Trump\’s Handling of Coronavirus Has Been a Disaster–But Don\’t Forget His Other Crimes and Abuses
Trump\’s outrageous firing of the Intelligence Community IG is a useful reminder that he is not just directly responsible for making much worse one of the biggest public health and economic catastrophes in American history, he is still the most corrupt president we have ever had.
The catastrophe we currently face should not distract us from the fact that Trump began by betraying the country, allied himself with an enemy to win the presidency, wantonly obstructed justice to cover up his crimes, rewarded Russia for its support, supported white supremacists, imposed racist policies on immigrants, put children in cages, turned his back on the suffering of Puerto Rico, gutted vital protections for our environment, enriched and empowered his family via nepotism, sought to suppress the First Amendment, empowered his Attorney General to attack our system of laws, appointee unqualified ideologues to lifetime positions on the courts, embraced murderers and autocrats overseas, battered our economy with reckless and damaging trade policies, rewarded war criminals, punished truth-tellers and whistle blowers, directly attacked the FBI and the Intelligence Community, insisted that loyalty to him was more important than loyalty to the country and punished those who dared to place nation and Constitution first.
He is a racist, a misogynist, unfit, a pathological liar, a disastrously bad manager, a credibly accused rapist, a serial sex abuser, a man without compassion or humanity or any trace of human virtue or capability. He denies science, history, our laws, and the ideas and ideals on which this country was founded. He is not just the worst president in our history. He is the senior public official who has done the most damage in the most different ways to the most people and the most cherished aspects of life in America of any since 1776.
As he did in the Ukraine case that led to his impeachment, Trump placed his own personal political interest ahead national interests when he sought to hide the truth about the coronavirus for seven weeks. It was the same crime, predicted explicitly at the impeachment trial.
He suppressed testing and data because he thought it would damage his political fortunes. He has repeatedly framed this sweeping human tragedy as an attack on him by Democrats and the media. Further, of course, his other defects have exacerbated the current calamity.
His lies, his unfitness, his denial of science, his elevation of loyalists above experts, his partisanship, his ignorance, his indecency, and his vileness have all made this crisis worse and will result in tens of thousands of lives unnecessarily lost.
They will have resulted in deepening and prolonging and making more agonizing the economic crisis that the bungled public health care crisis triggered. They will have contributed directly to worsening the most horrific public health disaster in a century in America.
They will have contributed to producing the worst economic disaster America has faced since the Great Depression. They are still doing so daily, still making matters worse daily. But as bad as what is happening now is, it does not and must not erase his prior abuses.
He is a traitor. He is a criminal. He is the worst human being every elevated to such a high position in American life. And to avoid falling victim to such a fate again and so we may repair the damage he has done, we must see the totality of his monstrosity for what it is.
