The madness of King Donald mars the solemnity of Memorial Day

H/T Above Graphic: Buzzflash.com.

I don’t know about you, but on Memorial Day weekends I visit my father and my uncle who are buried in the veterans cemetery here to make sure their graves are properly cared for and marked with an American flag.

They proudly served their country to fight a war to rid the world of fascism, my father in the Pacific theater with the Navy, and my uncle in the European theater with the Army in World War II. I suppose it is some comfort to know that they did not live long enough to have witnessed a crypto-fascist wannabe dictator occupy the White House and actively seek to destroy American democratic institutions, norms and values. Or to witness the Republican Party enable this wannabe dictator to do it.

Their sacrifice, and the sacrifice of millions of Americans who fought the war to rid the world of fascism are dishonored by this Mad King and his Party of Trump. They are no patriots, and I make no apologies for saying so.

Today’s headline nauseated me. The New York Times reports, Trump Tweets and Golfs, but Makes No Mention of Virus’s Toll:

While the country neared a death toll of 100,000, the president who repeatedly criticized his predecessor for golfing during a crisis spent the weekend on the links for the first time since March. When he was not zipping around on a cart, he was on social media embracing fringe conspiracy theories, amplifying messages from a racist and sexist Twitter account and lobbing playground insults at perceived enemies, including his own former attorney general.

This was a death toll that Mr. Trump once predicted would never be reached. In late February, he said there were only 15 coronavirus cases in the United States, understating even then the actual number, and declared that “the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.” In the annals of the American presidency, it would be hard to recall a more catastrophically wrong prediction. Even after he later acknowledged that it would not be zero, he insisted the death toll would fall “substantially below the 100,000” mark.

[T]he toll is about to match the 100,000 killed in the United States by the pandemic of 1968 and is closing in on the outbreak of 1957-58, which killed 116,000. At this pace, it will stand as the country’s deadliest public health disaster since the great influenza of 1918-20 — all at the same time the nation confronts the most severe economic collapse since the Great Depression.

The historical comparisons are breathtaking. More Americans have died of the coronavirus in the last 12 weeks than died in the Vietnam and Korean Wars combined and nearly twice as many as died of battle wounds during World War I.

My family proudly served this country in each of those wars. President Bone Spurs has no vets in his family tree:

Cadet Bone Spurs, who graduated in 1964 from the New York Military Academy, where he was an officer in an officially established ROTC program, never served one day in the U.S. military, thanks to a series of deferments. First he received four educational deferments. After he graduated, he was classified 1A (fit and able to serve), then 1Y (temporary physical deferment), and finally 4F (permanent physical deferment), all due to (alleged) bone spurs in his feet. Fortunately, this condition does not affect his ability to play golf today.

It seems that this lack (or avoidance) of military service is not unique to Donald Trump. For three generations, Trump’s paternal line has neither offered nor performed any military service, voluntarily or through the draft. They all chose not to contribute their services to the U.S. military, the most patriotic and honorable manner in which to display one’s patriotism and love of country.

From the date of the birth of Donald Trump’s grandfather in 1869 to the birth of Tristan Miles Trump in 2011, we see zero military service. … This list covers 147 years of Donald Trump’s direct male ancestors and successors who have lived in America during these 147 years.

During these years, tens of millions of American citizens served our country as members of our armed services. Countless thousands died. No Trumps are to be found within this group. This is most unusual.

It is one thing to claim to be a patriot. It is quite another to live and act like one.

It is no wonder then that President Bone Spurs could not be bothered this weekend to honor the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country, and all those who proudly answered the call of service to their country.

[Trump reportedly will travel to Baltimore on Monday to mark Memorial Day and pay tribute to fallen troops — one of those functions he has to do as president.]

As for honoring those who have died recently in the coronavirus pandemic, many of whom would still be with us today if Trump had listened to the intelligence reports in January an acted sooner to prepare for the virus, the White House only issued a pro forma press release for “prayers for comfort and strength are with all of those grieving the loss of a loved one or friend as a result of this unprecedented plague.” The same “thoughts and prayers” B.S. that the victims of mass shootings get from this White House. Actions speak louder than words.

Trump has arranged no event for those who have lost loved ones, nor publicly dwelled on their grief.

He deals with the death count in clinical terms, making forecasts quickly overtaken by reality, then declaring that the new reality is better than it could have been. In effect, he is making a grim political argument, asserting success if the final toll turns out to be anything less than the most extreme 2.2 million fatalities predicted if the country had done nothing at all to respond.

* * *

If the country’s losses were on his mind this weekend, Mr. Trump did a good job of hiding it. His Twitter feed was full of everything but that. He tweeted or retweeted messages falsely implying that “Psycho Joe Scarborough,” the MSNBC host, murdered an aide in 2001; suggesting that Speaker Nancy Pelosi has denture problems and likes to “drink booze on the job”; and declaring that former Attorney General Jeff Sessions “had no courage” and “ran for the hills” by recusing himself from the Russia investigation in 2017 as required by ethics rules.

Mr. Trump reposted eight tweets from John K. Stahl, a conservative who ran unsuccessfully for Congress in California in 2012. Mr. Stahl has a history of racist and sexist posts, especially against black women like Senator Kamala Harris of California (“Willie’s Ho”); Stacey Abrams, the former candidate for governor of Georgia (“Shamu”); and Joy Reid, the MSNBC host (“butt ugly” and a “skank”).

What kind of country tolerates such sociopathic behavior from its president? This is the kind of thing the autocratic tyrants around the world that Trump seeks to emulate engage in. Donald Trump is such a stain on the presidency that it is going to take an acid power wash to remove his taint from the White House. There has never been a president so despicably vile to defile the office and the presidency in this manner. This is unacceptable and intolerable.

While the president indulged his political feuds, experts were warning that the pandemic was hardly over. Another 1,000 Americans or more will most likely die by Monday and another 1,000 the day after that and another 1,000 the day after that.

Imperial College London predicted last week that the relaxation of quarantine measures encouraged by Mr. Trump “will lead to resurgence of transmission” and that “deaths over the next two-month period could exceed current cumulative deaths by greater than twofold” — in other words, another 200,000 deaths by August.

On Monday, Trump also took aim at North Carolina’s Governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat, in a series of posts on Twitter, saying he wanted a guarantee that Republicans would be permitted to gather in Charlotte at the end of August, despite any coronavirus outbreaks. Trump has already vowed that the U.S. won’t shut down again if there’s second wave of coronavirus. He wants to hold his MAGA cult rallies again, damnit! Trump Threatens to Move Republican National Convention From North Carolina:

President Donald Trump threatened to move the planned Republican National Convention from North Carolina unless the state’s governor can guarantee the party will be allowed full attendance.

“Plans are being made by many thousands of enthusiastic Republicans, and others, to head to beautiful North Carolina in August,” Trump said in the tweets. “They must be immediately given an answer by the Governor as to whether or not the space will be allowed to be fully occupied. If not, we will be reluctantly forced to find, with all of the jobs and economic development it brings, another Republican National Convention site.”

Trump wants his Nuremberg-style fascist slash KKK rally of cult followers in a hate-filled convention that will make “Pitchfork Pat” Buchanan’s 1992 Republican convention speech seeking to turn the culture war into something like a holy war — Molly Ivins quipped that the speech “probably sounded better in the original German” — look like a Sunday school recital by way of comparison.

Y’all be sure to give each other a big wet kiss now (extra tongue!) Spread that coronavirus amongst yourselves, you MAGA morons. You may not live to see election day.

[M]oving the convention just months before it is scheduled to occur — particularly as the coronavirus continues to complicate travel — could prove a logistical and financial nightmare for the Republican National Committee, particularly with professional basketball and hockey leagues eyeing a late-summer return to games. The committee would need to secure not only an arena or convention center space, but tens of thousands of hotel and meeting rooms for delegates, the press, and other attendees.

Trump’s financial threat against Charlotte may also ring hollow. A study of political conventions between 1972 and 2004 by economists at College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts found no discernible improvement in employment or personal income in host cities.

My advice to Governor Cooper: tell Trump to take his shitshow somewhere else and just go! “We don’t need your kind around here. North Carolina is better than this.”