With about one week to go before the 19th anniversary of the Al-Qaeda assault on the United States, it is worth pondering what has happened in America since then. At that time, despite the turmoil of presidential politics with impeachment and Florida, when the nation was attacked it was possible for Democrats and Republicans to stand together on the steps of the Capitol and sing God Bless America. No such unity is possible today between Democrats and Trumpicans. America consists of two peoples still bound in a single political entity but no longer functioning as one. Whether we separate into separate political entities or remain as one is what the current war is all about.
The coronavirus is different than Pearl Harbor or 9/11. The earlier two events were recognized as attacks on America, all America, the entire nation. The country responded as one. By contrast, the coronavirus never was perceived as a national threat. Health officials understood that the virus represented a national threat. Sometimes they even said so especially if they did not work for the Federal government. Those employees were often muzzled and/or undermined.
From the onset, the White House including an assortment of Trumpicans in various positions, viewed the coronavirus as a Democratic problem and not an American one. In the beginning, this was an easy decision for the scientifically-challenged to make. The virus hit hard in New York. Day after day, Americans watched a city under assault in painful gut-wrenching scenes. No other location in America was experiencing that horror. But for Trumpicans it was as if the Germans were bombing London alone so why should the entire country care.
This scenario played out for weeks if not longer. The disease infected cities, especially cities governed by Democratic mayors in states governed by Democratic governors. And the people dying weren’t even people the Trumpicans cared about anyway. But the economic decline was hurting Trumpicans. So did stock market decline. But now the stock market has recovered. The President dedicated to making rich people richer gleefully noted when it had returned to its former heights. The coronavirus problem was over, it had been solved.
Since the problem was a Democratic one, no national leadership was required. Trumpican governors in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, and Texas had everything under control. There would be no repeat of what had happened in New York City. Even though under Article 2, a non-Democratic President had the powers of a king, the world’s worst manager and career business failure knew better than to put himself in charge of the response to the virus. Let others carry the ball and bear the blame while he took the credit.
In the months to come, nothing altered this perception of the coronavirus as a Democratic problem. That view remains prevalent with Trumpicans. One thousand deaths per day over an entire country of 330 million is barely noticeable compared to one thousand per day in Queens or New York City as a whole. Despite all the talk about superspreader events, Trumpicans attending those events at an Arkansas Memorial Day pool party, Tulsa political rally, or South Dakota motorcycle gathering have not died in droves or barely at all. Maybe if it had been Tom Brady and not Tom Seaver who had died with Covid-19, Trumpicans would get the message that the virus is a threat to the country. So far it hasn’t happened. It’s not going to happen. The only news that might affect the vote is the coming announcement of a vaccine…not that Trumpicans would be vaccinated anyway. In the meantime, Trumpicans have discounted the virus as a threat to them beyond the flu and remain loyal to the person who kept real Americans outside the cities safe.
This attitude carried over into the aid packages. Once relief had been passed to help rich people get richer or at least maintain their wealth, the enthusiasm for aid relief dissipated. If people received $600 instead of $300, what would be their incentive to work? If Democratic states were bailed out, that would be rewarding states for being expensive, ineffective, and overstaffed. Why should people in Florida bail out those loser states like New York? It’s not like anything had been done to help New York during the past three years anyway. That will teach that other Queens boy who is really the boss.
Now the antipathy has been openly expressed. The war has been declared. The line in the sand has been drawn. President of the United States has said to the Governor of New York: DROP DEAD! There is no need here to repeat the vituperative exchanges which followed between the two Queens combatants. Suffice, it to say, it was a no holds-barred clash involving even relatives of the fighters.
Two points stand out so far.
1. The Governor has yet to call for the defunding of the Confederacy for the over $20 billion surplus in tax monies the state sends annually to the federal government.
2. The contrasting images of the one person are really remarkable to behold. Based on his real estate years in New York City, Little Donnee Waney is pond-scum slime. He was a successful clown but a failed businessman and human being. He never was accepted by the New York elite try as he might to be accepted. Even after being a long-time Democrat and Clinton supporter, he realized that he had no future in politics or business in the city and would always be a pariah. He was cruel, mean, nasty, and incapable of telling the truth besides being a simpleminded, ignorant, narcissistic bigot.
On the other hand, as THE DONALD, he is God’s gift to America. America should be thanking him for the sacrifices he made of his own free will to help his country by becoming America’s greatest president ever and at great personal cost. He is America’s Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed Be his Name and he will lead America to victory over the new ISIS, the socialist Democrats who aren’t even real Americans anyway.
The battlelines have been drawn and the war is underway. In the next two months, Americans will scarcely know the world outside America exists. All attention will be on America’s Third Civil War. Even before Election Day, the hostilities are underway. Cuomo may be called back to television frontlines to give daily updates on the ongoing war with the Trumpicans. In fact, maybe even two Cuomos will be speaking daily on the war just as they did when one was infected and the other struggled to stop the spread…unless, of course, Chris becomes a casualty of this war.
In a way, the open declaration to defund Democratic cities does America a favor. Perhaps now we will stop pretending that it is politics as usual or just another presidential election. The coronavirus is not the existential threat to the continued existence of the United States as a single political entity. The current salvo against the Democrats is just one example of the scorched earth war that will only get worse. Tom Friedman, the longtime reporter on Lebanese civil war politics, wrote back on August 19 (print):
Here is a sentence I never in a million years thought that I would ever write or read: This November, for the first time in our history, the United States of America may not be able to conduct a free and fair election…[T]hat would not result in just a disputed election…that would be the end of American democracy as we know it. It also isn’t hyperbole to say it could sow the seeds of another Civil War.
The threat is real.
Yes, it is. The battle is engaged. Militias will be on the march when called. This president genuinely could succeed in accomplishing what Benedict Arnold and Robert E. Lee could not. Is Joe Biden up for the fight of his country’s life?
