We are thankfully entering the last two weeks of the presidential election season, and by now one must assume there are very few voters left “on the fence.”
With that in mind, here are my thoughts: what President Donald Trump says matters, and he shouldn’t get another four years in the White House.
As you probably already know, there was a foiled white supremacist group plot, to kidnap Michigan’s Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in early October. This led to the arrests of 14 members of a white supremacy group, who planned to kidnap the Governor, put her on trial and then execute her.
Homegrown terrorism should come as no surprise, because FBI Director Christopher Wray singled out white supremacists during a Sept. 17 Homeland Security committee hearing, as the greatest terrorist threat in America.
Here’s what should come as a surprise. Just 10 days later, Trump incited “Lock her up!” chants, at a rally against Gov. Whitmer in Muskegon, Michigan. White supremacists who hear these words will, no doubt, be emboldened to take action.
And then, there’s the COVID-19 pandemic. For the last several months, Trump has continually promised the Coronavirus was going away. It started in March, with reassurances, proclaiming everything would be back to normal by Easter.
And since that time, he’s still insisting “The virus is comparable to the flu.” As I write this article, in America alone, there have been 220,000 COVID related deaths, and 8,190,000 citizens who have caught the virus.
First Trump declared we shouldn’t test, so there wouldn’t be as many positive cases. Now he’s pushing for “herd immunity,” even though roughly 200,000,000 Americans would have to get sick and as many as 2,000,000 more would die.
Americans are also looking for guidance on masks (which the President repeatedly refuses to wear) and are confused when President Trump’s words contradict the world’s leading expert on infectious diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, on their efficacy.
True presidential leadership would have led the charge on protocol to fight COVID-19, rather than have left it to the states. Instead, Trump rambles on, never thinking how his comments are causing chaos.
The West Coast had raging wildfires most of the summer and the president vocally blamed the states for bringing it on themselves, citing poor forest management.
However, almost 60% of the forest fires in California, 25 percent of the forest fires in Oregon, and 44 percent of the forest fires in Washington were on federal lands.
Trump consistently trumpeted, “You gotta clean your floors,” as if he were an expert in forest management and nobody else knew any better. Rather, the president should look in the mirror to see who was in charge of a large swath of the land that was burning.
Furthermore, by ignoring climate change, he’s contributed to the environmental conditions that made all this possible. Instead, he constantly blames everyone else.
The president is running for reelection on a strong economy, Pre-COVID of course, saying different variations of “this is the greatest economy we’ve ever had,” even while currently half the nation is on the brink of insolvency and food insecurity.
In reality, the 2019 Federal deficit was an astounding $984 billion, and this created the short-term unsustainable financial boom. This was among the largest deficits ever during an economy that wasn’t in the midst of a financial shock (even though Trump promised economic growth would make deficits disappear).
Average worker pay increased a bit, over 3 percent, in 2019, which equates to about $1,200 for each of the roughly 157 million Americans in the workforce.
If instead, the president balanced the budget and gave the $984 billion deficit to every working American, we would have all received a check for $6,267.51. Also, let’s not forget the 2020 pandemic deficit is $3.1 trillion, an all-time record.
Sadly, future generations will have to pay back these deficits, with interest.
I won’t bother getting into details about the 4,000+ lawsuits the president has been involved in, the six bankruptcies of his hotels and casinos costing countless thousands of jobs, or the 26 women who have accused him of sexual harassment.
This article is about the fact that words matter, and why the President doesn’t deserve to be reelected.
Maya Angelou famously said, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” Words do matter. Please vote for former Vice President Joe Biden on November 3, like your life depends on it, because it does.
