Saying No To Trump

This is what we will have to contend with again: Trump doing whatever he likes (with fewer people to restrain him) and appointing people for loyalty above all else. People like Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The Pandemic

There is no indication that Trump will be more responsible about the next pandemic than he was about the last one. When will that next pandemic arrive? I don't know. But there are signs that bird flu (H5N1) may be it. It's already widespread in cattle, and is affecting cats and dogs that chew on dead birds. Several dozen humans have contracted it (66 confirmed cases), with two cases being severe.

About that Previous Pandemic

As you may recall, Health and Human Services was headed by Alex Azar, a former executive at Eli Lilly, from 2018 through 2021. He did a fair job, but he had to contend with Trump — as did former Director of NIAID Dr. Anthony Fauci, CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield, and White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx. This meant they had to, without actually upstaging Trump, do their best to counter his dismissal of the impacts of the disease, his promotion of ineffective medicines and procedures, and his disdain for masks, lockdowns, and social distancing. The result, according to conservative estimates, is that an extra 220,000 people died.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr had done good work as a lawyer defending the environment.1 But then, for whatever reason, he came to regard vaccines as dangerous. He now claims that no vaccine is safe, and has called the coronavirus vaccine the most dangerous of all. He filed his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination on 5 April 2023 and formally declared his candidacy on 19 April. He later switched his affiliation to Independent, and subsequently accepted funding from Republican donors and Trump allies. On 23 August 2024, he dropped his candidacy and endorsed Trump. On 14 November, Trump announced his intention to nominate Kennedy for Health and Human Services director.

Kennedy's views on vaccines make that prospect extremely troublesome. Polio was the most feared disease in this country — until Jonas Salk's polio vaccine came into use in 1955. Worldwide, there wre 350,000 cases of polio in 1988; by 2022, only 30 cases were confirmed.

Along with Australian-Samoan anti-vaccine activist Taylor Winterstein, Kennedy visited Samoa in 2019 and spread the lie that MMR vaccines had caused the deaths of two Samoan children. (They had mistakenly been given muscle relaxant along with the vaccine.) The resulting vaccine hesitancy led to the deaths of 70 people from measles in Samoa and a related measles outbreak in Tonga.

Kennedy has claimed that ""COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are the most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese." In his book The Real Anthony Fauci, he claims that Fauci sabotaged treatments for AIDS, violated federal laws, and conspired with Bill Gates and social media companies such as Facebook to suppress information about COVID-19 cures, thus leaving vaccines as the only option to fight the pandemic.

In the book, according to Paul Offitt, "You will find, between pages 285 and 291, that Robert F. Kennedy Jr does not believe in the germ theory; he does not believe that specific germs cause specific diseases and that the prevention or treatment of those germs, like viruses or bacteria, is of value." Later, he notes that "Last year we had 5,000 cases of whooping cough; this year, 32,000. Last year e had 4 measles outbreaks involving about 50 children; this year we've had 16 measles outbreaks involving over 280 children. Get to 1,000 cases and you'll start to see children dying again because measles has a mortality rate of 0.1%."

Trump lies continually. By that, and by every other measure, he is totally unfit for the presidency of the United States. And yet more people voted for him in 2020 than did in 2016. This is the great mystery of our time: why do so many people vote for an obvious con man, and against their own best interests? Why would they ignore his track record and pay attention only to the things he says that they like?

I have no answer. The dismal situation makes me want to stand on some rooftop and shout at the people who still support Trump. Would that work? Calm, factual explanations haven't worked — and people have been providing them for years. But here's one more try.

When a man spurs baseless fears that his opponents are destroying the country, when he refuses to accept the result of the election unless he wins, when he urges supporters to threaten election officials everywhere he loses, you should know he doesn't deserve your vote.

What does it take to convince you that Trump is unfit for the presidency?

Does Christianity matter?
Trump claims to have the backing of Christians, and many evangelical Christian leaders do back him. But his words and actions are not those Jesus would have endorsed. The evangelicals are not concerned; their aim is to establish a Christian theocracy, for power is what they want most.

Does coherent thought matter?
Every politician, when making speeches, forgets details, garbles words, gets facts wrong. Trump, though, does it so frequently as to raise doubts about his mental sharpness. He confuses people's names: Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi; Barack Obama with Joe Biden. He garbles place names: "Azurania" for Arizona; "Nambia" for Namibia. He substitutes company names for the names of their leaders: "Tim Apple" for Apple president Tim Cook; "Marilyn Lockheed" for Marilyn Hewson, then president of Lockheed Martin. He claimed Washington's army destroyed airports during the War of Independence. He warned that Biden's actions could land us in "World War II." He wanders off topic like no politician ever did, maundering about boats and sharks and electric batteries; he praises Hannibal Lector, a character from The Silence of the Lambs.

Does common sense matter?
Trump's actions in the Oval Office made life in America worse for most people. Remember the pandemic? Trump claimed in 2020 that COVID-19 would go away "like a miracle" when spring came. It didn't.

Do facts matter?
Trump claims that wind turbines cause cancer, that tariffs are paid by foreign countries, that climate change is a hoax, that cutting taxes on the wealthy helps the middle class, that COVID-19 could be cured by hydroxychloroquine. All of these claims have been proven false.

Does health care matter?
President Obama, by passing the Affordable Care Act (aka "ObamaCare") with great difficulty, gave health care to some 20 million more Americans. Trump vowed to repeal it, though he had nothing to replace it. With Congress's help, he nearly succeeded. He failed only because Republican John McCain voted "no" on the final repeal measure.

Does history matter?
Trump follows the path trod by Hitler and Mussolini and a hundred other fascists.

Does memory matter?
Trump spent four years doing what he now claims — with no evidence — the Democrats are doing.

Does paying bills matter?
As a businessman, Trump routinely refused to pay contractors. If they sued him, he would countersue, and thanks to his aggressive tactics and deep pockets he often prevailed. He still owes hundreds of cities for security and other services they provided during his campaigns, going back to 2015.

Does public education matter?
Trump's education secretary was Betsy DeVos, a woman on a crusade to replace public education with private Christian schools.

Does science matter?
Every citizen in our modern, technically complicated nation should have at least a basic understanding of science. But Trump doesn't understand science and doesn't care to learn. His administration rolled back more than 100 environmental regulations, including limits on emissions of mercury and other pollutants from coal-fired power plants.

Does truthful reporting of news matter?
Not to Trump. From the beginning of his term, he called any reporting that was critical of him "fake news." He removed White House press credentials from reporters he didn't like, such as Jim Acosta. Later he took to calling the press "the enemy of the people" — a phrase used by Josef Stalin.

Does illegal immigration matter?
I put this out of order because our immigration system has been out of order for decades. Trump promised to fix it, but he did not. His wall was ineffective. In 2019 he slashed the funds going to improve conditions in three Central American countries most immigrants come from. And early this year he killed a bipartisan immigration bill that would have cracked down because he wants to campaign on the problem, not fix it.

Given all this, why would anyone still vote for Trump?
Because he strokes their egos? Because he hates the people they want to hate? Because he "owns the libs"?

You want to shout and jeer and belittle the other side? Save it for football games. In politics, that's the recipe for a quick end to democracy. A bunch of billionaires backing Trump hope to see it happen. Disappoint them.

I'll leave you with this: Was the way Trump makes you feel worth voting for a con man who will screw you over every chance he gets?

The mainstream news services will cover Trump's reign extensively. Consider what they tell you.

To Open The Sky

More Detail on Troubles Traceable To Team Trump

2 January 2025

The Pandemic

About that Previous Pandemic

References