Day 1207 – Godot Ain’t Coming
Saturday May 9, 2020
176 Days until the election on November 3rd
256 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021
My dad once told me about a time he was out in California on a job. It was in terrible shape. His company’s sales team wanted to bring the job back east to the company headquarters. My dad asked why. He then stated that the best minds in the world for solving the problems on this job were sitting right in the room.
They were faced with the terrible reality that they had to figure it out.
I heard an interesting thought experiment yesterday. I guess that’s what you’d call it. Imagine that at the beginning of World War II the President had said, “The Federal Government will serve as a back up. I’m calling on each governor to send to Europe by whatever means they can come up with their state militias.”
I’ve wondered in these screeds what it is that Trump does all day. It seems that after he has whatever public display and ceremony that he goes back and does nothing. Only to come out the next day and say whatever he thinks will get him by until the next day. Be it: “The virus will be gone” to “Anyone can get tested” to “They have all the ventilators they need.” He then goes back and does nothing. If that were only true. He seems to go back and do thing to damage and hurt the efforts of others. When he’s not doing that he’s suppressing the work of anyone he doesn’t agree with or like, and he’s scheming to figure out ways to get his pals off the hook.
It’s a sad state of affairs, but that is where we are.
And he is being backed up by Mitch McConnell who seems equally incapable or disinterested in addressing the problem. Instead, he’s pushing through yet another ideologue judge.
The virus marches on. Our leadership twiddles its thumbs. We have to hold out for nine months until, hopefully, we get new leadership.
Some are likening this to the Great Depression and Herbert Hoover. Hoover did a lot of great things before he became President. Many people forget that. Trump? We now know that he’s failed at many businesses. He had a successful TV show based on the illusion that he was a great businessman. His career has been marked by lies, cheats, cons, and deception.
I have to wonder if he deceives himself? It seems in the day to day he does, but there is some reality that he isn’t the great business person (or anything else) that he purports to be. Why else would he hide so much about himself?
In my fantasy world, I wonder what would happen if:
If he and Mike both came down with the coronavirus and had to be put on ventilators. Maybe with Mitch too. Nancy would be in charge. Can you imagine the world they would wake up to? Ah me, one can dream.
I saw an article that talked about the problems we have are in many areas and that they’ve been coming on for a long time.
Business, health, food supply, law – They all show signs of not only disfunction but rot.
The most striking were two figures. One was a map of the U.S. Showing male obesity in 2001. Most of the country was yellow – as in warning. The next figure was male obesity in 2011 – most of the country was pink and red – as in really bad. I have seen anecdotal pictures of a U.S. Crowd from the 40s and 50s. Underneath there will be a caption like “No one here is fat. What happened?”
Indeed what happened?
What happened to our food supply, our health care system, our health, our governance, our law, our businesses. What happened?
There was a piece I saw on Paul Krugman that talked about how he has been fighting “zombie ideas” for decades. It’s the same stupid ideas coming back over and over again.
When I was growing up, we were the greatest nation on earth. The greatest nation ever. We led the world.
Now?
What have we become? Fat, bloated, uncaring, and unable? Really? Really.
Stop with the silly mindless false headlines.
Stop hoping, pleading cajoling, to try and get the guy in the White House or the one in charge of the Senate to do anything resembling what we expect. We have enough data. It’s not going to happen.
What will happen is clear. Thousand more will die due to a failure of leadership.
The cover of Rolling Stone had Andrew Cuomo in black and white with the caption “Cuomo Takes Charge.”
That’s got to really gall the pres. Maybe, we should send extra copies to Jared and Donald and the White House? Maybe have big posters blown up and held outside the fence so that every time he looks out he sees what a real leader looks like?
Then there’s the weird Kabuki theater taking place in the midwest. In Iowa and Nebraska the governors are saying everything is fine. They are setting to reopen their states, which were never really closed. Meanwhile, the meatpacking plants are having skyrocketing rates of infection. The governors are doing what they can, and by that I mean muzzling their health officials. WTF?
PS Jared, Donnie, and The Man in Charge
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