April 15, 2020
Each day, we ask ourselves, “how will we get through this? Each day, we wonder when this will end and what lies on the other side of an unprecedented crisis that has wrought incalculable human and economic loss. We feel as though we’re living in a dystopian version of “Groundhog Day,” each morning marked by Governor Cuomo’s somber accounting of the increasing number of positive cases, hospitalizations and deaths, each afternoon marked by the mind numbing effort to feed the gaping maw of Trump’s pathetic ego in the White House daily coronavirus “briefings.” Those of us with the stomach for it watch Trump spout dangerous misinformation, hog the cameras and try to bully and bluster his way through this crisis, as he has every other challenge in his “presidency.”
Yesterday, we got a glimpse of what may lie ahead. Over the weekend, The New York Times published a damning expose detailing exactly how Trump’s determination to ignore and downplay the threat posed by the coronavirus turned what could have been a manageable public health challenge into a full blown nationwide crisis that may send our country into an economic crisis that rivals the Great Depression , (Source: “He Could Have Seen What Was Coming: Behind Trump’s Failure on the Virus,” by Eric Lipton, David E. Sanger, Maggie Haberman, Michael D. Shear, Mark Mozzetta and Julian E. Barnes, The New York Times, 4/11/20).
That article incinerated any hope that anyone in this administration, other than the beleaguered Dr. Anthony Fauci, had the ability to apply a high school knowledge of biology or basic regard for human life to the question of when to re-open the economy. Exhibit A was the rogues gallery of singularly unqualified toadies and business people Trump appointed to his second Coronavirus task force charged with considering that question, (Source: “Trump’s grand re-opening council triggers a slew of new questions,” by Nancy Cook, Politico.com, 4/13/20). There isn’t a single public health expert, medical professional or even a FEMA logistics expert in the lot.
It was, frankly, a relief to be reminded that the federal government does not have a monopoly on power and watch the governors of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Rhode Island step up and announce that they had banded together to coordinate the best way to re-open their states while balancing public health and economic concerns. Governors on the West Coast, in California, Oregon and Washington state did the same thing, (Source: “Governors on East and West coasts form pacts to decide when to re-open economies,” by Maeve Reston, Kristina Sgueglia and Cheri Mossburg, CNN.com, 4/13/20).
In response, Trump raged like a dinner theater King Lear, claiming at his Monday press conference that, as president, his ““authority is total,” as always, saying the quiet part out loud. He was immediately and roundly mocked with the explicit words of the Tenth Amendment which unequivocally state that “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
The sweetest rejoinder to Trump’s unhinged rant was delivered by the voters of Wisconsin. Despite the unprincipled voter suppression efforts from Republicans at every level, including the United States Supreme Court, voters throughout the state sent five times the normal number of absentee ballots and braved criminally long lines in Milwaukee to propel progressive challenger, Jill Karofsky to a seat on the Supreme Court, defeating Trump-endorsed, conservative incumbent Dan Kelly, (Source: “Liberal challenger Jill Karofsky wins a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court,” by Li Zhou and Ella Nilsen, Vox.com, 4/13/20). Consider this week Trump’s crash course in Constitutional law and his reminder of where power ultimately resides— with the people.
#Wewillgetthroughthistogether