August afternoons – The lost window of opportunity – My self-diagnosis of Trump Derangement Syndrome – Evening statistics
Today was one of those characteristic afternoons in August, “long, beautiful, and terrible, when one felt that the summer was rounding its curve, and the rustle of the full-leaved trees in the slanting golden light, in the breeze that ought to be delicious, seemed the voice of the coming autumn, of the warnings and dangers of life.” (Henry James, The Bostonians, Chapter 37). The skies were clear, the weather was perfect, the trees are in full leaf; the waters of the lakes and streams sparkled in the sunlight; and yet there was the slightest hint, in the long shadows beginning to form at 5:00 in the evening, of seasonal change. Summer is approaching its end; the temperatures are moderating and the days are becoming shorter.
And under the current circumstances the warnings and dangers should not be neglected, for the COVID virus is supposed to be more virulent in colder weather. Earlier we had seemed to be on the verge of curbing the virus, but then the majority of the states released their lockdown restrictions and the rate of infection promptly redoubled. The amount of new cases has gone down to some extent in the past couple of weeks, but 40,000 seems to be the average daily number and our case rate is now approaching 2% of the national population.
Donald Trump’s supporters have spoken derisively of the “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” but surely the results speak for themselves. I do not see how anyone can argue that, with respect to the virus alone, he has grossly mismanaged matters. With a bare 4% of the global population, we account for 24% of the cases worldwide, 37% of the cases still active, 22% of the deaths. And many of his responses have not merely been ineffective but actively harmful, such as his completely fallacious claims that hydroxychloroquine is an effective cure or that bleach could be beneficial. His promotion of anti-malarial drugs for the COVID virus, in addition to raising false hopes in Americans afflicted with it, precipitated panic-buying of them in areas where they are really needed, such as Africa and South Asia.
And that’s not even taking into account that he is the third President in history to be impeached or the incredibly high turnover of the White House staff. I don’t think I’m being unduly captious in expecting greater stability within a Presidential administration. Over 60% of Trump’s senior staff vacated their positions within 18 months of his taking office, voluntarily or otherwise, and there has been more change in his first 13 months than his four immediate predecessors saw in their first two years.
Then there is the fact that his financial credentials are by no means impeccable. He appears to have indulged in financial skullduggery for years, or even decades. The Manhattan District Attorney has issued a subpoena to obtain Trump’s records for the past eight years. Trump’s efforts to block this request have been consistently denied by the courts at all levels; and if Trump is elected this coming November, we are going to be in the embarrassing position of having an acting President undergo a criminal investigation, possibly resulting in his being convicted. Already many of his associates have undergone trial and quite a few of them have received prison sentences.
That his manners are objectionable, not even his most ardent supporters can deny. His own daughter admitted as much during the Republican Convention: “I recognize that my dad’s communication style is not to everyone’s taste. And I know his tweets can feel a bit unfiltered. But the results speak for themselves.” They do indeed – but not in the sense that Ivanka Trump intended. The virus is running rampant, millions have been thrown out of work, and racial tension is reaching a degree of intensity that I, for one, cannot remember since 1968. In 1989 the national mood was almost euphoric, buoyed by the fall of the Soviet Union and the expectations of the “peace dividend”; three decades later, it has swung to the opposite extreme, bitter, angry, depressed, divisive, and pessimistic, and while the totality of this shift cannot be laid at Trump’s door, his administration has certainly accelerated this disastrous change.
Such are the indicators (or some of them – there are many others, which I omit here for fear of being tedious) of my Trump Derangement Syndrome and I can only say that it is a very widespread disease, greater in distribution than the coronavirus itself and just as contagious. I’m not sure what can be done by way of a cure; possibly the election of Joe Biden as President will alleviate these troubling symptoms; but, failing that, a stroke or an aneurysm felling Trump to the ground and rendering him speechless and incapable may do the trick.
Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 25,527,548; # of deaths worldwide: 852,683 # of cases U.S.: 6,173,235; # of deaths U.S.: 187,224.