
But when government asks us to follow some law, they need to be able to explain why it’s necessary and right now the politicians can’t get their shit together on wearing masks in public because they don’t want to be responsible if somebody gets mad about losing his or her God-given right to give a disease to strangers.
So a lot of politicians are being weasels and saying people “should” wear a mask, but don’t want to make it mandatory. Which makes about as much sense as saying people “should” stop when they see a red light, but everybody should have the freedom to make their own choice.
The Knucklehead-in-Chief
If politicians believe mask wearing would mean fewer deaths, but don’t have the guts to make mask-wearing mandatory, they should at the very least set a good example and wear one themselves.
Which Donald Trump refuses to do.
There are various theories that explain his behavior:
Trump thinks wearing a mask would make him look unmanly which means his manhood must be hanging by a thread and looking unmanly didn’t stop him from avoiding military service with some highly questionable bone spurs.
Trump thinks wearing a mask would make him look goofy which is somewhat surprising for a guy who doesn’t think twice about doing photo ops with what appears some kind of roadkill on his head.
And this one comes from an unnamed White House official: Trump won’t wear a mask even though, “He knows masks are important, but he doesn’t want that image or to admit he is wrong.”
Personally, I buy all three theories.
When Trump goes out in public without a mask he sends the message that it’s OK to do that. When Trump holds a rally and doesn’t observe social distancing he sends a message that social distancing isn’t necessary.
Trump has actually said: "If we didn't test, we wouldn't have cases. But we have cases because we test."
Follow that logic to its illogical conclusion and the main cause of broken bones would appear to be X-rays: “Hey, if you don’t know your arm’s broken, what’s the problem?”
As far as Donald Trump is concerned, you getting sick with the coronavirus makes him look bad so the obvious answer is not testing and finding out you’re sick.
Now here’s a quote from CNN’s website:
Chalking up the controversies to "fake news," Trump shrugged them off as another attempt to diminish his reelection prospects. Yet as he enters a summer season of health calamity and racial unrest, a growing number of Trump's advisers and allies worry he is blind to the self-destructive behavior that appears to be eroding his chances at a second term.
Follow politics for any length of time and you know presidents are always blaming their enemies for negative stories about them, when in reality the worst stuff we know about presidents comes from the people presidents pick to work in the White House.
Back to the beginning:
Donald Trump’s ego – his refusal to wear a mask, observe social distancing and reluctance to do the testing necessary to figure out who’s sick – is hurting America, the economic recovery and his chances of getting reelected.
And it couldn’t happen to a dumber guy.
Marry me. Marry me NOW. :D that's how much I love this post.
And based on all this Cry Wolf. There probably won’t be an election. And if there were one? Do you really expect a change?