By Mark Lediard
Is Trump (the alleged “Leader of the Free World”) simply an immoral, pathological liar and con artist?
- On June 20, 2020, Trump made Tulsa, Oklahoma the unlikely venue of his first public campaign rally since COVID19 began the world’s deadliest journey through the US. Ironically and tragically, Trump’s epic leadership failure enabled him to keep his promise to make “America First” … in infections, deaths, and more! After Tulsa, he went on to lie and to trigger more record-breaking Covid numbers in two other venues: Mt Rushmore in South Dakota and Washington DC, the nation’s capital. Some background:
- Ninety-nine years ago, Tulsa was the site of the worst massacre in the violent history of black Americans. Despite this inconvenient fact, Trump chose to overlook the 1921 massacre and the Coronavirus. His nearly 2-hour long speech also failed to mention George Floyd or the rage over racial injustice inflaming America.
- In a barely coherent speech, he made a rare truthful admission after congratulating himself for his ‘historic’ performance controlling COVID in the US. He claimed that the high COVID numbers were only because of too much testing. Dr. Fauci and the scientific community contradicted his foolish statement and insisted on the urgent importance of expanding testing. Back home in Washington, DC, he lied to the Independence Day crowd saying that the US had tested 40 million people, but 99% of coronavirus cases in America are « totally harmless.”
Do Trump’s rallies attract as many people as he claims?
- Far from it: officials from Tulsa recorded 6,200 ticket holders attending indoors, with very few people outdoors. Trump’s re-election campaign staff removed the outdoor seating to hide the embarrassment, while removing the instructions Tulsa officials placed on seats to assure social distancing.
- And did his next ill-advised rally at a Mt Rushmore event electrify the masses? No. He attempted to demonize what he labeled as the “history-hating radical leftist fascists” and to assure his white supremacist supporters that he would guard the Confederate statues. Not a word about the virus.
- And his speech on the American celebration of “Independence Day” on the next day? Only more dark, fear-provoking talk of fascist leftists destroying the statues of the ‘heroic’ slave-owning soldiers.
Is it imaginable that Trump will be given 4 more years? Unlikely, for these reasons:
- The collapse of American prestige through withdrawal from key multilateral alliances, grandiose diplomatic failures, behaving as Putin’s dream-come-true, yielding economic leadership to China, and reducing democracy to an empty slogan.
- He fears allowing citizens to vote by mail, rather than going to the voting booths. He claims mail-in votes will be fraudulent (all false). He currently threatens to shut down the entire US Post Office to assure his victory. (call this abuse of power for political reasons).
- The current polls show Trump at 10-14 points behind Joe Biden four months ahead of the election.
What if he is elected, keeping his Senate majority and adding another far-right judge to the Supreme Court ?
- There will be no restraints. Having already avenged Obama by reversing most of his policies, he will seek to demolish American democracy by joining Putin and Xi as President-for-life and to formally remove the checks and balances of the US Constitution. He will move to withdraw from the United Nations, NATO and cancel whatever international accords, pacts, partnerships and treaties he wishes.