Trump Whines about Election Loss while People Die

 The nation is on COVID-19 red alert and our national leadership has gone AWOL.

The nation and our state are seeing such a spike that hospitals are overtaxed. New Mexico set daily new case records of 1,287 (Friday), 1,418 (Monday), and 1,753 Thursday. Doña Ana County took 77 days to go from 1 death to 20, 21 days to go from 60 to 80, and six days to go from 80 to 100 DEATHS. New Mexico had 182 deaths in the past two weeks, 143% of the 75 during the previous two. The nation recorded a million new cases the first ten days of November, and infection rates are still rising.

Meanwhile, the President is playing golf and tweeting angrily about imaginary election fraud. The VP, nominal head of the coronavirus task force, is also searching for some shred of evidence of fraud.

What we’re seeing on Trump’s way out the door illustrates perfectly who he is.

He’s so emotionally devastated by his clear and public loss that he can’t function, or show his face. (He’s also tired of shouting “You’re fired!” at the virus.) He lost by five million votes and probably 306-232 in the electoral college, and he’s responding by like a child kicking and screaming – a Trumpish twitter tantrum.

It’s not just embarrassing. He’s doing real harm. He fired his Defense Secretary, with two months left, sending adversaries a message of vulnerability and impeding the transition to the Biden Administration.

Good government experts and both political parties agree that a smooth transition is essential, given the size and complexity of our government and the issues facing it, but Trump’s refused. “It’s my football, so I get to make the rules!” No release of information or transition funds to the President-Elect. (Biden is working hard anyway, but a real leader would share information, while perhaps stating that he was not thereby accepting the unofficial voting totals.) U.S. Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) has threatened to step in if Biden doesn’t start receiving Presidential briefings.

Trump’s allies fear he may even release classified information, or go on a firing spree, just to feel powerful.

For four years, while Trump’s acted like a spoiled child, defenders have said he’s helping the economy and protecting unborn children and our borders. Just what is he doing for us now? This unnecessary foot-dragging and name-calling can’t help our national security (or fighting the virus) – and has nearly zero chance of changing the result in any state, let alone the several he’d need to catch Biden.

Republican leaders seem too intimidated to retain any principles. Senators are asking mutual friends to congratulate President-Elect Biden for them, and apologizing for not doing so publicly. After years of telling his opponents to swallow their “feelings” and live with it, Trump wants everyone to stop everything and cater to his feelings about losing.

I regret writing about Trump yet again. However, it seems useful to stress – lest he try again to capitalize on people’s anger – this graceless, futile behavior. Overturning elections is what dictators do. If Trump were a bit smarter, or had weakened our country a little more beforehand, he might have succeeded. It’ll take Biden, and future presidents, much hard work to repair the damage to our democracy.

Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Trump golfs and whines while Americans die. If you care about our country, it’s time to mask up and move on.

                                                - 30 -

[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 15 November 2020, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website and KRWG’s website. A related radio commentary will air during the week on KRWG and KTAL-LP.] (http://www.lccommunityradio.org/), and will be available on demand on KRWG’s site. ]

[We’re locking down again. If everyone would wear masks, resist the temptation to gather, maintain appropriate distances, and wash hands, we’d blunt this spike. By now it should be obvious to all concerned that this thing is serious. I’d hope even folks who disbelieve the science or dislike the Governor, or think mask-wearing is unmanly or disloyal to Mr. Trump would start wearing the damned things just out of civic responsibility, state pride, or as a way to have their counties open for more business faster. It’s in everyone’s interest to wear the masks. And if the prevailing scientific view is wrong about masks, it can’t be wrong about impeding virus transmission by staying away from each other except when necessary. (I’ll

maximilian sunflower seeds - delicious!

admit that this morning, Sunday, I’ll try to get in a last day of pickleball for awhile, though masked, and that on Thanksgiving we’ll gather with just two other people, outdoors, at an appropriate distance from each other. I’ll also go to the radio station (weekly) and occasionally (subject to shifting NM Supreme Court rules) to court, where almost all the defendants appear by phone/video. But journalism is classed as “essential,” and there are no unnecessary human beings in either place. But I’m always masked.

We’ve seen this virus tear apart families of all classes and political persuasions, and that’s damned painful.]

[Biden apparently has 306 electoral votes.  In 2016, that was a "landslide," as Mr. Trump bragged. Since I sent this column in to the Sun-News, Trump has acknowledged in a Tweet that Biden got more votes, but asserted that that’s only because the election was rigged by “Radical Left Dems.” He’s railing against the folks counting the votes (a Republican Secretary of State in Georgia, for example) and the company that made the voting machines. A Republican election official in Pennsylvania received death threats from Trumpists. It’s an embarrassing mess.

I’m betting Trump departs from custom and does not attend the Inauguration. By contrast, someone has dug up the concession speech George W. Bush had prepared in 2000 but ultimately did not have to deliver because of Supreme Court intervention in Florida’s recount. He offered his congratulations to “my adversary who is no longer my adversary, but is President of the United States.”]