The National Center for Health Studies just issued it’s life expectancy report for 2020.  Not surprisingly, life expectancy in the US fell in 2020 fueled by COVID-19 deaths.  The shocking thing is how much in fell, by 1.5 years from 2019, from 78.8 to 77.3 years.  75% of those deaths were directly attributable to COVID-19.  This is the largest single year drop in US life expectancy since WWII. Trump’s incompetence, repeated all over the country by Trump Mini Me governors, caused millions of unnecessary infections and hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths.  The US has 4% of global population, but over 20% of COVID infections and deaths.

There’s simply no excuse for it, but the predictable result of the election of incompetents to high office.  Electing Donald Trump to the presidency was the single largest mistake made by voters in our entire history, and we have paid for it in treasure and deaths; even worse, we will continue to pay for this bumbling for generations to come.

Among the outrages committed by Trump during his 4 year infestation of the WH is the damage he did to the US’s global standing.  Not only did he turn against centuries-long alliances and quit global cooperation (the WHO, Paris Climate Accord, Iranian nuclear deal), he ceded global trade positions to China.  Oh, he talked tough and launched a disastrous trade war, but the real damage he did was allowing China to get a giant leg up on global trade, diplomacy, and even defense.   When Trump was boasting about his “America First” policy, other countries were moving into the vacuum and moving quickly.  After a smaller increase last year due to the pandemic, China announced today an increase in its defense budget of 6.8% as it modernizes and increases its military capabilities.  Xi Jinping, facing no real political opposition, has jumped into the void created by Trump’s bungling cementing not only China’s dominance, but also his own.

Xi saw Trump’s bungling as an opportunity for China, and he took it.  He let Trump think he did the “biggest deal ever”, when, in fact, he pantsed him in front of the entire world, and the only people who didn’t see it were MAGHats and Lindsey Graham.  His trade war and “deal” with China used his crack negotiating skills – he gave China everything it wanted.  The Brookings Institute put it best just before the 2020 election:

“Despite Trump’s claim that “trade wars are good, and easy to win,” the ultimate results of the phase one trade deal between China and the United States — and the trade war that preceded it — have significantly hurt the American economy without solving the underlying economic concerns that the trade war was meant to resolve. The effects of the trade war go beyond economics, though. Trump’s prioritization on the trade deal and de-prioritization of all other dimensions of the relationship produced a more permissive environment for China to advance its interests abroad and oppress its own people at home, secure in the knowledge that American responses would be muted by a president who was reluctant to risk losing the deal.”

Trump’s paper tiger presidency allowed bad actors like Iran, Russian, and China to actually do the opposite of what he boasted would happen.  These countries, without the vigilance of the allies lead by the US to hold them to account, increased their global dominance.  Russia has expanded its cyber operations targeting all global democracies, China stepped into the void to dominate Pacific trade, and Iran is once again expanding its nuclear capability.  Worse, our own allies have backed away from us, and Biden’s aggressive re-engagement has not calmed fears about who the US will elect in 2024 and simply return to Trumpism.  This problem is not going away any time soon, especially with a Senate that can’t even pass a bill that will provide some relief to our long haul misery caused by Trump’s incompetence that was magnified by politicians terrified of his violent supporters.  Remarkably, it seems that Trump’s greatest accomplishment was creating an environment in the US toxic enough to enable domestic terrorism to rise from the shadows out into the light of day for the entire world to witness.  Domestic terrorists espousing fascist ideology and violence doesn’t give our allies confidence in our long term viability and most certainly takes away our moral authority as the biggest proponent of democracy around the world.

The damage Trump did will be long lasting and far reaching.  Republicans, trying to protect their own hides, refuse to acknowledge the problem, and this problem can’t be fixed with more executive orders and the efforts of only one party.  I’m not hopeful.

When Trump was infected, he received an anti-viral treatment only ten other Americans had received.  He then bragged about how easy it was to overcome the virus.  When Giuliani was infected, he was given similar treatment.  Now Trump and his circle are jumping the line to get these treatments and the vaccine.  Let’s be clear here.  Between Trump, Giuliani, Pompeo, and many other in his inner circle, their carelessness has  exposed thousands of people to the Coronavirus infecting an unknown amount of people because of his resistance to any viable contact tracing protocol.

Even as this line-jumping is occurring, his sycophants now want Biden to “unify the country” by giving Trump credit for the vaccine.  In the Washington Post this morning, former GWB speech writer Marc Thiessen demanded just that, saying that Trump deserves credit for Operation Warp Speed, which never participated or supported the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine developed in Germany.  While providing funding for some manufacturing, this vaccine was developed with no US participation.  In fact, Trump’s incompetence put the US at the back of the global line for the vaccine since they refused to buy vaccine for more than 50 million people (yes it takes TWO doses to vaccinate, so the 100 million doses Trump touts only vaccinates half that number).   There are about 275 million people in the US over the age of 16.  The Pfizer vaccine will only cover less than 20%.

Trump has spent the better part of a year downplaying the virus, holding super spreader events, firing staff and insulting science ands scientists and now to “unify” the country we should now give him credit for the vaccine?  Fuck that.  We’re finally going to see him flee to Mar a Lago sometime between now and January 20 to continue inflicting damage on our society by tweeting his grievances.  It will take the Biden administration an untold number of months to begin repairing the vast damage Trump has inflicted on us.  The LAST thing he deserves is praise for anything.  It’s time to give Trump what he deserves – anonymity and criminal charges.  We can start by disabling his Twitter account.

Yesterday, during the avalanche of news that Biden had just won the election for President of the United States, Rudy Giuliani and other swamp creatures were holding a “big news conference” on the outskirts of Philadelphia in the parking lot of the Four Seasons.  Hotel, you ask?  Oh, no.  It’s much better than that.  The Four Seasons Total Landscaping.  When I saw it on Trump’s Twitter feed yesterday morning, I thought it was just Trump’s usual idiocy, but it’s better than that; a LOT better than that.  Trump had actually tweeted earlier that said “big” press conference would be at the Four Seasons Hotel, but when he found out that indeed it was the landscaping company, someone deleted that tweet and issued a corrected one.  So, apparently Trump doesn’t have a building named for him in Philadelphia so he gave orders to get the Four Seasons Hotel, so some harried and bullied staffer rushed to book the event, apparently not thinking there was more than one Four Seasons in Philadelphia.  So Rudy shows up here:

That’s right, here is the former “America’s Mayor” turned presidential slanderer giving Trump’s “big news conference”  from the shabby parking lot of a landscaping company sandwiched between a crematorium and porn shop.  Next to the boat with Trump flags at the bottom of Lake Travis, there is no better metaphor for Trump’s disastrous infestation of the WH.  Oh, and here’s the boat:

Here’s hoping the landscape company owner got paid up front.

Many of us believe Trump doesn’t care whether you live or die.  There is ample evidence of that from his behavior over the years, but was in plain view last night at Eppley Airfield outside of Omaha, Nebraska.  To use Air Force One as his backdrop, he had thousands of supporters bussed 4 miles to a remote area on the airport.  He held said rally, playing all of his Fat Elvis hits, then boarded his plane and was gone.

Thousands of his supporters were then left stranded out on the airfield, with few buses taking people back.  Oh, and it was 30 degrees last night.  Emergency medical teams were called and were treating people for hypothermia.  At least 7 people remain hospitalized this morning.

Two lessons here: 1) He really doesn’t care if you live or die; 2) Incompetence pervades every aspect of Trumpland.  They can’t even get buses right.

Trump’s approval ratings, which always hover around the low 40s, has risen in the last month as many Americans rallied around him as he thrashed around trying to make the Coronavirus pandemic go away.  He started daily briefings for the first time in over a year and his approval went up.  Now an interesting effect of his daily exposure is occurring – people (who don’t pay much attention) are figuring out that Trump actually is doing a terrible job with the crisis.  I believe they’re figuring that out because every day, Trump:

• Lies, lies, lies.  His incessant lying results in his staff having to continuously crisis manage, backtracking on his bombastic claims of everything from cures to numbers, to non-existent vaccines and tests.
• Is permanently radically partisan.  He attacks everyone who criticizes him and airs old grievances daily.
• Cuts off the experts to spout conspiracy theories and bullshit.
• Insults the international community, WHO, NATO, and many others including his usual targets, China and “shithole” countries.
• Insults the press, refuses to answer a straight question repeats “fake news” every minute.
• Holds his “briefings” at the 5 pm newshour so his ratings are higher.  He sometimes blathers for up to 2 hours, providing very little actual new information. It wrecks news programing throughout the country.

This worked for a few weeks, but Trump is wearing pretty thin with millions of Americans.  His ratings are falling in new polls, and Biden is rising against him in key states like Florida.  I can’t watch it, but Trump is inadvertently damaging his re-election prospects by putting his incompetence and cornered badger personality every day on national television.  Even most loyal Trumpists have backed away from their idiotic boasting and taunting of normal Americans who are watching this debacle slack-jawed in disbelief.

Trump’s “winning” has now erased ALL of the stock market gains since he took office.  Unemployment this morning is 13% the highest in almost 100 years.  We are struggling with a global pandemic without the benefit of a strong pandemic response team because it was dismantled.  We are struggling with confusing and often conflicting information.  Our infection rate is understated because there is virtually no testing available.  Those who had it and have recovered have no way of confirming their illness because no serum antibody test is available.  The CDC is paralyzed by politicized appointments and slashed budgets.

Trump couldn’t do a better job of destroying the US economy if he tried.  The silver lining here, though, is that he’s putting his corruption, incompetence, and hatefulness of full display for hours every day.  Doing that is actually starting to get through to Americans who normally don’t pay attention.