The Covid-19 Trumpism Legacy

 In the absence of anything approaching an actual plan, all he has given the country is performative messaging. And that messaging has been a disaster. Trump is the single largest driver of coronavirus misinformation worldwide. He called it a hoax (it wasn't); he said it would magically go away (it didn't); he told people to inject bleach (don't); he mocked people for wearing masks (wear a mask); he said only older people die from the virus and children are immune (none of that is true). Even after he got Covid-19 and recovered—thanks to the socialized medicine taxpayers provided him—he refused to embrace basic science and reason; instead he ripped off his mask, parading about the White House balcony like some orange Übermensch. He ended his failed reelection campaign by barnstorming around the country holding superspreader events that are thought to have caused 30,000 infections and 700 deaths.

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Trump's anti-science sociopathy has been embraced by many other political actors. His messaging, his attitude, his culture-war-mongering have filtered down throughout our country, to our national shame.

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Even after he's removed from the White House (and he will be removed on January 20), Trump will continue to use the media—Twitter, Fox News, Newsmax—to poison the well against public health. There will be a vaccine for the coronavirus eventually, but there is no cure for what Trump has done to our society, no inoculation from the disinformation he spreads, and no way to bring back the lives he's already cost us.

Elie Mystal, "The Real Trump Surge, The Nation, Dec. 14/21, 2020

We will get past the Covid-19 pandemic probably in late 2021 and early 2022 but it will take much longer to get past the egocentric and ethnocentric gravity of the Trumpist level of consciousness. 

The best estimate is that 30% of the American population is stuck at this stage of development and it doesn't seem that many of these folks will further develop.

The 70% will have to learn ways to accommodate these folks or facilitate their development to a higher stage. There are many strategies to accomplish this. The first is to use legal and regulatory tools, but it will take a Charismatic leader to facilitate an interior growth in consciousness as well as the development of social institutions which support the effort..

Trumpism, Covid-19, and the failure of U.S. government to keep its citizens safe

The nation with the world’s highest Coronavirus death toll — where the first wave hasn’t even plateaued or slowed yet — reopening already. Seeing new spikes across half its states. What the?

America is about to show the world what a worst-case scenario for Coronavirus looks like.

The Trump administration has bungled Coronavirus unbelievably badly. Drinking bleach, it turns out, isn’t a cure. But it’s about to get so, so much worse.

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Editor's note:

Michael Lewis wrote about "the fifth risk" in his book with the same name, The Fifth Risk, which was published in 2018. The five risks to national well being and safety are nuclear accident, nuclear war, failure of energy innovation, failure of electrical grid, and governmental incompetence and mismanagement. Americans have arrived at the point of failed government because of their inability to elect competent executives to management their government.

The cult of personality has taken precedence over competence in their selection criteria and the consequences are devastating for the quality of U.S. national well being.

Rebellion against Trumpism in the United States influenced by a perfect storm.

On June 14, 2020 Chris Hedges interviewed Glen Ford about the protests in American streets since the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis. When Chris asked Glen Ford about his understanding of why the American people are rising up with this particular killing of a black citizen Ford stated that four social conditions have come together at the same time in a perfect storm: the Covid-19 pandemic, economic melt down, the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign giving people hope in the realization of progressive ideas, and the authoritarian, white supremicist Trump presidency.

The police action and military action to quell the protests is the beginning of a fascist police state in the United States. Whether in Hong Kong, South America, North Korea, China, Russia, the 1% using police and military power to maintain power under the guise of "law and order" is a common governmental strategy. Whether the Trumpists can continue their take over and maintain control of the governmental apparatus remains to be seen.