Downplaying, Avoiding Blame

 DONALD TRUMP, attempting to present himself as a sort of savior for America, is now claiming, incredibly, that he deliberately downplayed the severity of the virus in order to ensure that we the American people did not break down into a national panic. He must think that we the American people are cowards and idiots, three hundred million of us, who simply cannot handle the truth, when the truth is unpleasant and requires strong action. The truth, of course, is that when it became obvious that Covid 19 was going to spread out of China and unto all the world, Trump himself panicked, and saw his reelection chances being damaged by having an epidemic sweeping the nation as the election approached. He downplayed it, hoping that the rest of us would do likewise, and told us that it would go away with the coming of spring and warm weather, because he wanted us to believe that it would and no matter how bad the epidemic became, he wanted us to believe that it was not a serious matter, that it had nothing to do with him or his leadership, and that he was saving us from it, not exposing us to it by lying about it and by doing nothing to stop. it. Had he taken strong action at the national level, the virus would have been stopped, but he was uncertain of that, and certain only that by taking such action, he would draw attention to it, instead of distracting us from it, and thus we would associate the virus with him. As Bob Woodward himself has pointed out, Trump chose to go down the road of deceit, instead of leveling with the American people, and trusting us to do the right thing, to make the necessary adjustments to our lives to thwart the epidemic.Trump's behavior not only has totally destroyed any faith we might have retained in his ability to provide strong effective leadership, he has cost the United States tens of thousands of lives, directly, through his lack of appropriated and proper action, thereby  turning himself into a cold blooded killer. I can no longer count the times I have thought or remarked that just when you think Donald Trump has reached bottom, he sinks lower. Its true every time. This is no hoax, this is not fake news, and nobody can claim that it is, neither Trump nor his equally immoral followers. By mercifully sparing his poor weak children, the American people fear and panic by sparing them the truth, Donald Trump, by also failing to lead a strong, organized national response to the epidemic, has killed nearly two hundred thousand people, and counting. there will be  many more. For this, he should be impeached, triad, convicted, removed from office, and incarcerated as a murderer, the murderer that he is. To paraphrase Jefferson: I tremble for Trump and his supporters when I reflect that God is just, and that his justice cannot sleep forever.