America Doesn’t Apologize, It Just Embarrasses Itself
Anyone who reads tweets or comments from Trumpists can come away with the impression that someone’s sense of reality is seriously askew. Read enough of them and you might become unsure if it’s you or them.
Trump himself emits a firehose of alternate reality daily, and his acolytes, if less prolific, follow suit. Just yesterday, Attorney General William Barr was asked how history would look back on his decision to drop. charges against admitted liar Michael Flynn. “History is written by the winners,” he responded, “so it largely depends on who’s writing the history.”
This is disingenuous. We don’t have to wait for the historians to decide which side is denying reality. We have merely to look to the world outside our borders for a reality check. In the wider world the verdict is nearly unanimous — Trump has turned the United States into a laughingstock.
With a couple of exception — looking at you, England and Sweden — European countries followed the advice of scientists and locked down their populations to slow the spread of the disease. They were faced with similar shortages of equipment, but with the exception of Italy, where the explosive growth rate of infections overwhelmed hospitals before officials realized what was happening, countries flattened the infection curve. Most of them tided over workers with direct payments instead of paying off their employers.
That they reacted better than the U.S. is obvious. Their death rates are lower, their unemployment rates are lower, and they are well on their way to beginning their recovery.
The U.S., meanwhile, has done none of these things. The federal government has put more effort into pretending to solve problems than actually solving them, and the world has noticed. In what might be the ultimate embarrassment, the citizens of Ireland, mindful that the Choctaw Nation sent them aid during the potato famine, have raised $1.8 million dollars to help the Navajo and Hopi tribes weather the pandemic.
Trump got elected promising that America wouldn’t apologize anymore. Indeed, we’re not apologizing. We’ve been reduced to begging.
William Barr… that fucking guy. You know they are working on a legal strategy to defend the cancellation of the election in November.
I don’t think cancelling the election works for Trump. As I understand it, if the presidential election is cancelled, the presidency and vice presidency become vacant in Jan 2021 and the Speaker of the House becomes President.
I say Trump will go for voter suppression combined with scorched-earth negative campaigning. In short, he’ll do what he is doing now, only more of it.
Actually, the terms would also be up for all members of the House and those Senators who are up for reelection.
As a result, the Democratic Party would hold a majority in what’s left of the Senate, so Patrick Leahy of Vermont would become president.
I guess it depends on how this wacky scenario would play out. Even if Trump could somehow cancel the presidential election, cancelling congressional elections would be a bridge much further.
Since elections are run by the states, I suppose Trump could prevail on red states to cancel their elections. Then could state EC electors vote for Trump, even if their state did not hold an election? I don’t know.
Blue states would certainly hold their congressional elections, which I assume would allow Democrats to achieve congressional supermajorities. If I am correct, this is why it would never happen.
And since the new Congress convenes and elects a speaker before the Presidential inauguration Jan. 20, there would be a Speaker to assume a vacant Presidency.