Number 45

By George Smith

The 45th president of the United States believes he is a once-in-a-lifetime thinker, a modern-day Socrates who is bigly sophisticated, erudite and who handles the many problems, opportunities, unforeseen faux pas, malignant foibles of members of the human race and examples of his intellectual fraud (real “downright lies”) as part of a conspiracy against him and his administration.

Unfortunately for the American people and the global community, President Donald Trump is none of those things. Instead, he is a poor excuse for a human being, a self-proclaimed born-agin-and-agin Christian who repeatedly demonstrates he has no soul, a whiney, spoiled, slack-brained, excuse-at-the-ready man-child who demands loyalty and fealty even when faced with the facts that he offers neither to any person except, at least for now, selected members of his family and key, get-on-your-knees-and-worship-me aides and cabinet members.

Harsh assessment from a staunch detractor? Harsh? Assuredly. Staunch detractor? Yeppers. Do those two stances negate the facts concerning the failures of the 45th president? Absolutely not.

Trump, the president, the man, is not well. Listen to his words. Watch his actions in trying to do a simple task, like take a drink of water or walk down a ramp. He is a physical disaster-in-waiting.

His thinking process, his exclamations and explanations are not just suspect but downright bizarre. Make excuses for him if you must, but you cannot excuse his reasoning behind why the number of COVID-19 cases are climbing exponentially:

“We are doing more testing that anyone and that causes the cases to rise. If we didn’t do testing, the number would be close to zero.”

Nooooooo. The number of cases would be the same; it’d just be ostrich-head-in-the-sand time in the U.S. of A.

And, to get our mind off the dramatic increase in coronavirus cases in some states, due to opening up the economy (and, of course, that darn testing regimen), jobless numbers and deaths way north of 110,000), Trump this week called for $2 trillion in spending to upgradre U.S. roads, bridges and tunnels, seizing on the coronavirus outbreak and record low interest rates to advance one of his longest-standing priorities.

Speaking at his daily coronavirus briefing on Tuesday evening, Trump said low rates would allow the country to borrow cheaply to finance spending on infrastructure. He said none of the funds should go toward environmental initiatives called for in the Democrats’ Green Deal.

This is a good thing, regardless of who is sitting behind the Resolute desk in the Oval Office in the White House in Washington-on-the-Deficit. Infrastructure spending could help blunt the surge in unemployment and businesses failures expected to result from the coronavirus pandemic and economic shutdown.

Lest we have forgotten, a nati0nal infrastructure program was 0n Trump’s econ0mic battle plan for the U.S. since the early days of his presidential campaign. When this administration’s jobs numbers and overall ec0nomic report card continued the strong, upward trend started in 2010 f0llowing the 2008 recession, infrastructure improvement as a nati0nal policy was shelved. This was a calculated political gambit as center stage projects and scandals – THE wall, trade war with vari0us c0untries, dramatic changes to immigration policy, Iran, China and North Korea posturing and, finally, the global pandemic – sucked all the rarified air and vote-counting capital out of the political landscape.

Simply, what caused the president to resurrect the idea that an infrastructure plan would assist in his re-electi0n campaign, were the so-far-South-it’s-dark-24/7 polling numbers which showed Trump, the man, the policy wonk, rated slightly worse than a “creepy high school janitor who set up hidden cameras in the boys’ bathro0ms”, and only slightly better than “unseen dust bunnies under the c0uch”.

Now, as Trump’s poll numbers are tanking due to his mangling,  miscalculation and mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic, he chucks up one of his administration’s patented distractions, a real-life “shiny” moment:

            “Look! Bigly jobs!! New, improved roads!!! Bridges and dams that w0n’t collapse!!!! Complements of President Donald J. Trump!!!!! MAGA!x6.

Where was this program three years ago when this administration was capturing and caging would-be immigrants looking for a safer, better life? Where was this “progress” plan when the president was trumpeting the “impenetrable” that an eight-year-old girl climbed in less than 20 seconds using a special tool – wo0den shoes that she wedged in the spaceds in the wall and scampered up like a money on a palm tree?

While the nation’s roads and bridges were deteriorating, and dams collapsing, inundating towns and taking lives, Trump was holding the promised infrastructure bill for the proper time.

The “proper” time, it now is clear, is when polls reported by Fake News outlets show him trailing challenger Joe Biden by double digits in some key states.

“What! I’m behind in the polls? Unleash the visible ec0nomic infrastructure programs plan!”

By electi0n time, vari0us roadways in key states will be sporting signs showing that “President Donald J. Trump” wants the American driving public to be safe on American roads.

And, once again, Trump is betting he can hornswoggle en0ugh voters to have an0ther f0ur years of power trips, ego-expanding proclamations that aid the rich and corporations and destroy blessed parts 0f this country and a chance to undermine the f0undation of democracy.

Will his bet pay off the first Tuesday in November?

Go vote and see.

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