Wednesday, June 23, 2021

A Hollowing Out of Our Institutions

 From the beginning of the Trump Maladministration, I was concerned that the Conman-in-Chief would destroy the non-partisan governmental institutions which are supposed to function with little fanfare, and a continuity independent of electoral results.  I saw it in the appointment of anti-public education crusader Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education, and of anti-USPS grifter DeJoy as Postmaster General.  Throughout his tenure as PotUS, Trump put so many foxes in charge of the henhouse, it became a foxhouse.

I didn't even consider the fact that he would hollow out the Secret Service in a particularly gruesome fashion- via Tengrain, I found this news that nearly nine-hundred Secret Service employees, primarily in protective jobs, tested positive for COVID-19 between March 2020 and March 2021.  It is to be noted that Trump hosted numerous superspreader events throughout the course of the pandemic.  While a death toll has not been reported, by exposing Secret Service personnel to numerous unmasked, undistanced individuals, Trump placed these civil servants at risk for a lifetime of debilitating medical conditions- damage to the heart, lungs, brain... need I say more?

I can't even conjure up any snark about this... it's not a case of a sycophant dying in ironic fashion, eliciting a grimace and a quick 'everything Trump touches dies', it's a case of federal employees being put at risk needlessly (though, wasn't there anyone to say 'we have to protect this guy, but we don't have to obey his orders about not wearing masks'?).  More than eleven percent of Secret Service agents were infected, an unforgivable, unforced error.

As if this weren't insane enough, the new talking point being promulgated by right-wing media outlets is a conspiracy theory about the FBI orchestrating the 1/6 Capitol invasion.  If I were a Fed, I'd be fed up!

2 comments:

Ali Redford said...

As you write, so many things to say, but it's just too sad a situation to say those things.

Vixen Strangely said...

Trump choked--the one unmistakable truth to Trump's single-term mis-administration was this: he choked, he failed to address the threat from COVID-19, and the economy and everything else failed on his watch because he failed them. He had the wrong people, the wrong information, he couldn't figure out what the correct information even was, he was out of his depth, and he failed. He failed. He choked. Whenever confronted with 2020 election truthers, I think nothing more than "He choked" should suffice. Because he did. Faced with a real-world tragedy, he did not know he should rise to an occasion, but sank to his campaign truths--did he uphold the Dow-Jones? Did businesses get some kind of loans to maybe save workers but probably not? Did he understand that people dying was even bad?

He was bad and it looked bad. It's all I ever can say. It looked bad and was. The entirety of the Trump Administration. It looked bad and was bad. If you have any morality at all--you know it was bad. It looked bad. It was. Lather rinse repeat.