Wednesday, April 29, 2020

Trump's Vietnam

It's official, the toll of Americans lost to COVID-19 has surpassed the toll of Americans lost in the course of the Vietnam War. Cadet Bone Spurs has failed upwards to become Commander Brain Spurs, and lord love a duck, the country would be better off if he went AWOL. Reporter Olivia Nuzzi asked Trump the real question, regarding his fitness for office, and received a rambling response which ducked the issue.

It's odd that an infectious outbreak would turn out to be Trump's Vietnam, considering that, in 1997, Trump joked to Howard Stern that sleeping around was his personal Vietnam. I was a mere pup when the Vietnam War ended, but I saw the effect it had on my parents' generation, and indeed, on members of my own extended family. The war was a disaster, fought to prop up the dying vestiges of colonialism, in contradiction to our (and France's) stated revolutionary ideals. Trump, who used his dad's money and connections to avoid combat, made light of the war and its toll... that should have been a major warning sign that he was a sociopath who had no compunctions about Americans dying. The fact that COVID-19 is disproportionately killing people of color might even give Trump and his Deplorables a frisson of delight. Maya Angelou imparted perhaps the greatest bit of advice regarding the navigation of this life:





Trump showed us what a callous monster he was, and enough people gave him the benefit of the doubt... sixty-thousand dead Americans later, the very idea that some people still support him is baffling and enraging. Do they really think Trump needs to destroy America in order to make America great again? Actually, I don't think I want to know the answer.

2 comments:

Anathema Device said...

I don't think there is any death toll that would have an impact on Herr Trump, not even if all the bodies were laid out on the White House lawn. He is literally incapable of sympathy or empathy, or shame.

The fact that the loathsome Kushner is talking about his 'success', and the RW noise machine is trying to downplay this astonishing number of fellow Americans killed in just two months (the actual toll is likely much higher, and will rise much further) tells us there is a large segment of the population which is...sociopathic? Psychopathic? I don't know what term to use. I don't even know if they would be classed as actually mentally ill.

But they are definitely broken, and until they die off, will continue to blight their communities, their country, and the function of your Republic.

We have them too but they aren't an overwhelming infestation - yet. Since there's no fixing or convincing them, the only thing left is to build as many protections into laws and governance as we can to dilute their impact.

Or maybe just nuke the whole damn lot of us from space, as a failed experiment :(

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

There are some pundits who believe that Trump is a sadist who actually gets a thrill out of people dying, and that, aside from caring about the death toll, he's actually excited about it, especially since it's hit New York (where the residents overwhelmingly despise him) and minority communities.

Kushner is too dumb to consider failure. He got into Harvard on his daddy's dime and graduated with a 'gentleman's C'. He's been a disaster as an executive, until bailed out by the Saudis at his father-in-law's behest. He thinks he's succeeding because acknowledging the magnitude of his failures would destroy him.