Sunday, August 09, 2020

Donald Trump and the Unravelling of America

Donald Trump is starting to panic. He can see the writing on the wall, and he now realizes that he is heading for defeat in November. 

So he is now trying to buy votes anyway he can, and promising that only he can make America great again.

But it's a little, or a lot too late for that.

For as the anthropologist Wade Davis writes, the unravelling of America began long before Trump. He is the product of that decline not the cause.

And Covid-19 has only made that hard truth impossible to ignore.  

In a dark season of pestilence, COVID has reduced to tatters the illusion of American exceptionalism. At the height of the crisis, with more than 2,000 dying each day, Americans found themselves members of a failed state, ruled by a dysfunctional and incompetent government largely responsible for death rates that added a tragic coda to America’s claim to supremacy in the world.

For the first time, the international community felt compelled to send disaster relief to Washington. For more than two centuries, reported the Irish Times, “the United States has stirred a very wide range of feelings in the rest of the world: love and hatred, fear and hope, envy and contempt, awe and anger. But there is one emotion that has never been directed towards the U.S. until now: pity.”

And it is a hard truth.

COVID-19 didn’t lay America low; it simply revealed what had long been forsaken. As the crisis unfolded, with another American dying every minute of every day, a country that once turned out fighter planes by the hour could not manage to produce the paper masks or cotton swabs essential for tracking the disease. The nation that defeated smallpox and polio, and led the world for generations in medical innovation and discovery, was reduced to a laughing stock as a buffoon of a president advocated the use of household disinfectants as a treatment for a disease that intellectually he could not begin to understand.

As is the ugly fact that those who believe that worshipping a flag is a sign of strength, are only fooling themselves.

Flag-wrapped patriotism is no substitute for compassion; anger and hostility no match for love. Those who flock to beaches, bars, and political rallies, putting their fellow citizens at risk, are not exercising freedom; they are displaying, as one commentator has noted, the weakness of a people who lack both the stoicism to endure the pandemic and the fortitude to defeat it. Leading their charge is Donald Trump, a bone spur warrior, a liar and a fraud, a grotesque caricature of a strong man, with the backbone of a bully.

Just like they failed to understand that by electing a man like Trump for President, they were not making America greater, they were only hammering another nail into the coffin of their dying country.

One shudders to think of what it will mean to the world if Americans in November, knowing all that they do, elect to keep such a man in political power. But even should Trump be resoundingly defeated, it’s not at all clear that such a profoundly polarized nation will be able to find a way forward. For better or for worse, America has had its time.

Wade Davis who lives in Canada, has some nice things to say about our country.

But what he doesn't say is that Canada and its values are under attack from our own Trump-like Cons.

And that if we do not defeat them, and bury them in the garbage can of history.

We too could lose everything, and regret it forever...

8 comments:

Jackie Blue said...

Trump is sabotaging the postal service and the census to compromise the election. He has Barr's goons and Erik Prince's Blackwater mercenaries at his behest. Plus Ivanka has Chinese trademarks on voting machines. He's killing us through a slow and steady Covid genocide. You guys up there damn well better keep Justin Trudeau and his team in Ottawa, and stop giving a fuck about But His We-Mails and Rob Silver, else we stranded American refugees won't have anywhere to run away to if Hair Furor manages to pull off a Putsch!!!

rumleyfips said...

The Trumpaloonies do not have time to completely disable the USPS before November. They can slow delivery down, but there is a simple solution Jackie. Voters can mail their ballots at the first legal moment. A ballot mailed 7 weeks before deadline will make it no matter what Trump does.

Jackie Blue said...

Simon, speaking of a putsch, what's your read on the Cons going after Rob and Katie? Do you think it'll backfire? WeGhazi didn't achieve what they wanted to (except for a Liberal poll drop, and yet they're still in the lead where it counts). Now the Liberals are producing receipts to back up ALL the testimony, which I'm sure they didn't expect. They've got nothing. The evidence will back Trudeau up.

I get the sense that they know they failed to turn WeGhazi into Sponsorgate 2020. So now they've cooked up this hit job even though Skippy himself said there was nothing there? Since when do Cons want government agencies to operate programs? I thought they hated the CRA? What exactly is Skippy's beef with this program other than hatred of Katie and hatred of all things Liberal/Trudeau?

I am firmly convinced more than ever that this farcical investigation is an attack meant to overthrow the government, and destroy the Liberal Party and Justin Trudeau himself, as was Harper's ultimate goal. As well, he used to go after charities that he considered to be too "ideologically close" to the Liberals or progressive causes. Note Kenney's war on Greenpeace following the same M.O. and the Cons taking Vivian Krause's conspiracy theories about "Liberal vote-buying schemes" seriously.

My only hope is that if they do manage to convince the useful idiot Bloc and Dippers to launch a premature election in September, that it backfires on them immensely, because nobody wants an election in a pandemic. Actually, I hope they get it out of the way sooner rather than later if that ends up being the result. This minority clusterfuck has completely degenerated into a personal vendetta aimed at pushing Trudeau out and defaming his colleagues. Katie tore off Michael Cooper's balls at that committee, so now the dirty men are out for revenge against her. And I'm not at all convinced that there isn't an underlying motive to urgently replace the G-G. Linda Frum tweeted that she wants the Cons to have input on her replacement. This is a coordinated takeover.

For shame. As people are dropping like flies and democracies are imploding all over the world in places like Lebanon, Hong Kong, Israel, Belarus and the U.S. petty, privileged Poilievre pulls this crap? I hope all of them, Brown included and now Fife for running that bullshit hit piece, get sued. By the Trudeaus, the K-bros and now Rob and Katie for damage done to their reputation and careers.

I just don't know what else can be done right now to stop this kudatah in the making. Because I also get the sense they won't quit waging their war even if Trudeau was to fall on his sword and give them the king's head on a platter that it's obvious they're salivating for. If they're going after Telford, after Morneau, after Chagger, after the civil servants (especially Rachel Wernick), they'd go after Freeland or anyone else who took his place.

Also: another deranged sausage-maker wannabe bombarded McKenna's office earlier today, calling her the C-word and accusing her of protecting pedophiles who use WE Charity to groom kids. Didn't I say this was what the dog-whistling message was when Scheer put it out there that Trudeau's "benefit" was having access to youth? This has nothing to do with "accountability." It's a campaign of anti-Liberal/anti-Trudeau hate.

First they came for... Martin Niemoller is rolling in his grave.

Anonymous said...

The guy who accurately predicted the winners since 1984 says Trump will lose so there is that to ponder and pray for. However, Trump and his enablers are and will continue to try and cheat out a victory by any means so in spite of that, if he loses and they manage to evict the Douche a l'Orange come January, the mess he leaves behind will be ugly, to say the least. Of course he could lessen the ugliness depending on whether he accepts the loss and goes out with, ahem, dignity, or maybe he'll whip up the base into taking up arms. Who knows with this demented psycho. What I do know is that once the white house has been completely fumigated and Joe moves in, a daunting task awaits him in returning America to any semblance of worldwide respect they enjoyed under Obama's leadership. However, the cracks of division that Trump nurtured into gaping chasms will remain until a vaccine for stupidity and racism is developed for the 35% of Americans who still believe anything that comes out of Trump's big, fat, ugly mouth.
JD

rumleyfips said...

Eric Grenier on CBC just said the Liberals are leading The CPC by 2 to 6 % depending on poll . The bar graph beside him showed 8% between Lib and Reformatory.

Have they closed YukYuks. Are the comedians out loose on the street looking for work ?

Jackie Blue said...

@Rumleyfips and that's all that matters to news coverage is the horse race, not substantive issues. Just what they did to Hillary and now the polls are even narrowing between Trump and Biden. Why is Grenier talking about toplines? Toplines don't matter. Regionals do. The Liberals were behind one point nationally last election, and ended up just 13 seats short of majority anyway. Literally the only reason they didn't win majority is because Blanchet came out of nowhere. So far they are still ahead where it counts, and Nanos is behind a paywall and isn't included in CBC tracker. Nanos is in 338 but the numbers aren't published and I have no idea how Lean Tossup comes up with their formula or what polls they use. So the picture is cloudy enough as it is. Ottlib is right, polls suck in Canada, and watching the parties' behavior gives a better indication of where they appear to stand. Right now Trudeau is on a working vacation focusing on real issues while Skippy and co are subpoenaing the janitorial staff at the PMO and trying to get Rob Silver fired from his job. Pathetic.

But I want to know everyone's take on the Katie & Rob witch hunt and what people think of the Mark Carney report? The Cons are foaming at the mouth because Carney is going to help put together a climate-focused economic recovery and because Harper hated him. But is the talk that Trudeau is preparing for exit just wishful thinking on the pundits' part, or is there really momentum in the works? The Bloomberg article said nothing about Trudeau's departure, but really seemed to focus on Morneau getting bounced out and Carney replacing him. Though it did talk about "future" leader of the Liberal party but only at the very end. And didn't say when in the future.

But Chantal and Althia said on last week's At Issue that Trudeau was not going to shuffle himself out and that Morneau likely would be the one to "walk the plank". Which seems inevitable even though I don't think it would quench the opposition thirst, since they're going after everyone in cabinet, with a disturbing focus on women (Qualtrough, Ng, Chagger) other female officials (Rachel Wernick, Katie Telford) and women family relatives (Margaret Trudeau, Sophie Trudeau, Grace Acan). As well the Star article from this weekend about the "Maple New Deal" that Carney is helping plan, that Trudeau plans to campaign on assuming there's no September pandemic election, gave no indication either that he was leaving. So I'm inclined to think, or hope, this is just a wet dream from Ivison and Coyne and Trudeau is not on his way out?

Steve said...

Trump will win. Its like the fix is in. Could the Democrats have picked a worse candidate, at least Hillary had all her Mables stored in incredibly heavy baggage.

Anonymous said...

Compared to all of the other crap on smash mouth's agenda, Canadian aluminium tariffs are relatively minor but very telling. Canada's major competitor in this market space are the Russian oligarchs. They either own Trump or its a mutual admiration society.Its bizarre that he would expose the link without trying to cover it with other tariffs such as steel, auto parts etc. Hubris, careless, or desperate; stay tuned for the next episode of made in the US reality shit show.

RT