"Waist Deep in the Big Muddy......

.....And, the Big Fool says to push on."  That is a line from a Vietnam era protest song and the 'Big Fool' is, of course, LBJ.   I was driving back to the Penn State campus on a Sunday night and we were passing through Doylestown PA when LBJ made his announcement on the airwaves.  "I will not seek, nor will I accept, the nomination for President of the United States."

To many people this came as a shock. It's not typical for any politician to walk away from an election and possibly a greater role in determining the history of the world, and especially the U.S.  But, the hand-writing was on the wall.  He had inherited a rotten situation from JFK, and it had only gotten worse as he pumped more and more troops into Vietnam. As we have been able to re-visit those times, it has become apparent that LBJ and McNamara clearly understood that the war was a disaster and nothing they were doing was preventing it from getting worse.  So, he quit. It is a sad chapter in American history that both of these men lied in order to keep American sentiment from turning away from the war.  Eventually, we did wake-up and the massive level of rejection and protest had a pivotal influence in getting us out of there.  Honor an honesty didn't play much of a role in all that.  It was more a case of Americans waking-up and saying to themselves, "What the hell are we doing here?"

Unfortunately, Donald Trump will never walk away from any opportunity to either soak up more money, or to be adored by his screaming followers.  He's made an amazing track record for himself in the last 3 years, hasn't he?   He's stacked the court system, especially SCOTUS, and laid low almost every single rule, regulation, policy, agency and anything that could possibly be attributed to Obama's administration. It would take a long time to list all the damage he's done...all of it with the express intent of pulling the rug out from under working people.  He wants...apparently....the working class of America to suffer.  What other answer could there be?  A vast proportion of the American population has no financial 'cushion', i.e. less than $400 cash for contingency situations, and he's demonstrated a single-minded determination to remove, or at least reduce, anything that could serve as a 'safety net'.

These are the actions of a sick man.  He wants to inflict pain, and he has at his disposal a myriad ways of doing this to millions of people....and the real mystery is not why he does this, but why his sycophant followers can't see that he's screwing them silly.

Now, comes the pandemic.  Trump's 'ace in the hole', that he was positive would get him re-elected in a landslide, was the economy.  And, all of a sudden, out of nowhere (he lies) comes a virus that is laying waste to employment, peoples' lives and our way of life that we have been so fond of and dependent on.  Nothing is now normal.  In fact, the cliche of these times might be, "The new normal is that nothing is normal anymore."  And, we're nowhere near out of the woods with it.  As I write this, 1275 Americans have died of COVID-19....IN THE LAST DAY. And, it is with some horror that we have heard the experts estimate that it could be over 3000 per day by June 1st.

That is the equivalent of a 9-11 EVERY SINGLE DAY.  This is a calamity, a full-blown disaster, a body-blow to humanity and society as a whole....not to mention the immense suffering it is causing for individuals and families at the personal level.  A person can suddenly realize that they have a few or any of the dreaded symptoms....seek out medical care as directed...and be snatched up and put in isolation.  At that point, for any elderly person, almost all of whom have underlying conditions or complications, the nightmare has begun.

Isolation means that no family members whatsoever can visit, even with protective gear.  So, your respirations become labored, they put you on a ventilator...and your chance of surviving is now in the 20% range.  This means you are going to die alone, without any chance to say 'I love you' to your partner or family.  I can hardly imagine a scenario that is more heart-rending.  It is horrendous to contemplate, and people all over the planet are going through this EVERY GODDAMNED DAY.

ASIDE: It should be mentioned here that medical personnel have really become the heroes of this situation.  Many of them have stayed with dying patients and held their hand, and held a phone so FaceTime or Skype could be used to connect with loved ones.  Trump rarely pays any even lip-service to these actual heroes....but, they don't do it for recognition, and the price they pay is extreme, in terms of their own mental health and even their physical safety.

GOD BLESS ALL OF YOU MEDICAL AND OTHER SUPPORT PEOPLE!!!  You deserve much better than you are getting for logistical support.

So, the Orange Idiot is so fixated on getting the economy 'back on track' ....fully aware that he won't win re-election if it is still in the shitter at the time of the election....that he is willing to let the dying increase, however much it takes, to open businesses, re-start everything, making it impossible to avoid a second wave....a surge of infections that will kill thousands, and nobody knows how many thousands.  We just blew past 75K American dead, about a quarter million planet-wide.  But, Donald fucking Trump is not concerned about this.

His view is that, "This is a war. And some people will die."  What he really means to say is: "I will not let a few thousand extra deaths stand in the way of my being re-elected."  And, his inability to feel empathy or compassion comes perfectly into play here.  He really is incapable of feeling the pain of others...of anybody.  He is the one who matters over all else.

I don't know about you....but, I am way beyond just feeling sick or pissed-off over this asshole. He's a sick and cruel man and he craves not merely adulation from all around him...he craves POWER.  He wants to be the big man for all time.  He sees his role as running the planet.  Megalomania is not easy to watch in action.  But, if you look away and let it progress you end up with a deep feeling of helplessness and hopelessness.  The suicide rate spikes, the number of clinically depressed shoots up, and the general mood of the country takes a nose-dive.  Living under a mad-man's regime has never been pretty....and, unless you are in a coma yourself, you can easily see that this is where we're headed if we don't get off our butts and VOTE IN NOVEMBER.

I realize it's easy to minimize all of this.  My wife just met with a client who really believes the Idiot was 'joking' when he made those nonsensical remarks about injecting or ingesting bleach or other sanitizers....and getting 'light' into the body.  WTF?  She asked this woman if she'd seen the video of him.....and the answer was 'No. But, I read it on Facebook"

If that is the quality of understanding, of rational thinking, of a willingness to question what's wrong with him....we truly may be in a dark place on the day after the election.

That's my nightmare.  A mentally ill president, with wholly malevolent ideas and intentions, gains another chance to put our democracy to bed.  And, his AK-47 and AR-15 toting sychophants will help him do it.

America....is this really the best you can do?

Please say, "No!"