EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN YOUR DESTINATION NOW

 

“Donald Trump says coronavirus is an ATTACK on America worse than Pearl Harbor or 9/11 as the [American] death toll climbs to more than 74,000”

 

The world has two major crises – a pandemic and an economic collapse – plus many other serious ongoing problems, including wars and trade wars.

And at the very time of such great need for leadership, a demonstrated incompetent serves as the President of its most powerful country. A man who speaks only in dishonest terms, a man who refuses to cooperate with almost anyone, and a man seemingly bent on destruction.  Not just an incompetent, but a highly belligerent incompetent.

Trump’s efforts are going to make America anything but great again when all this is over.

A lot of old friends and allies – quite apart from those he needlessly calls enemies – are going to remember this ghastly performance which has included a savage lack of compassion for the sick – both at home and abroad – and America’s credibility and influence are going to be much reduced.

That will only magnify the effects of Trump’s previous clumsy, bludgeoning efforts to intimidate everyone into doing things America’s way. Well, it turns out, that in a crisis, America’s way is a disaster.

As well, we have his flash-fire intemperate readiness to tear-up important working international treaties and agreements, acts which only caution everyone about the value of obtaining America’s signature on an important document.

Trump’s America has the greatest number of coronavirus infections and deaths in the world, with a very great many more headed its way. America’s healthcare system, which knowledgeable people understood was poor and extremely unfair, has been put under spotlights for the world to see.

America has been shown not even able to marshal its own resources, as with medical supplies, an important area an unqualified, arrogant son-in-law was appointed to head.

America has been embarrassed by the firing of a very able Navy commander who was only looking after the health and welfare of his crew. At the same time, Trump pardoned another Navy man, one convicted of vicious murder abroad, a man some of whose past associates describe as sick, and even granted him a friendly White House chat.

But Trump is too wrapped up in himself to grasp the withering general impact of any of that. He is uncontrollably angry that the pandemic and its side-effects have interfered with his re-election, which he had earlier believed was pretty much “in the bag,” and which he regards as the world’s pivotally important event.

So, someone must be held responsible, and what better candidate for that role than China, a country he literally hates and has insulted many times over?

His obsession with China from the beginning has been to get it completely “de-coupled” from America. The world’s two most important economies “de-coupled,” and at a time of world disorder in finances, economics, and trade? He simply has no grasp of what he is doing, but he has astonishing depths of resentment and hate.

It’s a rather remarkable display seeing such incompetence and ignorance mated to insatiable drive and ego. But Nature is like that, often creating the most startling nightmare creatures as its long experiment with evolution proceeds, creatures much like the coronavirus itself.

I think it means that America’s relative decline in the world, already well underway and against which Trump has seen himself as heroically battling, can only be speeded-up, affected by perceptions of a President’s incoherent acts and words and the ensuing necessary heavy loss of confidence, in both America’s abilities and intentions.

Other countries, ones with far less resources, but endowed with generous cooperation and enlightened leaders, have simply done far better. How, after this, in any way can America be regarded as “indispensable” or “exceptional”? I think it cannot.

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS

 

“Trudeau faces another tough vote — Canada’s bid for a UN Security Council seat”

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Response to a comment which said, “Canada has no chance at a seat on the Security Council.”

 

I sincerely hope you are right.

The very last thing anyone needs to do is to give Justin Trudeau any kind of validation.

The Prime Minister needs to apply himself to serious work repairing all the damage he has inflicted at home, but he literally doesn’t seem to know how to start.

Here is a train wreck of a national leader looking for exalted status in New York. It is bitterly laughable.

In the recent election, Trudeau set an all-time record for low support from voters, with just under one-third of total. Two-thirds of the country voted against this ineffective man who yet manages still to head the government, a rather sad reflection on the quality of Canadian democracy.

Had the opposition parties offered a stronger choice of candidates than they did, Trudeau would undoubtedly be unemployed.

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Remember Bill Clinton’s anecdote about the little reminder sign he used during his election campaign: “It’s the economy, Stupid”?

In the hapless, drifting, unfocussed Trudeau’s case, the sign could read: “It’s the country, Stupid!”

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Response to a comment about Pierre Trudeau’s government saying, “like high interest rates unemployment bankruptcies?? largest deficits by any PM?? that Trudeau?”

Sorry, leaders don’t create the national economy, although they like to take credit when it does go well.

The American and the world economy of Pierre’s time, setting all the big levers for ours, were entirely different than they are now.

You cannot compare, unless you take perverse pleasure in comparing apples and oranges.

Pierre set a high standard for the country’s independence in world affairs. And for justice and decency.

Justin has forgotten, or ignored, all of it.