Without a doubt, 2020 will go down as one of the worst years in American history, and one of the reasons for that is the actions (or inactions) of the person who occupied the Oval Office and his supporting cast of incompetent sycophants.
It’s the end of the year, and there will be various “Bottom 5” and “Top 10” lists, but with NatZero being an ostensibly political-oriented website, I wanted to put one together only dealing with Trump’s worst moments. To cite a Marine Corps mantra: “There are many like it, but this one is mine.”
5. Denying the pandemic. This goes beyond the staggering amount of ineptitude demonstrated by Team Trump, with its failure to procure accurate tests and PPE. It goes further than the inability of the administration to implement a single domestic policy to stem the spread of the coronavirus. It starts with Trump’s fundamental unwillingness to even acknowledge that there was growing problem in the first place. It continues on his denial of medical evidence and the scientific process that the coronavirus was a danger to not just lives, but to our economy. Remember when Trump (and his minions) repeatedly told us that COVID was no worse than the flu? That was about 300,000 lives ago. Remember when he said we’d have close to zero cases–not deaths, cases–by the first weekend in March?
Throughout, Trump constantly touted two things: *he* was doing a great job, and it was all the fault of China/Democrats/governors or any other convenient scapegoat. His repeated declaration that the “cure can’t be worse than the disease” neglected to mention that he never addressed the disease.
4. Pardoning political allies and war criminals. Yes, Trump profiting from his position is bad, as is his use of his office as cover to prevent his prosecution, but his biggest abuse of office is his use of the president’s pardon power. From his first, to former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio in 2017, Trump has wielded the pardon pen as a way to grant favors to his friends and political allies–all while avoiding the established procedure for applying for and reviewing clemency applications.
In 2020, however, Trump took the abuse of a power exclusive to his office to new depths. Of the 52 people he’s issued pardons to in 2020, more than 75% were to people who were either politically connected to Trump, donated to Trump, or committed financial crimes similar to those Trump himself has been accused of. Many others were for political gain, such as his pardons of drug dealers advocated for by celebrities, or for personal favor, like the one for his daughter’s father-in-law.
His friends and allies–Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos, Roger Stone, to name a few–were granted solely because they were friends of Trump, not because they showed any remorse for their criminal acts. And curiously, they were all convicted of impeding investigations into Trump activities.
To the public, the most egregious, however, may have been the recent pardons granted to four military contractors from Blackwater, a paramilitary company owned by Erik Prince, the brother of Trump’s Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos. There is no question that these four men committed a crime–murdering 17 unarmed Iraqi civilians, including an 8-year-old boy–which could be considered war crimes. Granting clemency to them demonstrates to the world that the US will not hold murderers to account. It’s also a stark reminder that Trump is, by nature, lawless.
3. Holding rallies. Put aside Trump’s statements about how unimportant the coronavirus would be. Trump *actively* encouraged his followers to flout local public health restrictions by holding political rallies which have been linked to outbreaks and deaths. (Incidentally, for the sake of this point, I consider Trump’s White House events, like the Rose Garden introduction of Amy Coney Barrett, as rallies because they were purely to boost Trump’s ego.)
A rational person would’ve thought that after his first pandemic-era rally–the embarrassment in Tulsa–led to the death of Republican personality Herman Cain, he would’ve cut back on rallies. A rational person would’ve thought that the outbreak caused by the indoor rally would lead campaign organizers to mandate masks and social distancing guidelines. But no, they didn’t. What they did do is put a disclaimer on rally posts that the campaign could not be held liable for attendees catching coronavirus.
Not only was the outcome deadly, the imagery of Trump shouting to his faithful hordes as they were packed cheek-to-jowl at rallies sent the completely-wrong message to the nation: that such gatherings were safe.
It was only after loud public outcry–and cities canceling rally permits–that Trump took a modicum of precautions. And they were only for the camera: the people behind him, in the camera shot, were required to wear masks.
Trumplicans claim that crowd size “proves” Trump won the election. In reality, however, more people were probably disgusted by Trump’s lack of concern for his followers (and Americans in general) that it cost him the election.
2. Undermining democratic elections. Long before Joe Biden was named winner of the presidential election on November 6th, Trump was repeating the playbook of 2016: if he lost, the election was rigged. Everyone was against him, he said: the media, Democrats, foreign leaders, even other republicans.
In the Oval Office, however, he took the grievance even further: he set not just the GOP machine against the election, he spurred state government officials to cast doubt on the verified results of the election. He put the Elite Strike Force Team, who are thankfully completely incompetent, in place to stoke doubt. (I hope bar associations around the country look into disbarring them in the next year.)
The doubt sowed by Trump will not end on January 20th, which is where the true destructive nature of Trump lies: hundreds of thousands of people will not believe any outcome of an election in which their candidate–likely a Republican or Trumpublican–loses. They will never lose, you see; they’ll be cheated out of office.
1. Blocking coronavirus aid. It goes beyond delaying signing the most recent coronavirus relief legislation; it was his blatant attempt to undermine negotiations throughout the campaign so he could claim political gain. It was putting Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in charge without consulting Congressional Republicans.
Trump wants to watch the world burn, and he wants to set it afire. He wants to destroy everything that he feels slighted him in any way. If that means crippling the nation, so be it. If it means the citizens who voted him out of office suffer, so be it. If it means destroying the GOP, so be it. Trump doesn’t giving a damn about anything but Trump.
So when the opportunity arose for him to grab headlines over the holiday by refusing to sign the coronavirus relief package, he did. As Americans from coast-to-coast isolated from family to stop the spread of the disease, Trump decided that the way to punish them further was to put their futures in doubt. He’d play the populist, demanding a bigger stimulus check, but the move was really designed to harm Americans, the economy and Republicans.
Trump gets the added bonus of handing Biden a flaming pile of crap as he spends his last days in office out of the office, golfing in Palm Beach. Nero had a fiddle; Trump has a nine-iron.