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Donald Trump

We’re Number 2! We’re Number 2! We’re Number Two: Trumpicans Rejoice

May 12, 2020
by Peter Feinman
Live from New York! It's Little Donny Disinfectant (Nick Levesque, Atlantic)

We’re Number 2! We’re Number 2! We’re Number Two: Trumpicans rejoice as America’s position in the world declines. The battle between the Middle Kingdom and the City on a Hill for world leadership continues (The City on the Hill versus the Middle Kingdom: Who Will Win World War IV?, May 6, 2018). If anything, the determination to triumph in World War IV has increased. There can be only one cosmic center at a time. It can be Ashur or Babylon, but not both, London or Paris, but not both, New York or Moscow both destroyed at the end of Failsafe, but not both. Ancient Rome and China could rule their respective realms in isolation from each other based on the transportation and communication technologies of its time. Now Mainland China not only can exert its influence in the South China Sea, it can make a mockery of the Monroe Doctrine.

Until recently, China could quietly and steadily move ahead through its Belt and Road Initiative to link the countries of the world to its economic engine. It became the manufacturing center of the world displacing the United States. In the meantime, the United States withdrew from the world, alienated allies, and abandoned its leadership role. From the Chinese perspective, everything was working out fine. It was only a matter of time before it officially assumed the leadership position at international organizations. After all, who was going to stop them?

The coronavirus upset everything. To the best laid plans of mice and men, the Corvid-19. Everything is different now. My first impression back on February 4 was that the virus would undermine China’s quest for global leadership (Kobe and Coronavirus: Meaning for World War IV). China’s mishandling of the coronavirus and the demonstration of American soft power at a global level suggested America would prevail even with a President who had no interest in America’s role in the global arena. In his imaginary world, everyone was looking at America in envy because of his leadership. He displayed no awareness that he already had become a laughing stock even before becoming Little Donny Disinfectant.

But then Mainland China got its act together while Trumpican America did not (Can China Leverage the Coronavirus to World Leadership?, March 19, 2020). As America floundered in February and March not taking Corvid-19 seriously or taking half-ass measures, Mainland China boldly seized the opportunity which it had been given. First, it got its own act together and then, it sought to save the world. It would fill the role that the world expected the United States to fill. In reality since World War II and in movies (Santa Claus to Relocate from Vanishing North Pole to Mar-a-Lago), it was the United States which rose to the occasion. This time it was MIA. Even worse, the American shortcomings were broadcast live for all the world to see. Only in the mind of the American immature child president and on Fox was America succeeding against the virus. Everyone else knew America was a loser.

On April 24, the question was asked “’How Can This Happen?’ A World Missing American Leadership,” (NYT). The article presents a number of people who were stunned at what they were seeing on TV. As succinctly stated: “It is shaking fundamental assumptions about American exceptionalism ⸺ the special role the United States played for decades after World War II as the reach of the values and power made it a global leader and example to the world.” American exceptionalism has been superseded by TRUMP EXCEPTIONALISM: he is exceptional and the country is only through his leadership.

TRUMP EXCEPTIONALISM has not played well on the global stage. The eyes of the world are still upon us but now it sees an erratic child who devalues scientific expertise. The seventh-grade-smart-aleck-dumb-aleck lacks the mental necessities to understand science despite his supergenius uncle. It’s not just that the United States is failing the world, its president is failing the American people. Germany and South Korea, countries the United States help revive, is showing the way while the United States lags behind.

The situation hasn’t improved since this article on April 24. A recent expression on this subject was The Rest of the World Is Laughing at Trump: The president created a leadership vacuum. China intends to fill it by Anne Applebaum (Atlantic, May 3, 2020). The article documents how the world is now full of Alex Baldwins on SNL ridiculing the immature child president. Indirectly, it notes that the world doesn’t watch Fox and that Little Donny Disinfectant is absolutely clueless about his image.

But out there in the real world—out there in the world where Pompeo’s boss is perceived as a sinister clown, and Pompeo himself as just the sinister clown’s lackey—not very many people are listening. Once again: A vacuum has opened up, and the Chinese regime is leading the race to fill it.

These words recall those of Brian Williams on MSNBC where after reporting on the daily absurdities at the White House then intones, “In the real world…” One also recalls the old adage, “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”  Applebaum concludes with:

And if Trump wins a second term? Any nation can make a mistake once, elect a bad leader once. But if Americans choose Trump again, that will send a clear message: We are no longer a serious nation. We are as ignorant as our thoughtless, narcissistic, ignorant president. Don’t be surprised if the rest of the world takes note of that, too.  

Imagine being an international traveler from America in the future and having to explain how America could have elected this clown twice! The ridicule the student, tourist, or business person will face will be fierce and unrelenting.

Fortunately the collapse of America’s leadership role may not be fatal. This is because China overreached. At home and abroad, China has ratcheted up the intensity and fervor of its own version of Middle Kingdom exceptionalism. Imagine America if the only news media was the government propaganda network. Imagine if there is no alternative Fox. That is the tragic situation in Mainland China. All there news comes from their Sean Hannity! (The China Hannitys versus the American Hannitys: The 2020 Olympics, April 20, 2020)

Abroad, Wolf Warrior diplomacy has backfired. China expected to be welcomed with open arms as the savior of the world for its largess and own success to defeating coronavirus at home. It’s hasn’t worked out that way. The Wolf Warriors have antagonized with their insults and superiority attitude the very people who are supposed to be thankful to China. They have done such a horrendous job that even Taiwan has been able to take advantage of the mistrust of China to positively reach out to the world itself.

So now Little Donny Disinfectant wants to make China the Mexicans of the 2020 election. Whereas in 2016, Mexico was going to pay for the wall, China now is going to pay reparations. Despite having no evidence but wishful thinking, would-be 2024 Trumpican Presidential candidate Mike Pompeo intends to indict China for unleashing the coronavirus of the world. He is aiming for billions. That’s the scam.

The Chinese counter to this maneuver is easy. Besides simply refusing to pay, China has a devastating case to make. It no longer needs the canard about American soldiers introducing the virus in China ⸺ it has Fox. China already can use clips from Fox and other shows that highlight the ineptitude, incompetence, and ignorance of the immature child President. Little Donny Disinfectant is a laughing stock in China too. The “Mourning in America” video was made when the number of deaths was 60,000. Look how obsolete it is already. Joe Biden is now starting to launch his own videos highlighting the shortcomings of the incumbent. In the international arena, it will be a lot easier for China to make the case that Trump is an idiot than it will be for Pompeo to prove that the virus originated as a Chinese plot. But the world doesn’t vote in American elections. Pompeo’s goal is not to convince the world but to show Trumpicans that he is fighting for them…and therefore they should vote in 2020 for the candidate who is fighting for them as they did in 2016.

Measuring His Performance: The Target Dates

April 2011: Birtherism – reveal Hawaii findings on Obama soon: STILL WAITING
October 2016: sue all his women accusers after the campaign: STILL WAITING
May 15 2020: Coronavirus deaths drop to zero: in 3 days!!!!!
May 25 2020: Celebrate the victory over the coronavirus: in 13 days!!!!!!!
June 2020: Back to Normal
July 2020: We’re rockin’ now
July 4 2020 Supreme Court rules Republican President is above the law; American experiment ends short of 250th anniversary
Fall 2020: Deep State Indicted
Fall 2020: Deep State proves China responsible for coronavirus
November 3 2020: CLAIM VICTORY NO MATTER THE RESULTS
January 20 2021: Nancy Pelosi becomes President
January 20 2021: Arrested by New York, spends night at Rikers

A Frog, Boiling Water, and a President: Accepting the New Normal

May 8, 2020
by Peter Feinman
Zero deaths per day rising to 3,000 per day

Everyone knows the story of the frog and boiling water. If you put a frog in a pot of boiling water, the frog immediately will jump out. The frog will live to hop another day no worse for the wear. Instead, suppose the frog is placed in a pot of water at room or pond temperature and then water is then heated. What happens to the frog then? The frog dies. It keeps adjusting to the new normal until it is too late and it dies. The story is a good one whether it is true or not for frogs. That’s because it is true for people.

Imagine this scenario for being placed in a pot of boiling water. The year is 2000. Suddenly you visited by the Ghost of Christmas Future or a Terminator or Marty McFly or Clarence the Angel. You are told about the year 2020. You instantly become fully immersed in the year 2020. [This works better in science fiction than in the real world.] What do you see in the world of 2020 compared to the world you know in 2000?

A president who can’t tell the truth except by accident.
A president with no morals, no ethics, and no conscience.
A president with no sense of sympathy or empathy.
A president who is full-scale narcissist.
A president who is a bigot.
A president who is incapable of reading a book.
A president who has trouble speaking in complete sentences.
A president who has elementary-school level writing skills.
A president who has alienated America’s allies.
A president who prefers dictators and authoritarian leaders to democratic ones.
A president who fires anyone who is professional and loyal to the Constitution over him.
A president who will only accept happy talk from subordinates.
A president who thrives on insulting and demeaning people.
A president who operates on the level of a seventh-grade-smart-aleck-dumb-aleck.
A president who had the brains of an immature child.
A president at the time when a new disease killed tens of thousands of Americans because he lives in an imaginary world and has no management skills.
A president at the time when a new disease caused the largest unemployment numbers since the depression in little over one month.
A president who forfeited America’s leadership role in the world that it had held since World War II.
A president who is the laughingstock of the world.
A president who thought disinfectant could cure people of a virus.
A president who 40% of the American population accept as their Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed Be his Name, who can do no wrong.

So there you are in 2000 suddenly confronted in one overwhelming moment with the totality of President Donald Trump in the year 2020. In an instant, all at once, you are hit with the staggering onslaught of having to absorb all the conditions itemized above.

What would your reaction be if you are not a Trumpican?

You would scream. You would scream as loud as you could possibly scream. You would scream for as long as you possibly could scream. And then you would scream again. After physically exhausting yourself and while laying helpless in bed or on the floor, you would ask the Ghost of Christmas Future or the Terminator, Marty McFly, or Clarence the Angel how could such a dystopian world could exist? Could anything be done to prevent such a dystopia from occurring? Was such a dystopia inevitable or merely a possibility?

Of course, such an event in 2000 did not and could not occur. There was no way anyone could realistically predict the election to the American presidency of the immature child simultaneous with the coronavirus. Maybe someone could and did predict one and not the other, but both seems farfetched. No such script would have been accepted by Hollywood. No such book proposal would have been accepted by a publisher. Even Donald Trump would not have believed anything so outlandish.

But in the real world, we were not dropped into a pot of boiling water. In the real world we did not awaken after being a coma for 20 years. In the real world, we experienced the future one day at a time, like heating a pot of water. And we adjusted to the new normal little by little until at last we died…or will be able to avoid the horrendous future shown by the Ghost of Christmas Future, the Terminator, Marty McFly, or Clarence the Angel? Will we be able to make things right and live the world of George Bailey and Donna Reed? Isn’t that what everyone wants?

Meanwhile in the real world as we ponder our future, the pot keeps boiling. Look at what the unhinged President has been able to accomplish recently.

Fauci has been muzzled.
Flynn has been exonerated.
Obamacare has been targeted even during a health epidemic.
Food stamps have been curtailed even as hunger mounts.
Inspector Generals have been neutered and replaced with West Wing World replicas.

We know that Mike Pence has sold his soul.
We see that Kayleigh McEnany has too.
We watch as Deborah Birx struggles to keep hers.
We watch as Mike Pompeo campaigns for the 2024 Trumpican Party presidential nomination…assuming that the current incumbent won’t run then even from prison.

We learn about the value of human life to the President with no conscience. No more talk about zero deaths soon. No more talk about 50,000 deaths, or 60,000 deaths, or 75,000 deaths. We wonder when in June we will hit 100,000. Hannity will still crow that it is far less than 2 million so why believe the so-called experts and scientists. It is past the time to liberate Americans so We the People are able to live free and let die. By the way, 3,000 deaths/day for a year is over 1 million people. If there is still no vaccine and/or the prospective death rate increases as we are freed from oppressive governors, will Hannity and co. still be exulting then?

So now the President has made a decision. That’s what he is supposed to do. The buck stops with him. He takes responsibility. He is the wartime President and We the People are his warriors. In a war, people die. Bonespur Boy accepts that. He knows that in a war, he will have to order people to their death. He accepts the projection that 3,000 people/day will die between now and the election. He can live with that number. After all real men can’t get infected and real Americans can’t be either. If old people who are going to die soon anyway die and…you know…those people  die, too, that is a price he is willing to pay to re-open the economy so he can be re-elected and maintain his immunity. The gut instincts that enabled him to exploit the pain of Americans in 2016 now tell him that Americans, especially Trumpicans will accept 3,000 deaths/day as the new normal. The frog will be stay in the gradually heating pot.

Measuring His Performance: The Target Dates

April 2011: Birtherism – reveal Hawaii findings on Obama soon: STILL WAITING
October 2016: sue all his women accusers after the campaign: STILL WAITING
May 25 2020: celebrate the victory over the coronavirus: in 17 days!!!!!!!
June 2020: Back to Normal
July 2020: We’re rockin’ now
Fall 2020: Deep State Indicted
Fall 2020: Deep State proves China responsible for coronavirus
NOVEMBER 3, 2020: CLAIM VICTORY NO MATTER THE RESULTS
January 20, 2021: Arrested by New York, spends night at Rikers.

The America We Need versus the Leadership We Have

May 6, 2020
by Peter Feinman
What hole? I don't see a hole? Do you see a hole? (Waterford, NY, May 3, 2020, CNN)

“The America We Need” is the title of a two-page editorial in the Sunday Review of the New York Times (April 19, 2020, print). The huge font size of the title and the location on pages 2-3 of the section deliver a message of importance that is diminished in the digital format. Although the editorial doesn’t include the word “leadership” in the title, much of it is about leadership during crises in American history. As one might expect, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt figure prominently in the discussion. Obviously their examples as well as Lincoln’s Memorial have been in the news a lot lately.

One prominent name was missing: George Washington. It is easy to overlook his importance and fail to recognize that if he had not been the leader he was there would have been no Union for Lincoln to save and none for Roosevelt to rescue and protect. Truly Washington was “the indispensable man.” Regardless of the French military contribution to American success in winning the American Revolution, the likelihood is that no other person could have kept the former colonies now states together for France to aid. Similarly without him as the expected first president, who knows if the delegates ever would have forged a compromise that constituted us as a country. It is not just the selection of the capital city site that now bears his name that kept the states together. They forged the country with a sense with the awareness that he was there to lead them. Finally, once he did lead the country, he established routines that minimized the possibility that the American President would be above the law or have the right to do whatever he wanted.

Turning to Lincoln and Roosevelt, there are some critical points to consider especially now that they have been abandoned.

1. The belief in a strong American role in human history and the global arena
2. The belief in allies and not zero-sum relationships except against actual enemies
3. The importance of home, education, and infrastructure
4. The recognition that not all Americans were sons and daughters of the American Revolution but that people who were Americans by choice stood as one with those who were sons and daughters.

They read. They were interested in history. They were capable of growth. They lived in the real world.

The opening line of the editorial is:

From some of its darkest hours, the United States has emerged stronger and more resilient.

The closing lines are:

The United States has a chance to emerge from this latest crisis as a stronger nation, more just, more free and more resilient. We must seize the opportunity.

“Chance” is not a strong expression of hope and confidence. It is not a ringing endorsement of the idea that we will emerge “more just, more free and more resilient.” It is a recognition that we might not. The last sentence in the editorial with its imperative action highlights the urgency. The editorial mentions the current President but almost in passing:

After criticizing the actions of the “White House” regarding the procurement of the necessary medical supplies and equipment, the editorial backs into denigrating the wartime President. Because of “Trump’s feckless leadership and the tattered condition of the government he heads” bad things are happening, bad things to use the sophisticated analytical terms preferred by the President. Almost hidden in the editorial is the call that “the country is burdened with weak leadership. There is an upcoming “chance” to replace that leadership as was done in the elections of Lincoln and Roosevelt. For an editorial entitled “The America We Need,” these uses of “chance’ poorly reflect on the “fierce urgency of now” that faces We the People.

Can a bro from Queens provide adult leadership to America?

Leadership We Need Not Just in New York State

You are living a moment in history. This is going to be one of those moments they’re going to write and they are going to talk about for generations. This is a moment that is going to change this nation. This is a moment that forges character, forges people, changes people. … Ten years from now, you’ll be talking about today to your children or your grandchildren and you will shed a tear because you remember the lives lost. You’ll remember the faces and you’ll remember the names and you’ll remember how hard we worked and that we still lost loved ones. … But, you will also be proud. You’ll be proud of what you did. You will be proud that you showed up. You showed up when other people played it safe, you had the courage to show up. You had the skill and professionalism to make a difference and save lives. That’s what you will have done.
Governor Andrew Cuomo, to the National Guard, March 27, 2020

Leadership We Have
Now consider the words of the National Tweet in-chief.

In a Twitter message on May 4, 2020, on George W. Bush’s three-minute call for national unity video the day before: “(W)here was he during Impeachment calling for putting partisanship aside. He was nowhere to be found in speaking up against the greatest Hoax in American history.”

In a later Twitter re-tweet from a Trumpican: “Evidence has surfaced that Barack Obama was the one running the Russian hoax.”

At a press conference after being informed that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence had just issued a report expressing the conclusion that the coronavirus was not man-made, the wartime President twice asked for the name of the person who had issued the report that contradicted what he had just said. Gosh, what do think was going to happen to her while no one was looking?

What can be learn from these recent incidents?

1. The wartime President is the first President in the last century who can’t and doesn’t want to consult past presidents in a time of crisis. He constantly berates and belittles them with no awareness that future American Presidents will be even more brutal about him.

2. It’s always about him. No surprise there.

3. His simple-mindedness was on display. He always reverts to being the seventh-grade-smart-aleck-dumb- aleck because that who he really is. Notice he didn’t simply castigate Bush for not being loyal during the attempted extortion of the Ukraine – it was “the greatest” hoax in the entirety of American history. Here he combines his simple-mindedness with his ignorance.

How many hoaxes in American history can he even name that don’t involve him? The odds are in the Trumpican universe the claim is correct since the only other hoax he can name is the Russian one. Even if he used the term in reference to other events can he name them?

Notice also the use of the superlative. His simplemindedness operates on a binary basis. There is no nuance or in-between. It is all or nothing.

The worst trade deal ever… [How many does he even know about?]
The worst presidential campaign ever… [How many does he even know about?]
The worst Secretary of State ever… [How many does he even know about?]
The absolute worst Speaker of the House in United States history/maybe the worst speaker in the history of our country… [How many does he even know about?]
The greatest hoax ever perpetrated on our country (impeachment)… [How many does he even know about?]
I am greeted with a hostile press the likes of which no president has ever seen…I believe I am treated worse than Lincoln.

The pattern should be obvious. The historically-ignorant immature child only knows about 1 or 2 examples at the most anyway in each category. In his universe, the accusations may be true! Don’t judge him by adult standards as if he is knowledgeable about American history.

Real Men Don’t Cry
Our immature child President brings other characteristics to his leadership.

“When I see a man cry I view it as a weakness. The last time I cried was when I was a baby.” (People magazine 2015)

No sympathy. No empathy. No mask. Real men don’t get coronavirus.

Fox is Bonespur Boy’s Westworld: a fantasy realm where the President can be the man he wants to be rather than the man he is (David Plouffe as told to Maureen Dowd, NYT March 6, 2020, print)

“He seems psychologically incapable of dealing with a virus that is complex and uncertain. The virus will be in every community and needs truth, honesty and intelligence ⸺ all absent from the unstable Trump, who at his core is a frightened boy and pretender.” (Maureen Dowd, NYT March 6, 2020, print)

Exactly right. That’s what happens when an immature child is forced to operate in the adult world and is out of his league.

“At a time of crisis, America is led by a whiny childlike man whose ego is too fragile to let him concede ever having made any kind of error.” (Paul Krugman, NYT, May 5, 2020, print)

Almost right. He is not “childlike,” he actually has the brain of a child. Check his brain scans. Talk to a child psychiatrist.

The stress on functioning in the adult world is too much for the immature child. It has become too difficult for him to make up imaginary rules that work even in his own mind. So what can Donnee Disinfectant do? Declare game over, muzzle the Time magazine Person of the Year, and start a new game of economic recovery. Because in his world, even a death toll of 3,000 Americans/day is acceptable as long as he thinks it will mean he is re-elected and maintains his immunity from jail.

Soon it will be May 25, Victory over Coronavirus Day.

I truly do believe that if we all continue to do that kind of social distancing and other guidance broadly from federal and state officials, that we’re going to put this coronavirus in the past. I believe by early June we’re going to see our nation largely past this epidemic. I think honestly, if you look at the trends today, that I think by Memorial Day weekend we will have this coronavirus epidemic behind us. (The most pathetic Vice President in American history on Geraldo Rivera’s radio talk show, May 1, 2020)

Are you ready? Start making your celebration plans to party now.

Measuring His Performance: The Target Dates

April 2011: Birtherism – reveal Hawaii findings on Obama soon: STILL WAITING
October 2016: sue all his women accusers after the campaign: STILL WAITING
May 25 2020: celebrate the victory over the coronavirus: in 19 days!!!!!!!
June 2020: Back to Normal
July 2020: We’re rockin’ now
Fall 2020: Deep State Indicted
Fall 2020: Deep State proves China responsible for coronavirus
January 20, 2021: Arrested by New York, spends night at Rikers.

The countdown continues.

If Mike Pence Were President, How Many More Americans Would Be Alive Today?

April 27, 2020
by Peter Feinman
Are we living in an alternate reality? (amazon.com)

If Mike Pence were President, how many more Americans would be alive today? The “what if” counterfactual has a special niche within historical thinking. It may be best known from science fiction for history scholars also engage in it. The time travel stories are a way to “fix” a wrong which had occurred. The result is a better timeline. In practice, such stories typically end with failure in that the past cannot be changed…or if it is changed, it is for the worse due to the Law of Unintended Consequences.

Still, it can be fun to stretch one’s mind and consider a different future. In the very popular podcast Ben Franklin’s World about early American history, host Liz Covart ends her interviews with guest scholars with what she calls the “fun part” of the show: she asks the interviewee to comment on what if something had happened differently in the topic they are discussing. It is not unusual for the guest to conclude that the change proposed by Covart might have made a difference in the short run, but in long term, the greater momentum of history would have prevailed. I wonder.

During the Covid-19 crisis, BBC has been posing such questions to scholars. The most recent one (April 24) asks an eminent Cambridge classical scholar: “What if Alexander the Great had lived longer?”

In America, two counterfactuals loom large. First, suppose John Kennedy had not been assassinated, what would have happened specifically in Vietnam? Would Kennedy have followed the route Lyndon Johnson took? Less frequently is it asked, “Would the Civil Rights Bill have passed?”

The second one involves Abraham Lincoln. I grew up on the Twilight Zone episode Back There and Superboy’s attempt to prevent the assassination of Lincoln through time travel. Those efforts failed. If Lincoln had lived, sooner or later would the Confederacy have returned to power as in some ways it still is today? After all, after World War II, wasn’t the great hero whose words we keep hearing during the present crisis dumped from office in England?

Assassinations make for better “what ifs” than more general questions. An assassination may fail as it did with Ronald Reagan. So it is easy to contemplate a different scenario with Lincoln and Kennedy. The possibility of failed assassination attempt is very believable. Similarly, it is just as believable with Reagan to imagine a successful one. Very little needs to change for those moments to have ended up differently.

Bigger events are more problematical. For example, during the Covid-19 crisis, The Plot Against America by Philip Roth has been shown as a TV series on HBO. It is about an alternate America where Charles Lindbergh defeats Franklin Roosevelt in the 1940 presidential election. He then steers America towards a more accommodating relationship with Hitler than Roosevelt pursued. This counterfactual is less convincing. Here the change is not a matter of a bullet being moved a fraction of inch. Instead it requires a change in the American populace whereby such a person could have first become a viable national candidate and then triumph. That change moves the alternate reality to not totally farfetched but not quite believable either. It’s a really big change.

So it would be if the Senate had voted a President out of office and made Mike Pence the new President. Still, given all that has happened since February –– ONLY FEBRUARY? REMEMBER WHEN WHAT JOHN BOLTON WOULD SAY WAS IMPORTANT? THAT WAS IN FEBRUARY….OF THIS YEAR?! FEBRUARY! WAS IT REALLY ONLY FEBRUARY! HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE!?

If only there weren’t a Trumpican majority in the Senate, think how different America would be today.

If only Mitt Romney hadn’t been the one Republican in the Senate, think how different America would be today.

If only the Senate hadn’t gambled that what harm could the ignorant inept immature President do, think how different America would be today.

Did we lose that gamble or would the events have been the same if Mike Pence had become President then?

This time we have hard-based scientific evidence that the situation could have been different. We know that social distancing and lock-downs work. It is possible to examine the dates of when cities in the United States (like New York) and cities throughout the world commenced a lock down. The numbers aren’t hidden figures. They are visible in plain sight. We know that the earlier these actions were taken, the fewer deaths there would have been and would be.  The same applies to the states. It is possible to examine the numbers from the 50 states and observe how many lives would have been saved if a state had acted a day earlier, two days earlier, a week earlier, or two weeks earlier. We know with different national leadership fewer Americans would have died and the economy wouldn’t have collapsed as much.

Would Mike Pence have acted faster to implement what we know to be the successful way to curtail the spread of Covid-19?

Would Mike Pence have ignored all the warnings about the pending crisis?

Would Mike Pence have prevented a cruise ship from docking in order to keep the number of infections down in his country?

Would Mike Pence have claimed there were only 15 infected people and the number would soon be zero?

Would Mike Pence have said everything was under control?

Would Mike Pence have promoted hydroxychloroquine as a “game changer”?

Would Mike Pence have targeted Easter Sunday and then May 1 as dates when the country could be reopened?

Would Mike Pence have asserted his royal powers to do what he wants because the President calls the shots even if he is not responsible because the buck does not stop with him unless you are staying at one of his properties?

Would Mike Pence have conducted disorganized press conferences full of dishonesty and ignorance?

Would Mike Pence have used the press conferences as political rallies where he exults in insulting people?

Would Mike Pence have contradicted the scientific evidence about the possible return of Covid-19 in the fall or next year (assuming it ever disappears in the first place)?

Would Mike Pence have banished scientists who contradicted him or who have better ratings than he has? Ratings for honesty. Ratings for competence. Ratings for trustworthiness.

Would Mike Pence have suggested the ingestion of disinfectants should be investigated?

It is really not so difficult to imagine a different scenario being played out. The evidence is right there before us. We have the numbers. We have the multiple examples from the different cities, states, and countries. When the Unpresidential Library is built, an entire room will be dedicated to the failure of Donny Disinfectant to guide the ship of state through the turbulent wave of infection that washed over our country. Students of all ages and scholars, too, will debate the issue of the price America has paid because Mike Pence did not become President in February 2020. We the People will wonder what if we had had an adult in the White House instead of Donald Trump, the singularly most incompetent, inept, ignorant, and immature president in American history. How many more tens of thousands of Americans might be alive today if only Mike Pence had been President? On Election Day, we will have the opportunity to vote on whether we would have been off if Mike Pence had been President.

 

P.S. The previous post on Post-Trumpatic Stress Disorder: Is There A Cure? needs to be amended. If the Senate had voted to remove the President, would he have complied? Based on his words, he would have brought the matter to HIS Supreme Court to squash this hoax. Therefore additional requirements to prevent a re-occurrence of Trumpatic Stress Disorder are needed.

Congress shall have the authority to enforce subpoenas through the Sergeant at Arms seizing people who choose not to comply.

Congress shall have the authority to hold subpoenaed people in custody during their testimony.

Congress shall have the authority to indict people who are in violation of their subpoena or who fail to cooperate with the investigation.

Congress shall have authority over the Secret Service in cases where the President has been voted out of office by the Senate.

Post-Trumpatic Stress Disorder: Is There A Cure?

April 23, 2020
by Peter Feinman
Honest Donald denying he chopped down the cherry tree. He never tells the truth except by accident.

Is there a cure for post-trumpatic stress disorder? Technically the designation “post” is in error since we are still living through trumpatic stress disorder. So far there has been no treatment for it. No one has invoked the 25th Amendment. The Mueller Report turned into a dud. And the impeachment resulted in a decision of “Of course he attempted to extort Ukraine for his own benefit. So what? That’s the way the game is played. Ask the OJ lawyer.”

The 22nd Amendment seems to provide surefire treatment for curing post-trumpatic stress disorder, but who knows what might happen. After all, the king might simply crown his daughter the first female president and remain in the White House until he dies…that way he will forever be immune to the law, the true immunity that matters to him.

But what about preventive medicine? What about a vaccine? What about acting to prevent a recurrence of the disorder. After all, the very stable genius, the smartest person in a room as long as it is a morgue or a nursery school with no adults, already has informed us that unlike the flu, corvid-19 will not be annual illness: IT WILL NOT RETURN. THE LORD AND SAVIOR, THE CHOSEN ONE, BLESSED BE HIS NAME HAS SAID SO.

Below are some items for consideration that can vaccinate the American society from a recurrence of trumpatic stress disorder. I am sure there are others which can be included. I am sure that my vaccination attempts won’t all work. But we have to start somewhere.

CANDIDATES FOR THE OFFICE OF PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

Candidates would have to do the following.

1. Release tax returns – I am open as to how many years back should be required.

2. Have a real medical exam

3. Disclose all pending legal actions in which the candidate directly or the organization/company with which he is connected is involved either as a defendant or plaintiff – I am open as to how many years back should be required

4. Disclose a plan for complete divestiture of investments and assets in event the candidate is elected

5. Deliver two 30-minute speeches over two weeks in a non-political rally setting on domestic and foreign affairs. In a two-person race, each candidate would have the opportunity to be the first speaker on the topic and each would have the opportunity to include a rebuttal by being the second speaker.

The foreign speech would address such issues as the candidate’s vision of America’s place in the international arena, attitudes towards specific alliances and international organizations, trade issues, and specific issues relevant to the election period.

The domestic speech would address such issues as the candidate’s view of the powers of the President, the meaning of Article 2, the meaning of checks and balances, the attitude towards freedom of the press, the distinction between loyalty to the Constitution and loyalty to the individual President, and the commitment to the role of whistle blowers in the government.

PRESIDENT

The following apply to the office of the President. The individual who holds that position will be legally obligated to follow these rules.

1. For a newly elected President, candidates for appointed positions will be selected within six months of taking office. In positions where no one has been selected, the authority to select a person to an appointed position will pass to the Congress. The choice made by Congress will not be subject to presidential approval. If Congress cannot agree on a candidate within one month, then there will be a coin flip to determine the winning candidate from the two proposed by the two leading parties in the Congress.

2. When openings to appointed positions occur during a presidency, the President shall have one month to select person to fill the position. If no one is selected then the choice is transferred to Congress following the rules described above in #1.

3. There shall be a limit as the number of positions that can be filled on an “Acting” basis. I am open to suggestions as to what this number should be. To some extent the issue here may be moot given the adoption of #1 and #2.

4. There shall be a limit as the length of time an individual may hold an “Acting” position.    I am open to suggestions as to what this number should be. To some extent the issue here may be moot given the adoption of #1 and #2.

5. The President shall refer to American citizens individually and collectively in a manner appropriate to the office and shall not degenerate to the language of a seventh-grade-smart-aleck-dumb aleck.

6. Neither the President not any member of the government shall call an American citizen a traitor unless they are prepared to take legal action against that individual on that charge.

7. The following rules apply to Presidential addresses, Presidential press conferences, Presidential communications via social media, Presidential interviews in person or by phone, Presidential political rallies, and White House lawn gatherings with and without a helicopter in the background. These rules also will apply to someone speaking on behalf of the President such as a Press Secretary.

Members of the White House Press corps will have the authority to file a public notice of inquiry to the White House Communications Department on any Presidential communication made in these formats. These inquiries can be on statements of “alleged” fact(s)

1. When the President stated the following [provide the details] did the President know the alleged fact was incorrect?

2. When the President stated the following [provide the details] was the President relying on information that had been provided to the President and if so by whom?

3. When the President stated the following [provide the details] was the President simply making it up the way a child does when playing imaginary games?

The Communications Department shall have one week to publicly reply to the questions raised. If the number of incorrect statements for whatever reasons reaches a certain threshold to be determined, then live coverage of Presidential addresses, Presidential press conferences, Presidential political rallies, and White House lawn gathering shall not be permitted.

Admittedly, there are a lot of issues with these last requirements. What will the protocols be to determine who is an official White House correspondent or not? What are the checks and balances to prevent an abuse of power by the White House correspondents in filing these inquiries?

Obviously the current President who only tells the truth by accident will not accept these restrictions on his ability to make up facts, blame nameless others, and simply not tell the truth. Still, they offer a framework for discussion during the campaign and possible questions to be asked by the White House Correspondents or during Presidential debates in the event there should be any.

Trumpatic stress disorder is a serious condition which has wreaked havoc with America for far longer than has corvid-19. If left unchecked, trumpatic stress disorder has the potential to destroy the United States. It is urgent that efforts begin to design a cure for the current trumpatic stress disorder and to minimize the chance of it ever reoccurring. The points made in this blog are a contribution but hardly the last word to designing a remedy.

 Since some of you reading this are far more politically and legally knowledgeable than I am, what should the vaccination be to prevent the return of trumpatic stress disorder?

Live Like the Donald Economic Recovery Acts

April 21, 2020
by Peter Feinman
To succeed, chose your parents well (https://miro.medium.com)

The “Live Like the Donald Economic Recovery Acts” are designed to provide every adult American citizen the opportunity to be a successful self-made person just like the current President of the United States. Results are not guaranteed.

The specific measures listed below have a proven record of success. They worked in the case of the present President and they can work for you. All we need is a courageous leader to make the “Live Like the Donald Economic Recovery Acts” a campaign issue for the 2020 elections. The challenge will be to see which candidate claims ownership first. You can’t argue with the success.

So what are the recovery items which need to be made into law?

THE FRED TRUMP $413 MILLION LINE OF CREDIT ACT

The Fred Trump $413 Million Line of Credit Act will do exactly what its name states. Every adult American citizen who registers for the Fred Trump $413 Million Line of Credit will receive a $413 million dollar line of credit. There is no registration fee. There is no interest charge. There is no payback required. Instead there is a $413 million line of credit that any registered adult American citizen can use for business purposes.

Please note, this is a line of credit and not a cash payment. Participants must lose the money in a business endeavor before any funds will be disbursed. For example, suppose the applicant loses $100,000 in a restaurant or any small business operation you can think of. Normally a debt of this magnitude would concern the business owner. But not now because this debtor is a registered participant in the Fred Trump $413 million line of credit act.

To draw on the line of credit is simple. The participant simply goes to the bank or financial organization to which one is in debt, presents the Fred Trump Double 0 License to Borrow card and that debt will be taken care of. The financial officer runs the Fred Trump card through the Fred Trump database. Once it is confirmed that the borrower is a registered participant who has not yet drawn the entire $413 million line of credit, the funds are transferred, the debt is paid off, and the line of credit is reduced accordingly.

These funds can only be used to pay off debts to legitimate financial institutions who hold title to the applicants. The credit line cannot be for loans from family, friends, or the Russian mob. They must be legitimate business expenses.

The Fred Trump $413 Million Line of Credit Act will spur business. Suppose you now want to try your hand at a $1,000,000 restaurant. Would the bank lend you the money? Sure! After checking that you still have $412,900,000 left on your line of credit, lending you the money is no risk. So when you lose the $1,000,000, again there is no problem. How many restaurants would you have to own to lose $413,000,000? It is not easy to lose that much money. It can be done though. We have a successful self-made man who is the biggest individual financial loser in American history. Now you can be successful too…and without having to pay money to Trump University to learn the secret to success. All you have to is enroll.

THE DONALD TRUMP DEBT CANCELLATION ACT  

What about personal debt? What about debt for car loans, student loans, home loans, or credit cards? These debts are not covered under the Fred Trump $413 Million Line of Credit. Instead with the Donald Trump Debt Cancellation Act, you can do just what THE DONALD did: walk away from the loan. I don’t know how many times he did this or what amount in total is. Once those numbers are determined they will be built into the legislation the same way the $413 million was into the business line of credit.

This act also will be open to all adult Americans for no fee. By registering under this act, adult Americans will be able to cancel debts to schools, credit card companies, or financial institutions (banks) just as THE DONALD did. Care may be needed to determine which loans should be cancelled depending on what the limits are.

THE DONALD TRUMP EMPLOYMENT SECURITY ACT

People often are concerned about losing their jobs even in good times. This act does not address losing one’s job because a business went out of business. With the Fred Trump $413 Million Line of Credit Act, no business should go out of business anyway. This act has to do with firing people for cause. This act is for people who are fired for poor job performance or for harassing someone on the job. All that would cease with the application of the Donald Trump Employment Security Act because you can no longer be fired for cause. No matter how inept you are, no matter how incompetent you are, no matter how many people you have groped or harassed, you can’t be fired. This is providing you are adult American citizen registered for no fee under this act.

For example, suppose you are in charge of a project and say everything is under control, everything is fine, when in fact, they are not. Nothing can be done now no matter how inept and incompetent you are because you are protected.

Suppose you tell your boss there are 15 problems on the project but in a day or two they will go down to zero and instead there are over 40,000 problems and counting. No problem. You are registered under the Donald Trump Employment Security Act. You can’t be fired. Amazingly, some people will even praise you for doing a good job worthy of a 10!

Thanks to this act no one will ever be fired again for cause even if they are dumber than a dead pet rock and as inept and incompetent as is humanly possible.

THE FRED TRUMP COLLEGE EDUCATION ACT

Normally colleges brag when one of their own lands an exalted job like becoming President of the United States. That hasn’t happened so much with the University of Pennsylvania and its renowned Wharton School. Quite the contrary. It almost seems as if it is ashamed that someone so ignorant and lacking in economic knowledge graduated from it.

The question to be asked is how did a person who can’t read a book and who writes at the elementary school level get into Wharton in the first place. For the father to pay the tuition is common. But the question is how much did Fred Trump have to pay to get his son accepted? Obviously, the University of Pennsylvania will never disclose that information nor should it. Obviously also the father never told the son how much he paid either. The answer is probably in either the tax returns of Fred Trump as a donation or in the business records of the Trump Organization as an expense. Of course, even if the amount the father had to pay to get his son in is revealed, that still raises the question of how the son managed to stay in. After all, he is not a very stable genius and practically everyone in the room is smarter than he is unless he is at a morgue or a nursery school with no adults present.

But suppose you don’t have a rich father or mother. And suppose you actually have the credentials and intelligence to qualify on merit to matriculate but can’t for financial reasons. Then what? Under the Fred Trump College Education Act, public college including community college would be free to all qualifying students. This means if you are an adult American and registered in the program and do not require remedial classes to do college level work, you can attend for free the community college in your community or the public college in your state.

The Fred Trump College Education Act does not apply to private schools. If you do not want to use the public swimming pools and prefer a private club instead, you do so on your money and not the taxpayers. If you do not want to use the public tennis courts and prefer a private club instead, you do so on your own money and not the taxpayers. If you do not want to use the public schools and prefer a private school instead, you do so on your own money and not the taxpayers. Everyone knows how important college is to having a successful life provided you are free of student loans. The Fred Trump College Education Act will give all qualifying Americans a chance at a public school college education in their community or state.

In conclusion, the Live Like The Donald Economic Recovery Acts will provide all Americans with the opportunity to live successful lives as self-made people just as they did for THE DONALD even if you don’t have a rich father. We also need to increase our funding for special education so people like Donald Trump can qualify for college on merit.

 

P.S. The Donald Trump Above the Law Act will give every adult American citizen who registers the right to ignore subpoenas or other legal actions. Why should the President of the United States be the only one who is above law? Individuals will never have to be worried about being sued again.

The China Hannitys versus the American Hannitys: The 2020 Olympics

April 20, 2020
by Peter Feinman
The First Laura Ingraham and Rush Limbaugh Expose a Hoax

The China Hannitys versus the American Hannitys: The battle is engaged. Right now the Hannitys of both countries are battling each other for world supremacy. Who is #1? The Middle Kingdom or the City on a Hill? To some extent, they are not in direct conflict with each other, since each appeals primarily to a domestic audience. In this regard the Chinese probably have the advantage. They are aware of the criticisms of China in the international arena and are responding to it. They also know that the United States is dependent on China for medical supplies and that the President continually praises the Chinese leader.

The United States

Turning to the American position, it doesn’t look so good at the moment. During World War II, the United States was an arsenal for democracy. It initiated the Lend Lease program including aiding China. It was the go to country for world leadership. The United Nations was headquartered in New York, the center of the universe. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States became the world’s only superpower. So how did America do during the era of baby boom Presidents?

When the history of the era of baby boom Presidents is written, it doesn’t seem likely that the United States or that generation will fare too well. It is unlikely that after the first Iraq war that anyone predicted that less than 30 years later the United States would have self-destructed its world leadership position from internally caused actions (second Iraq war, Afghanistan, 2016 elections). We are no longer an arsenal for democracy. We cannot provide material assistance to others. We abandon global organizations instead of creating and/or leading them. We only have transactional relationships where every other country is a foe in a zero-sum relationship with us. There is no more win-win. Our simple-minded immature child President lacks the mental necessities to even understand yet alone propose a global identity for the country.

The COVID-19 crisis has exposed America’s abandonment of being a City on a Hill. “Disease in a World without a Leader” was the headline of an article in Time (Yuval Noah Harari, 3/21/20).

“(W)e are now facing this crisis bereft of global leaders who can inspire, organize and finance a coordinated global response.”

 The Ebola crisis of 2014 and the financial crisis of 2008 were two recent examples where the United States took a leadership role.

 “But in recent years the U.S. has resigned its role as global leader…(T)he U.S. no longer has only real friends, only interests.. The void left by the U.S. has not been filled by anyone else.

Our former friends laugh at the ignorant and immature American President to his face at the U.N. and behind his back at international meetings.

The NYT headline, “In This Crisis, U.S. Sheds Its Role as Global Leader” (3/22/20) delivers the same message. The World War II era is over. There is no Franklin Delano Roosevelt to lead the world. Instead the American President seeks to liberate Michigan, Minnesota, and Virginia and has withdrawn from the WHO. He cannot rise to the occasion. His followers are perfectly willing to cheer “We’re #2. We’re #2. We’re #2.” They have no interest in the United States being a City on a Hill that the eyes of the world are upon.

Still hope springs eternal. In an op-ed piece, Samantha Power, former American representative to the United Nations, put her heart on the line in the hope that one day the United States will be #1 again (NYT 4/9/20). Despite the actions of the American President to withdraw from the international arena and weaken America influence throughout the world, that world still looks to the United States for leadership. She decries the zero-sum approach the simple-minded President brought to the efforts to obtain necessary medical equipment. She dismisses the idea that China can create a global crisis coalition, a goal that China has not yet attained. She yeans for America to take a leadership role in the COVID-19 crisis, but that can’t happen until January, 2021, at the earliest.

China

So America and the COVID-19 crisis have handed the Middle Kingdom an opportunity on a silver platter. While the United States is still the financial capital of the world, China has replaced it as the manufacturing capital of the world. It makes what the world wants. It binds the countries through purchases of the natural resources needed do manufacture goods. China has become a leading trade partner practically everywhere. Its Belt and Road Initiative works to bind the countries of the world to it as vassals, not colonies. Hollywood would not dare defy it. There is no more Taiwan on American airlines. Who would criticize China’s handling of the CORVID-19 crisis?

Now we have the competing stories. The China Hannitys praise the great leadership of Xi Jinping. He acted swiftly, boldly, and decisively. First he rescued China with his lockdowns. Now he stands ready to aid the world. He will save the world from the scourge unleashed by American military personnel when they visited China. What America has wrought, China will repair. All we have to do is put our trust in China, its superior system, its superior leader, its rightful place as the Middle Kingdom in the cosmic center as the world leader.

The American Hannitys take issue with China’s position. China is the source of the scourge. China is the one who acted dishonestly. It did not reveal the truth of the extent of the virus and that it could be transferred from person to person even when there was no sign of the infection. It is China who owes the world for the damage and destruction it has inflicted on it. It is the American President who acted swiftly, boldly, and decisively as he learned the truth that China tried to hide.

The American Hannitys have a track record of success it can draw on to convict China of its guilt in the court of world opinion. Remember how they uncovered Seth Rich at the center of the Russian contacts. The American Hannitys exposed the Russian collusion as a hoax. The American Hannitys exposed the Ukranian extortion as a hoax. The American Hannitys exposed the CORVID-19 as a hoax. With all these successes behind it, exposing the China fraud should be easy.

And the Winner Is….

So here were are. America on its own has abandoned its position as world leader. China is rushing to fill the void but is falling short. Its restrictive currency and racist xenophobic society make it an unlikely choice for world leader. It can dominate vassals by economic force but there will never be a line of people seeking to emigrate there. When people vote with their feet, they still vote America.

While we are no longer #1, we could regain that position. We can do so partly because there still is no alternative to American leadership: either it is us [post WWII] or no one [now]. In my last blog on the topic of World War IV, I wrote of America’s ace in the hole, its soft power. The blog was written after the unexpected death of Kobe Bryant (Kobe and Coronavirus: Meaning for World War IV 2/4/20). It wasn’t that long ago and it was a global event when it occurred.

Now we are witnessing another example of American leadership: the free press. The China Hannitys operate as the propaganda arm of the government with no alternative voice. By contrast, the American Hannitys have to face domestic competition. Try as he might to turn his press conferences into political rallies, our Dear Leader still has to face the press. Now he can’t hide behind the noise of a helicopter. In fact, with social spacing, he faces fewer reporters. It has become harder to escape questions from people who know he is full of bull trump and just playing make believe with the facts.

The net result is neither the American nor Chinese Hannitys can prevail. While we may not know the truth of what happened in China for years to come, we already know the truth of what happened it America. If We the People decide we want an adult in the White House, we can regain our position of world leadership and with the thanks of countries who have been waiting for it.

 

We Are Not the UNITED States: Covid-19, Confederates, and the Union

April 17, 2020
by Peter Feinman
The Third Civil War (New York Times Magazine)

We are not the UNITED States. We are the DISUNITED STATES. We were when we were constituted. We were when we fought the Civil War. We were when we celebrated the Civil War Sesquicentennial. And we are now as celebrate the American Revolution 250th. One can make the case that during World War II we were a united people but beyond that specific time period, the issue is more problematic.

Lincoln’s advice that a “house divided can not stand” is correct but inappropriate. We are not a house but two houses. The recent and ongoing developments with COVID-19 illustrate what was known beforehand but is now more obvious. The battle to re-open states versus social distancing in states is an expression of that divide.

DECEPTIVE MAPS

The maps used on the news shows to show the spread of COVID-19 and the resulting deaths are deceptive. It is not that they are wrong [although the numbers infected and dead due to COVID-19 are likely to be higher]. They are deceptive because the virus does not occur at a state level. State maps are fine for state events – Electoral College vote, Senate and Governor elections, lockdowns and Medicaid expansion. They paint a deceptive picture for the virus.

WE WOULD BE BETTER SERVED POLITICALLY IF THE COVID-19 MAPS WERE AT THE CONGRESSIONAL LEVEL RATHER THAN AT THE STATE LEVEL.

To understand how the virus is playing out politically, we need to look at maps that better reflect the political reality. As best as I can tell simply by observing the maps and without any detailed analysis, I suspect there is a high correlation between high COVID-19 outbreak and the congressional districts that voted Democratic and low COVID-19 outbreak and the congressional districts that voted Trumpican in 2016. Similarly, this correlation would match the congressional districts that want to re-open the economy now and those that don’t.

THE EXPERTS WERE WRONG

Remember when Angela Merkel predicted a 70% infection in Germany? Remember when America was going to hit with a 75% infection rate? You don’t hear numbers like that anymore. Even a 1% rate of infection or approximately 3.3 million [less if children are excluded] is still significantly higher than the current infection rate although still attainable.

So what happened? How did the rate drop so precipitously? To a non-medical person like me the decline of such magnitude suggests the early models were incorrect. Rather than attribute the substantial decline to stay at home and social distancing, it may also be that the ease of infection was not what was originally forecast. Certainly if you are in close proximity to an infected person for an extended period of time – prison, nursing home, Spring Break, Mardi Gras, family event, conference – then the infection rate is high; less so than if you pass someone on a sidewalk or supermarket aisle for only a moment. Regardless of the reason, I think the American people are entitled to an explanation of why the original epidemic infection rates seem to have been so wrong.

There are unexpected consequences to the projected numbers being reduced so substantially. It undermines the credibility of the experts who originally predicted such catastrophic numbers. At the moment, the number dead due to CORVID-19 is roughly comparable to the annual dead due to the flu. That number will increase and doesn’t take into account the mitigation actions. Still it enables people of certain mindset to compare the death totals from human-based actions – suicide, murder, car accidents, drug overdoses/opioid-deaths – none of which required the closing down the country – to a contagion like CORVID-19. The result strengthens the views of the anti-vaccine/no climate change/anti-science/anti-expert/anti-elitist sector of the American population (see Darwin and COVID-19: Science in America).

AIDS

The disease to which COVID-19 should be compared is not the annual flu or the Spanish flu of 1918 but AIDS (see The Coronavirus Is Not AIDS: Do Trumpicans Know That?). I mention this again not in a medical sense but a political one. Who are the people who are dying as a result of COVID-19? We now have a population sample of over 30,000 people from which to draw conclusions.

Real Americans in a Trumpian world are not dying in droves or even in significant numbers at this time As with AIDS, COVID-19 seems targeted in whom it strikes. But whereas AIDS required specific actions for the disease to be transmitted, COVID-19 can strike anyone anywhere. However in practice, it only seems to strike some people in some locations.

Prior conditions weakens the body and makes it more susceptible to infections. In and of itself, that observation is not new or surprising. People in a weakened condition are by definition more at risk. People with hypertension or diabetes are different from people who don’t have these conditions. People who have less adequate to medical care and who are in poorer health are more at risk. That means poor people concentrated in urban areas are more at risk…even more at risk than poor people in rural areas who live further apart. In general terms that means black people and immigrants say in Elmont, Queens, the neighborhood epicenter in the borough epicenter or the city epicenter of the state epicenter of COVID-19 in the DISUNITED STATES.

Politically, people who are not being infected in significant numbers after six weeks are being asked to care about people who are. They have lost their jobs, their savings, their businesses, their way of life even though so far they are no more at risk for being infected COVID-19 than they are by the annual flu. And they are being asked to care about people they did not care about even before the epidemic.

Think of the difference in the attitude towards New York. 9/11 was an attack on the whole country; COVID-19 isn’t. As mentioned above, World War II was a time of national unity; now the World War II generation is collateral damage – old people die. Why not play Russian roulette with the lives of people you don’t care about? After all, what happens in New York stays in New York.

Not quite.

THE QUEENS BROS

The examples of the two Queens bros reflects this divide in the DISUNITED STATES. Andy Cuomo, Governor of New York State, has become the national face and voice of the people who have been infected by COVID-19. With his daughter having been self-quarantined and his brother now infected, Cuomo presents a personal side to the epidemic in addition to his responsibilities as the chief executive of the hardest hit state in the country. His ratings are high and it is quite reasonable to speculate that if the presidential election was next year, he would be the Democratic nominee.

How popular do you think Cuomo is with Trumpicans?

The other Queens bro abandoned Queens and New York for Florida where he now makes his legal residence. Ignorant as he is, he sensed that the United States was and is a divided country. He sensed that many Americans felt the same snub and putdown by elitists that he had when the Manhattan elite refused to recognize him as anything more than a narcissistic sleazeball real estate promoter who failed repeatedly.. He sensed that there was a political opportunity that he could exploit for his own advantage. He sensed that there was no benefit to trying to be the President of all America, of We the People America, of e pluribus unum America. Instead he picked a side and strove only to reach out to his people and not to those people.

It worked. As long as he is defending real Americans from those people, Trumpicans don’t care what else he might do…even if it is to make rich people richer and undermine America’s position in the world. All the shortcomings of his leadership in January to March in the COVID-19 epidemic (see New York Times Investigates the Brain of Donald Trump: President Has a Hissy Fit) are irrelevant as long as he sticks with his primary responsibility. He is their Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed Be his Name. But Trumpicans did not vote for him so they could lose their jobs, their businesses, their savings, and their way of life so he could help those people.

The issue of re-opening versus safety first is part of the culture wars, it is part of the Third Civil War. What may be a 9/11 or 12/7 in Democratic congressional districts is Fort Sumter in Trumpican congressional districts. We have seen Trumpican/Confederates marching in Michigan. We have heard Laura and Rush and Fox call for putting real Americans first now. We have heard sheriffs vowing civil disobedience rather than enforce restrictions on the right of American people to be free (see the Twilight Zone episode The Old Man in the Cave). As the weather improves and summer is upon us, the call to be able to move freely about the country and with each other will rise.

COVID-19 may do what collusion with Russia, attempted extortion in the Ukraine, and the sheer incompetence of the ignorant and immature President did not accomplish. It may turn Trumpicans against their Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed Be his Name. The bully has backed down to the governors and his feeble efforts at the bully pulpit are laughable. The more Trumpicans protest the restriction and the less their leader does to remove them despite the daily calls from Rush and Fox, the more Trumpicans may abandoned their savior who failed them in their moment of need. This is the first time in this administration when the desires of the Trumpicans and their savior may widely diverge. If he tells them to obey their governors, will they? If he doesn’t eliminate the restrictions and save their jobs, businesses, and way of life, will they still vote for him? If they start dying in droves because no area is safe and no state immune, will they see the light?

America’s Third Civil War (The Atlantic)

I have just learned that the wartime general has called for the liberation of Minnesota and Michigan. How far he will pursue this war remains to be determined. Fox will continually push him to assert his royal powers under Article 2. It is reasonable to predict that as the weather heats up so will the culture wars. COVID-19 will change the way America’s third Civil War will be fought.

When Esau and Jacob emerged from the womb there already was a struggle just as there was between the two houses of America at its birth. Whether the bros will follow the path of Isaac and Ishmael or Cain and Abel is now being determined. It will be the basis, often unstated, of the 2020 elections. Bonespur Boy will not be able to satisfy both the Trumpicans and the governors nor can the world’s worst negotiator mediate a settlement. What will he do? What will the American people do on Election Day (and by mail before then)?

New York Times Investigates the Brain of Donald Trump: President Has a Hissy Fit

April 15, 2020
by Peter Feinman
Presidential Press Conference

The New York Times has investigated the brain of Donald Trump. That was not its intention when it published above the fold on the front page “Despite Timely Alerts, Trump was Slow to Act” (April 12, 2020, print). Its intention was to document the failures and shortcomings of the impeached wartime President in his handling of the coronavirus crisis. In that effort it appears to have succeeded.

Somehow the subject of the article became aware of it. Obviously he did not read it. Obviously also no staff member briefed him on the contents of the article. He may have seen the headline on a print copy. (I don’t know if the White House still receives print copies.) He may have seen and heard it discussed on a news show other than on Fox. However it happened he did become aware that he had been taken to task for his failures and shortcomings. Naturally he responded as he would be expected to respond.

He is even more reliable than Old Faithful in his eruptions.

But the article did more than simply document his failure and shortcomings in managing the coronavirus crisis. It also provided a window into how his mind operates and on what level.

Example #1 [from the front page]

The president, though, was slow to absorb the scale of the risk and to act accordingly, focusing instead on controlling the message, and protecting gains in the economy and batting away warnings from senior officials.

CONFEDERATES FIRE ON FORT SUMTER. ABRAHAM LINCOLN SLOW TO ABSORB THE SCALE OF RISK

What can we learn from this passage?

1 Adults in the White House understood the scale of the risk. Their brains had the mental necessities to understand the situation, to recognize the full gravity of the pending crisis; he did not, his brain does not function at that level.

He provided a demonstration of the smallness of his mind at the news conference the following day. During the Q&A, he got into an exchange with a reporter about what he had done. He kept answering that in January there were no deaths and no infections. Other people in the White House were capable of projecting into the next weeks and months when there would be infections and deaths on an epidemic scale. He was not able to do so. His analytical skills were limited to DOW JONES DOWN. ELECTION LOST. Beyond that he was out of his league. His inability to grasp the magnitude of the risk matches the silliness of his forbidding a cruise ship to dock to keep the number of cases down on his watch. After all, he declared the virus would not strike here so the ship had to be kept a sea. We have contained the threat.

2. It’s all about him. Obviously.

3. Every day is like another episode on TV and he has to control the narrative. Obviously.

The takeaway from this passage is not about his failure to act. The takeaway is not about his choosing Option A instead of Option B. The takeaway is his lacking the cognitive skill to grasp the situation. He didn’t understand what adults in the White House could understand.

Example #2 [page 14]

These final days of February, perhaps more than any other moment during his tenure in the White House, illustrated Mr. Trump’s inability or unwillingness to absorb warnings coming at him. He instead reverted to his traditional political playbook…squandering vital time as the coronavirus spread silently across the country.

GERMANY BOMBS LONDON. WINSTON CHURCHILL UNABLE OR UNWILLING TO ABSORB THE SITUATION

What can we learn from this passage?

1. He still had not grasped the situation. He lacks the ability to do so.

2. He reverted to form, in this case being the seventh-grade-smart-aleck-dumb-aleck that is his true self.

At the infamous press conference Monday, he got into an exchange with a reporter about China.

The discussion went back and forth. He was having problems since he was trying to defend his world of make believe in which he is most comfortable against real world questioning. Finally he could fake it as an adult no longer. He had exhausted himself and reverted to his old standby: FAKE NEWS.

There are limits as to how long he can do the penguin walk and fake being an adult. He can maintain that façade for brief intervals like a child going to grandma’s funeral or delivering a State of the Union address. A two-hour press conference exceeds his mental capacity to keep it up. At some point he inevitably will go off script and revert to being the person he truly is.

Example #3 [page 15]

Mr. Trump took a conciliatory approach [towards China] through the middle of March, praising the job Mr. Xi was doing.

That changed abruptly when aides informed Mr. Trump that a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman had publicly spun a new conspiracy about the origins of Covid-19: that it was brought to China by U.S. Army personnel who visited the country last October.

Mr. Trump was furious. [He responded on Twitter, “Oh Yeah! Oh Yeah! Oh Yeah! I’LL SHOW YOU!] The China Virus.  

CORONAVIRUS WREAKS GLOBAL HAVOC. IMMATURE CHILD PRESIDENTS BOASTS OF HIS SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE

What can we learn from this passage?

CHINA HAS HANNITYS TOO! CHINA HAS HANNITYS TOO! CHINA HAS HANNITYS TOO!
SO DOES RUSSIA!

No one has a monopoly on bull-trump. China is just as capable of slinging it as Fox, the Presidential spokespeople, or the impeached wartime President himself. He has been lucky so far that the Democrats have not given him a taste of his own medicine. Perhaps they should observe how the Chinese, Russian, and Iranian Hannitys act.

How then after weeks of failure did he finally grasp the situation?

Example #4 [page 15]

But in the end, aides said, it was Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the veteran AIDS researcher…who helped to persuade Mr. Trump. Soft-spoken and fond of the kind of charts and graphs Mr. Trump prefers, Dr. Birx did not have the rough edges that could irritate the president. He often told people he thought she was elegant. 

What can we learn from this passage?

1. Mad Dog tried the same technique. Do you think he was soft-spoken without rough edges? Do you think he successfully hid the fact that he was dumbing down his presentation to the level a person with limited cognitive skills and of great ignorance could understand? Do you think he threatened the masculinity of Bonespur Boy?

2. The key to leading him to knowledge appears to be the proverbial old-fashioned school marm. For all we know, Dr. Birx reminds him of teachers he had in elementary school, teachers before his father put in him military school in the vain hope that he would man up.

3. If he were in elementary school today, he would be classified as “special.” He proves the need for special-ed teachers who can give students the 1:1 time they need to be able to learn despite certain challenges.

As Jill Filipovic wrote (A day after claiming ‘total’ power, Trump caves in, CNN, April 15, 2020):

This is an important moment to reemphasize that Donald Trump is not a learned man. Yes, he has a business degree, but he shows no interest in learning, no curiosity about the world around him, and little apparent ability to ingest much in the way of new information that is not presented in simple pictures or on TV. Comprehending complex material seems far beyond his grasp.

His intelligence briefings have to be pared down to child-like levels, and he still barely reads them, and resists receiving them regularly. Some believe he’s indifferent to the printed word. Does anyone really think this man has even read, let alone understood, the US Constitution?

In conclusion, The New York Times article written to expose the failures and shortcomings of the impeached wartime President also reveals that those failures and shortcomings are not his fault. When you are a child living in the land of make believe, you make up the rules. If you want to be king, then you are king. The problem occurs when you try to live in the adult world and even Kellyanne Alternate Reality Conway can’t save you. Our president genuinely lacks the mental necessities or cognitive skills required to function as an adult, a deficiency that cannot be hidden during a crisis unless you only watch Fox. Unfortunately mental limitations are not a high crime or misdemeanor or removable under the 25th Amendment. At present there is no legal remedy for removing a President during a crisis because he can’t grasp the situation.

Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! Saving America

April 13, 2020
by Peter Feinman
COVID-19 Has Been Around for a Long Time (Photo by Egyptologist Kara Cooney)

Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! The impeached wartime President needs to be the savior of America. Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! All hands on deck. This is not a drill.

The number 1 issue in America today is the need for the housebound impeached wartime President to stand before the American people and proclaim that only he can save America and he has done so.

Let’s consider some of the numbers that contributed to the Trump crisis that is about to apex on May 1.

First there are the hidden figures. These are the known unknowns.

How many Americans have the coronavirus? If a coronavirus infects a tree in the woods and it is not tested, has anything happened? This philosophical adage on the issue of human observation – who will tell our story? If no one does, do we have a story? – has been revised in the current situation. If we don’t have national testing or testing of a valid representation of the American population, then how do we know how many people have been infected?

How many people have died die to the coronavirus? By this time we are all used to seeing very specific numbers tracking the number of deaths by state due to the coronavirus. Are all coroners able to test for the virus to determine the cause of death? Are there standards on what is reported? What about the vast-right conspiracy of helicoptering dead people to maximize the death rate in certain areas?

Second there are the known knowns. These are the numbers that are known and which have contributed to the current situation.

20

These are the infected people on the Grand Princess Cruise Ship that was denied docking to minimize the number of infected cases in America during this administration. When future historians and school children study the COVID-19 crisis, this action will become one of the defining moments of it. It will be known as the “King Canute Embarrassment.”  It refers to the effort of the impeached wartime President to secure the borders of the realm by forbidding the waves of the virus to come ashore. His actions follow on his success in preventing drugs from entering the country illegally and his success in preventing people from entering the country illegally.

In the future, school children will laugh at the silliness of this tactic. It will become proof positive that the impeached wartime President was out of his league. In mock trials of his ineptitude, his deploying of the King Canute maneuver will be deemed sufficient in its own to justify the activation of the 25th Amendment on the grounds of mental incapacity.

15 to 0

No, this is not a baseball score. Instead it is the number of people the impeached wartime president claimed were infected with COVID-19. It is a prediction that the number will very soon drop to zero with a 100% recovery rate and no fatalities. In fact, very soon the virus will suddenly disappear like a miracle.

Historians will ask, “Who were these 15 people? Do we know what happened to them? What was the source of the information? What does “soon” mean when translated into adult English?” Here again students will laugh in sheer amazement at the brazen stupidity of the comment. It easily could be fact-checked and would expose him as someone out of his league and living in the land of make believe where he loves to play. As James D. Zirin, author of Plaintiff in Chief: Portrait of Donald Trump in 3500 Lawsuits just said in an interview on HNN, “I think he enjoys lying. I think it’s part of his DNA. I don’t think he has any grasp of the facts at all, so he says whatever he thinks will help him and whatever comes into his head.”

430,000

Only the impeached wartime President can save America. He said so himself in the 2016 campaign. Then in January, 2020, he proved it by severing airlinks with China. He acted boldly and decisively when he became aware of the seriousness of the crisis. He demonstrated that he had the right stuff to go into the area and provide the leadership America needed in this time of trouble.

JAPAN BOMBS PEARL HARBOR. FDR BOASTS OF HIS RADIO RATINGS.

If you ask the impeached wartime President about the 430, 000 people who arrived after his severing of the link, he will tell you that you are a third-rate nasty cutie pie from a Fake News organization.

If you ask the impeached wartime President about Europe being the source of the virus that struck America, he will tell you that you are a third-rate nasty cutie pie from a Fake News organization.

10

If you ask the impeached wartime President how he would grade his performance, then perhaps you are a third-rate reporter. In the land of make believe where this President lives, what other grade is possible? Here is an example of where there is a disagreement that will be crucial to understanding what is about to happen on May 1.

Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” when asked if social distancing and stay-at-home measures could have prevented deaths had they been put in place in February, instead of mid-March.

I mean, obviously, you could logically say that if you had a process that was ongoing and you started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives. Obviously, no one is going to deny that. But what goes into those decisions is complicated.

Exactly wrong. One person is going to deny that. How could lives have been saved if the person making the decision to save those lives earned a grade of 10? Mitigation began exactly when it should have begun under the leadership of our impeached wartime President. Fauci’s days are numbered.

AL-QUEDA ATTACKS WORLD TRADE TOWERS. MAYOR GIULIANI BOASTS OF HIS TV RATINGS

5/1

In ancient times, before making the biggest decision of his life, kings thinking of going into battle would inquire of the divine what they should do. Normally, prophets know to tell the king exactly what he wants to hear. But sometimes prophets were not quite as accommodating to the king. Consider the less well-known biblical example involving the prophet Micaiah.

 1 Kings 22:4 And he said to Jehoshaphat [the king of Judah], “Will you go with me to battle at Ramothgilead?”… 5 And Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, “Inquire first for the word of the LORD.” 6 Then the king of Israel gathered the prophets together, about four hundred men, and said to them, “Shall I go to battle against Ramothgilead, or shall I forbear?” And they said, “Go up; for the Lord will give it into the hand of the king.” 7 But Jehoshaphat said, “Is there not here another prophet of the LORD of whom we may inquire?” 8 And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “There is yet one man by whom we may inquire of the LORD, Micaiah the son of Imlah; but I hate him, for he never prophesies good concerning me, but evil [Fake News].” And Jehoshaphat said, “Let not the king say so.” 9 Then the king of Israel summoned an officer and said, “Bring quickly Micaiah the son of Imlah.”

Beginning with Moses before Pharaoh, Nathan before David [“Thou art the man!’], Elijah before Ahab and the prophets of Baal, and Micaiah here, the Israelite prophets speak truth to power and defy what the king wants.

COVID-19 STRIKES AMERICA. DONALD TRUMP BRAGS OF HIS TV AND FACEBOOK RATINGS

The fix is in for the Opening our Country Council. The members know what the king wants and will be loyal to him. They are not traitors. However, even after he is fired for disloyalty, Prophet Fauci and the medical community will speak the truth in the real world. If it matches what the king wants to do on May 1, then there is no issue. But suppose it doesn’t match. What happens when the impeached wartime President’s need to be the savior of America in a big way trumps the facts on the ground?

Trumpican governors like that man in Florida are chomping at the bit to play Russian roulette with the lives of the residents of their states. They just are waiting for their Lord and Savior, the Chosen one, Blessed Be his Name, to grant them their 007 license to kill, the same license he used throughout January, February, and into March.

By contrast, Democratic governors and Republican governors (MA, MD, NH, OH) who have better ratings than the impeached wartime President will defy the call to reopen American until there is an opportunity to conduct proper testing, contact tracing, and can be done in a responsible way. After all, the reopening is a state matter since the Federal Government only provides backup and waiting-in-the-wings VP candidate Nikki Haley has just touted the role of the individual states. In fact, since I wrote the first draft of this blog some of the states have already started organizing. When the governors stand simultaneously on the steps of their capitols to read a prepared statement declaring their independence from guidelines of impeached wartime president, what will he do in response? This moment will be the biggest decision he has ever had to make. How will he answer the following question:

How do you ask a person to be the last person to die in the Trump crisis? How do you ask a person to be the last person to die for a mistake?