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**Since first writing this article several weeks ago there has been a slight change in my thinking. While my respect and admiration for Governor Cuomo continue unabated, the truth is that New York desperately needs him and will continue to need him until and after this extraordinary crisis passes. I now place my hope and confidence in Joe Biden to lead us through this national emergency and to help us afterward to rebuild what the current administration has all but destroyed. I would encourage everyone to refrain from writing in anyone else and definitely not to vote third party. We must not relinquish a single vote that would otherwise empower the Trump campaign. Our sole aim at this critical time in our nation's history is to stop its decline and start pulling ourselves back out of the darkness that we now find ourselves living in.**
I rarely share my politics with anyone, much less a large audience such as that here on the Den. But I can no longer keep my thoughts, feelings, and fears to myself. There's just too much at stake for us all to remain silent.
It's been interesting, in a horrific sort of way, to watch how this virus is affecting the entire world, not just us here. And one thing has become abundantly clear to me. I said before he ever took office that Trump would destroy us. What I never dreamt is that he would have a hand in bringing down the entire world. Ok, I guess I should give the corona virus some of the credit, but at times like these we all need a strong leader to emerge, even the world needs one, and until Trump came along we would have been that leader. Now because there is no strong leader it's only amplified the chaos. In fact, HE is at the very core of that chaos!
I read on the internet the other day that 55% of the American people actually approve of this ass' handling of the corona crisis. That, as much as anything, shows the extent of the Svengali-like hold this guy has on our country. The entire rest of the world sees him for what he is but, according to this statistic, over half of the American population refuse to. They believe he is "doing his best" in this unmitigated disaster. Is there any hope for us? If this is his best I shudder to think about what his worst would be.
I no longer watch those asinine "briefings" the White House holds. Each one is just more of the same BS. The only one on that stage that isn't clueless is Dr. Fauci. His actions and reactions as he stands behind Trump are priceless and if those idiots that worship at the feet of our self proclaimed leader would only accept what Fauci's physical response alone has to tell us, we just might begin to get somewhere. As it is I'm surprised Trump hasn't fired him yet. His track record would indicate that he should have already, given that he loves to fire the very people most needed for any given situation. I believe it's only a matter of time. Then he'll probably put a completely inept, incompetent sycophant in charge, exponentially worsening what is already bad enough.
Our only hope lies in a handful of officials across the country who are stepping up and assuming their vital roles as leaders in this disaster. As I said, I no longer watch those Washington briefings, and it didn't take long for me to do the same with our own governor (he's pro-Trump like the overwhelming majority of the state so no surprises there). Instead I am one of the many who tune in to watch Governor Cuomo's briefings. He is proving to be a rock for the state of New York and, by extension, even to those of us he is not directly responsible for. He is calm, he's empathetic, and above all he's beyond competent in his leadership abilities. I'm not kidding when I tell people we should all write him in on the November ballot because we'll need someone like him to pick up the pieces after the crisis passes.
If I had a megaphone powerful enough I would shout to the world at large that we did not vote this imbecile in, our flawed electoral system did. They, in turn, would ask why we don't do something about it, then, and I have to ask the same thing. As November approaches I live in abject fear that the electorals will once again vote Trump in. It's no longer just America that has to worry about that, but the entire world. Will we sit back and allow him to take us all the rest of the way under?
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I first learned of the power of television when I learned that Walter Cronkite, a very good news reader, would have easily been elected president if he only ran. That theory proved true when Ronald Reagan, an actor and television showman with the General Electric Theater and ads for things like cigarettes, was easily elected president.
As I watched 10 years of Trump's, The Apprentice, I saw the show morph from being a way to select underlings for his rental Empire into a way of browbeating his celebrity friends into giving to charity, I grew to detest his tendency to play favorites and have his way with the celebrities that he pulled into the show seeking their own celebrity by being on the magic screen like he was.
Probably 70% of us like to be told what to do. And Trump likes to tell people what to do. So it makes it easy for all of these rather mindless "followers," to follow him. And, the Republican Party is scrambling to stay together against their feared nemesis "socialism," or even worse, communism. That's why they cling to a man who can lie his way out of any situation without remorse of any kind. If you notice, at his press conferences, he now reads what the Republican stooges provide him to read, to avoid his offhand and ad libbed falsehoods.
As a result he has a solid 46% (not 56%) support among the unthinking. When he was elected in 2016, I felt that we could "weather," a bad president. And we have, in spite of a failed impeachment process. But I'm not sure that Trump can weather the current situation. In spite of all the rhetoric, whatever happens will be blamed on him and not on the Democrats. Finally, the buck will stop with the commander-in-chief of the war against coronavirus. I think I know who will win. The American people when he is gone.
Ron