Anti-government protestors have been aggressively railing against stay-at-home orders in Michigan and other states, demanding their freedom.  But what is “freedom”?  Is it their right to own an assault rifle?   Does it equate to refusing vaccinations for their children?  Is it being unencumbered by any type of government action whatsoever?  Or is freedom synonymous with economic and health care security?

The Libertarian Party reveres freedom.  Its motto is: Less Government, More Freedom.  Actually, many members of the GOP are Libertarians, perhaps because they have more influence as Republicans.  These ultraconservatives want to abolish income taxes and the IRS, outlaw labor unions and limit government to police and national security duties.  Sure, who needs the EPA and the Department of Education anyway?

The “give me liberty” protests, however, got me thinking a lot about freedom and who really has it.

Certainly, the top one tenth of one percent of wealth holders – those with a net worth starting at around $43 million – have plenty of freedom.  Many of them own one or more jet aircraft.  Hey, who hasn’t thought about how great it would be to own a private plane?  Well, during my working years, I frequently flew on company aircraft.  And I can attest; it’s the ultimate in stress free travel.

No need to worry about a security check, TSA agents or crowded gate areas.  On a morning flight, the pilots take your luggage and provide a hot cup of coffee and a freshly made donut as you relax in a first-class seat.  When returning in the afternoon, a cocktail, cold beer or glass of wine helps smooth out the trip home.  You can fly from Chicago to New York City, hold some meetings and be home in time for dinner.

Yet, luxurious travel is not the only freedom the ultra-wealthy enjoy.  Most have multiple homes; many have luxurious yachts; and some even own a private island.  Their real freedom, however, comes from access.  If they want to meet privately with their representative, senator or even the president, no problem.  A generous campaign contribution facilitates getting special treatment.  No doubt, multi-millionaires and billionaires have the ultimate in freedom.

Those households in the top one percent with a net worth starting at $10.4 million have it pretty cushy too.   They get preferential service wherever they go and have no worries about getting the very best in medical care.  Even folks at the lower end of the top 10 percent with a net worth of a little over $1 million have a reasonable amount of freedom; their main worry is running out of cash before they run out of time.

Retirees above age 65 with a modest net worth also have a fair amount of freedom if they own their home and are collecting Social Security.  At a minimum they have a roof over their head, a guaranteed income and Medicare.

I would submit, however, that freedom for a majority of Americans is very tenuous, even if they have a job and company provided health insurance.   A recent report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute estimates that 43 million of these folks could lose their job and their health insurance due to the coronavirus crisis.

As we learned from a 2019 Federal Reserve study, 27 percent of Americans would have to borrow or sell something to cover an unexpected $400 expense and 12 percent would not be able to cover it at all.  That’s almost 40 percent of Americans – roughly 130 million – who  are in poor financial shape.  How much freedom do they have?

A New York Times article by Nicholas Kristoff about Denmark’s response to the current pandemic and a McDonald’s employee there is illustrative of the stark contrast to a similar American worker.  According to Kristoff, the humblest Danish burger-flipper at McDonald’s makes about $22 per hour, which includes various pay supplements.  He or she also gets six weeks of paid vacation a year, life insurance, a year’s paid maternity leave and a pension plan.  Plus, all Danes enjoy universal medical insurance and paid sick leave.

Kristoff states that the cost of living in Denmark is around 30 percent higher than in the United States.  But U.S. McDonald’s employees are currently fighting for $15 per hour and that wouldn’t include all the other benefits the Danes have.  Who has more freedom, the guy or gal in Denmark who asks “Do you want fries with that?” or his or her counterpart in the U.S.?

Around five years ago, McDonald’s employees in the U.S. were seeking a $10 per hour minimum wage.  I was trying to discuss this movement with a conservative friend, but he dismissed it with, “Well, if McDonald’s has to pay that, they’ll use machines to make burgers.”  I thought, how callous is that?  Still, it’s a typical Republican mindset regarding minimum wages; working-class Americans must either accept low pay or risk being replaced by a robot.

Yes, those protesting against stay-at-home orders in Michigan and elsewhere can wave their assault rifles and their flags.  They can claim the government is being tyrannical and Nazi-like, as they have.  They can angerly vent about being robbed of their freedom.  But no matter what the involved governors do, if these protestors don’t have adequate savings, a secure job and affordable health insurance – the only freedom they’ll actually have is in their mind.

Above photo by Paul Sancya/AP

The Great Depression of the 1930s was devastating for the entire world, especially the United States.  The agrarian economy of the early twentieth century produced a society that was probably much more self-reliant than that of today’s interconnected, information age.  So, I’ve often wondered how 21st century Americans would cope with a similar economic catastrophe.  Well, apparently, it’s here.  Unemployment claims in the United States have soared to over 33 million and the percent of jobless may exceed the peaks that occurred in the 1930s.

I read an interesting article in The New Yorker recently that questioned if the coronavirus pandemic and the economic fallout would cause this nation to become more progressive or more dystopian.  It’s possible that we’re nearing that inflection point, so it stimulated my thinking, not only about the future and also about the early 1900s and another horrific pandemic.

World War I ended in November 2018, right in the middle of the first wave of the 1918-2019 flu epidemic that killed 675,000 Americans.  The European conflict had cost the United States an estimated $22.6 billion and the death of over 116,000 American soldiers.

The victorious allies – heavily influenced by France where much of the fighting occurred – dictated the terms of the June 1919 Treaty of Versailles that disarmed Germany’s military and stripped it of territory and economic resources.  Its most humiliating provisions forced this defeated nation to admit responsibility for the war and pay reparations of $33 billion ($504 billion today) in gold-backed German marks.

The treaty was strongly opposed by powerful Massachusetts GOP Senator Henry Cabot Lodge and failed to achieve the necessary two-thirds vote for ratification in the U.S. Senate.  It followed that the U.S. didn’t join the League of Nations in 1920 as President Woodrow Wilson had strongly advised.  U.S. politicians didn’t believe that future involvement with Europe would be in America’s self-interests.  Sound familiar?

Republican Warren G. Harding became president in 1921, promising a return to “normalcy.”  He was backed by a Republican-controlled, isolationist-minded Congress.

But while Americans were enjoying the “roaring twenties” – notwithstanding the prohibition of alcohol – the German economy was in shambles and the German mark (without gold backing), was almost worthless.  As a teenager, I did some work for a German couple who had lived in Germany before 1926.  They talked about needing a basket full of paper marks to purchase a loaf of bread.

As the Great Depression completed its third year in November 1932, Americans threw out the Republicans who had controlled the government for almost a decade and elected Democrat, Franklin D. Roosevelt as president, with a Democratic-controlled Congress.  Thus, began eight years of enacting the “New Deal,” probably the most progressive legislation in the nation’s history.  What followed was 30+ years of economic progress that greatly benefited all working-class Americans.

The depression, however, steered Germany in an entirely different direction.  During the prior decade of humiliation and economic chaos, radical right-wing political organizations like the National Socialist Workers’ Party (Nazis) had gained power.  They promised to reverse the oppression of the Versailles Treaty.  The German government (Weimar Republic) had been totally destabilized by economic stagnation and unrest.  The resulting rise of populism and nationalism paved the way for Adolf Hitler to seize power in 1933.  What followed was massive military expansion and World War II, during which millions of combatants and civilians died.

Today, as the possibility of another global depression looms, populism and nationalism are on the rise again across the western world.  Authoritarian, right-wing governments are threatening to completely replace democracies in Romania, Hungry, Poland, Turkey and Brazil.  In the United States, long-established democratic norms are being trampled under President Donald Trump’s inept, authoritarian-styled leadership.

Even in 2019, this nation was experiencing 1920s-like income inequality.  Now, thousands of cars line up at food banks in communities that were prosperous just three months ago.  And this situation will only get worse as millions of jobless, cash-poor Americans struggle to pay their bills and buy groceries.

Congress is throwing trillions of dollars at these problems but one has to wonder how much of it will actually benefit the individuals and small businesses that are most needy.  Still, many companies won’t survive, leaving their former employees desperately seeking jobs.

Trump-supporting white nationalists and swastika displaying neo-Nazis are taking advantage of the chaos and gaining national attention by opposing the stay-at-home orders of various – mostly Democratic – state governors.  They’re encouraged by Trump who calls them “very nice people” and tweets, “Liberate Michigan”.

Right-wing, antigovernment militia organizations are also protesting, typically carrying military-styled assault rifles.  There are likely more than 100,000 members of the 200+ radical militia organizations operating throughout the U.S. and a deep recession could dramatically swell their numbers.

It’s obvious that Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the GOP will do anything to retain power.  They’re stifling congressional oversight and crippling the Constitution’s separation of powers, while politicizing both the Justice Department and the courts.  Frankly, I fear they are politicizing the rule of law.**

No question, the November election will decide America’s future.  Will voters elect a president and Congress that preserve our democratic institutions and enact progressive legislation that helps working-class Americans escape the prison of income inequality?  Or, will they choose the opposite direction by reelecting Trump and a Republican-controlled Senate that will help him add the shackles of authoritarianism?

I know how I will vote.

**DOJ just dropped the criminal case against Michael Flynn, Trump’s former National Security Advisor.

During President Obama’s first term, several of my conservative friends constantly railed about the president’s spending.  I remember one of them saying “Tea Party, here we come”.  When Obama signed a massive stimulus package of around $800 billion soon after he was inaugurated, Republicans squealed like the world was ending and blamed him for the record-breaking $1.4 trillion deficit for fiscal year 2009.  But that legislation was only part of the story.

Fact is, what happened to federal budgets during the Great Recession will occur in 2020 and perhaps well beyond.  Federal and state revenues will crater by hundreds of billions and the cost of programs like Medicaid and unemployment insurance will skyrocket as people lose jobs and health care coverage.   In response, Congress has passed massive “relief” packages, which will add even more trillions in red ink.  Unlike Republican obstruction during Obama’s administration, however, Democrats will strive to bolster the economy by all means possible.

The Congressional Budget Office projects that the FY 2020 federal deficit will be $3.7 trillion, followed by $2.1 trillion for FY2021.  The combined deficit of $5.8 trillion for these two years almost equals the total Great Recession deficits during President Obama’s entire first term.  These estimates will certainly increase, however, if Congress authorizes funding to shore up state budgets.  The U.S. Treasury can borrow without limits to cover revenue shortfalls; states can’t do that.

Most states must balance their budgets, so when revenues decrease, so must spending.  The National League of Cities estimates that up to one million public-sector employees may lose their jobs this year, many of them teachers.  Education funding is typically the largest item in state budgets, so it invariably gets cut when the economy tanks.  If Congress fails to appropriate relief for states in the next coronavirus bill, the nations’ children – and their futures – will be the victims.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), however, is baulking.  Although he normally avoids filling his mouth with shoe leather, McConnell said he wasn’t interested in bailing out “blue states” and that states could declare bankruptcy if they couldn’t meet their obligations.  He wants to shrink government at all levels, particularly in Democratic states that have unionized employees.  Sure Mitch, why not add numerous state bankruptcies to this catastrophe?

McConnell’s cynical remarks garnered bipartisan criticism but none more severe than New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s.  He correctly countered that his state pays more in federal taxes than it receives in federal benefits, while the opposite is true for McConnell’s state. Actually, the extra taxes New Yorkers pay to the government, help fund education and health care benefits for Kentuckians.

But Kentucky certainly isn’t alone in needing federal help.  Financial web site, wallethub.com ranks the 50 states by federal government dependency where 1 (one) is the most dependent on federal funding.  The red states’ average ranking of 21 shows they are much more dependent than blue states, which have an average ranking of 33.  Of the 10 most federally dependent states, nine are totally controlled or mostly controlled by Republicans; Kentucky is number five.  Clearly, McConnell needs to focus his attention back home.

Then there’s the Republican in chief whose presidency is ripping the conservative veneer off his party’s ideology, exposing its shameful hypocrisy.  The 2017 Trump/GOP tax cut that will add $1.5+ trillion to federal deficits has totally debunked President Ronald Reagan’s trickle-down economic myth that tax cuts for the wealthy pay for themselves.  And the staunchly free trade-loving, deficit-hating Republicans were mostly silent last year as Trump slapped tariffs on foreign goods and deficit spending skyrocketed.

In fact, the GOP has become like a cult, with many members eagerly guzzling the Kool-Aid of lies served up by the president.  Frankly, I don’t get it.  Among the many qualities that define good leaders and admirable human beings – I don’t believe Donald Trump possesses even one.  Not One!  This petty, ignorant man frequenting displays flashes of mind-boggling stupidity and proudly displays his arrogance.  And if reelected, he’ll destroy what makes America great – including our democratic processes and what little international respect this nation still retains.

On Saturday, Irish Times’ columnist Fintan O’Toole expressed what I believe numerous foreign leaders are thinking, “Over more than two centuries, the United States has stirred a very wide range of feelings in the rest of the world…..But there is one emotion that has never been directed towards the US until now: pity.”  He added, “The country Trump promised to make great again has never in its history seemed so pitiful.”

Pitiful?  The United States of America is viewed as pitiful???  Well, lay the blame for this shocking assessment directly on President Trump, along with numerous conservative Republican politicians and Fox News commentators like Sean Hannity.

Their disgraceful responses to the coronavirus crisis delivered a body blow to American exceptionalism.  The U.S. has over a million coronavirus cases, resulting in 61,000+ deaths so far and an economy crashing into a bad recession.  Why?  Because Trump put stock market concerns and his reelection above protecting Americans’ health.  Then, the federal government actually made the bourgeoning crisis worse under his inept leadership.

Thankfully, GOP incompetence isn’t shared by the vast majority of Americans, so we’ll get through this pandemic in spite of them.  But we must vote Trump and a whole bunch of Republicans out of office so this nation can reclaim its “world’s greatest country” status.

Almost a year ago I came across an article in the New York Times digital addition that caught my eye.  It encouraged readers to “share your story” and “life lessons,” perhaps to provide some wisdom for students graduating that spring.

I have long believed that every adult – particularly in my generation – has led an interesting life; so I’ve frequently encouraged friends to record their experiences for the benefit of their children and grandchildren.  Anyway, I decided to respond to this article in hopes of reading about the lessons learned by others.

I’ll get to my little story shortly, but I decided to start at a much earlier time with this blog because I believe the following event – and a later event – have significance too.

Shortly after doing the cap and gown bit at my Florida high school I had a chance meeting with a classmate, Ted, who I only knew because we had been in the school chorus together.  At the time I was pumping gas and greasing cars part time at a two-pump filling station near my parents’ home.  I had no clue about my future, except that it wouldn’t include college in the fall.

Ted was excited about a career development meeting he had recently attended where an FBI agent talked about clerical jobs with the Bureau in Washington, D.C.  This piqued my interest too and together we decided to visit the local FBI office to learn more.  We were in casual clothes so the agent gave us an application and told us to come back properly dressed for an interview.

That second meeting led to a 300-mile drive for another interview at the FBI Field Office in Miami and in September 1957, Ted and I took off for the nation’s capital in his 1952 Chevy, eager to start our first real job.

Fast forward a few years to the story I submitted to the NYT, along with my “life lessons”:

In 1960 I was a 20-year-old accounting clerk working for the FBI in Washington, D.C. and attending night classes at George Washington University.  My objective was to become a special agent.  One afternoon a co-worker walked by my desk and casually asked if I intended to take the test for a job in the Bureau’s computer department.  My high school math grades weren’t all that good but this seemed like a great opportunity for advancement so I eagerly applied for the challenge.

The test was an exercise in logic, but my experience taking college exams helped me get a qualifying score.  This quickly led to a transfer and a promotion.  So, a chance encounter and a simple decision put me on the ground floor of a burgeoning technology where I learned to program some of the first IBM mainframe computers.

Life lessons:  Be open to every opportunity that comes your way.  One might just turn out to be a dramatic life changing event.  And remember, hard work and perseverance are omnipotent.

Fast forward a few more years.

It was New Year’s Eve, 1964; a loud party of young government workers was going strong in the large, dimly lit basement of an old, three-story home in Alexandria, Virginia.  I was leaning against a musty brick wall, drinking a beer and trying to chat with a friend.  Couples were twisting away with Chubby Checker and the volume of the music made normal conversation almost impossible.

The bare wooden stairs descending from the main floor were directly in front of me – illuminated by a single light bulb dangling on a cord from the ceiling.  All of sudden, a beautiful young lady in a lime green sweater and matching slacks stepped into this light.  I was in pursuit before she reached the dancefloor – a totally unusual reaction for me.

We danced a few times, mostly the twist, and I asked for her phone number.  She refused my advances and later left the party with some girlfriends well before midnight.  Normally, I would have forgotten about this rebuff or assumed that I might see her again at one of the frequent weekend parties I attended.  At the time I had a challenging job as a computer programmer and was totally focused on the college classes I was attending almost every weekday night.

But I was smitten.  I had her name and perseverance prevailed.  Soon I had her phone number and arranged our first date.  We became engaged on her 22nd birthday in March.

When I think about how we might never have met that night, or maybe ever, it simply boggles my mind.  She had been stood up by the guy she was dating; I could have attended any of several parties to welcome the New Year of 1965.  Still, I don’t believe in fate or that we were predestined to meet.  Each of us is occasionally presented with an opportunity that may not seem all that significant when it occurs.  Our New Year’s Eve encounter was one of those.  Yet, it’s how we react that can make all the difference in our future.

Next month, this lovely lady and I will celebrate our 55th wedding anniversary.

Life lessons for today: Dwell on pleasant memories; they will sustain us.  Be open for opportunities to promote truth, justice and civility; they are pillars of our democracy.  And above all, keep persevering.  Better times will surely result.

It’s no secret, the Republican Party has been attacking the mainstream media and the federal bureaucracy for decades.  Still, no president has waged that battle with more ferocity than Donald Trump.  After the 2016 election, he admitted to journalist Leslie Stahl that he “demeans” and “discredits” the press so the public won’t believe the negative stories reporters write about him.  And he frequently calls the media “the enemy of the people”.  Perhaps that’s because the journalists who he apparently despises frequently show his incompetence, like they did in warning about the coronavirus threat.

Trump’s efforts to hollow out the executive branch of government, however, are probably more damaging than his attacks on the press.  His budget proposals for the past four years have included double digit percentage cuts to numerous federal agencies, including the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  Congress didn’t agree with most of these reductions but Trump used other means to shrink the government.  He simply didn’t fill numerous important positions and he eliminated or weakened critical functions like the National Security Council’s pandemic preparation organization.

Yet, Trump is simply following the example set by the Republican-controlled U.S. House during President Obama’s administration.  They recommended transitioning Medicare into a premium support program, giving states a block grant to manage Medicaid and, of course, repealing Obamacare.   Their plan has always been to transfer responsibility for health care, education and numerous other programs to the states.  The Republican budget for fiscal year 2015 would have restricted the executive branch to hiring only one federal employee for every three that left the government.  For several decades, the GOP has been totally focused on downgrading or eliminating federal agencies and cutting taxes.

Well, I don’t need to rehash the failure of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 that ballooned federal deficits instead of supercharging the economy as Republicans promised.  It is worth noting, however, that many of the corporations now seeking government aid from the $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief program, wasted their tax cut largess on massive stock buyback programs instead of investing in their businesses.

As for the other longstanding GOP policy of limited government, the ongoing pandemic highlights its fallacies.  Trump’s swiss cheese administration wasn’t prepared to support the needs of the nation’s heroic medical care providers.  So, Trump told state governors they were responsible for acquiring the supplies necessary for hospitals to handle the exponentially growing coronavirus cases.  Then the Federal Emergency Management Agency inexplicably began competing with them.  As a result, prices increased dramatically and medical supplies that had been ordered by states – like Michigan and Colorado – were sometimes confiscated by FEMA.

I can’t decide if Trump is simply implementing a longstanding conservative desire to delegate federal functions to the states or if he is attempting to put the onus on them so he can blame governors for his failures.  Either way, things don’t seem to be working well for him or his advisor and son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

While the president was dragging feet on ordering automakers to manufacture ventilators, Kushner claimed that the federal stockpile was “supposed to be our stockpile” and not one that states could use.  Someone needs to remind this clueless, pandemic neophyte a-hole that tax dollars from the states pay for all that stuff, not to mention the cushy perks he enjoys as a White House advisor.

To make matters worse though, Trump is using the federal medical stockpile for political purposes.  Reports indicate that many states – both red and blue – were receiving only a fraction of their requests for stockpile supplies, while requisitions by Florida – a key swing state – had been fully filled and Trump-friendly Kentucky and Oklahoma received more than they had ordered.

When Trump tweeted on Friday that he was sending 100 ventilators to Colorado at the request of Republican Cory Gardner, that state’s vulnerable Senator, the Denver Post accused Trump of using medical supplies to boost Gardner’s campaign.   Colorado’s democratic governor, Jared Polis, then revealed that FEMA had cancelled Colorado’s order for 500 ventilators, which that agency subsequently purchased.

Regardless, here’s why the limited federal government – delegate to states – ideology is totally ludicrous; most states lack an economy and tax base that could adequately fund the programs Republicans would transfer to them.  California is the exception; its 40 million citizens drive an economy larger than all but four countries.  Federal tax dollars that its residents pay significantly exceed the federal benefits they receive.  So, Congress uses the extra tax dollars from California to support health care and education programs for poorer – mostly Republican – states like Kentucky.

The current pandemic is just another example of how the conservative ideology of Republicans frequently inflicts great hardship on the nation.  The terrible inequality that exists in America today had its roots in the trickle-down economic policies of President Ronald Reagan; the Great Recession resulted in substantial part from the regulatory laxity of President George W. Bush’s administration; and the coronavirus death toll and economic fallout are being exacerbated by President Donald Trump’s unconscionable delayed response and his shifting of responsibilities to the states.

As the coronavirus crisis worsened, most Americans desperately called for more leadership from the top of the federal government – but all they’ve gotten from Trump is the typical Republican response to health care and other issues, “Dude – you’re on your own”.

PS – The GOP plan for health care consists of a first aid kit with a band-aid, an aspirin and a prayer book.  Same for gun violence.

President Trump has gone from claiming that 15 coronavirus cases would be going away to announcing on Tuesday that this pandemic will kill between 100,000 to 240,000 Americans.  I believe he came up with this staggering death toll because he believes that the final number will be significantly lower than this range.  He will then brag about the great job he did managing the crisis.  Of course, we all hope the U.S. experiences far fewer deaths than this estimate.  But those who will deserve the credit for saving American lives are several of the nation’s governors – Democratic and Republican alike – along with the heroic workers in health care facilities.

The federal government is grossly failing in its response to this crisis and there’s a good reason why.  Over the past three plus years, Trump has fired or otherwise replaced most of the officials who were in a position to influence his erratic performance, particularly former Chief of Staff John Kelly, former Chief Economic Advisor Gary Cohn and former National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster, to name a few.  All were replaced by “yes” men, more or less, who rarely if ever challenge the president’s flawed reasoning and decisions.

By demanding total loyalty and savaging those who say things or make decisions that he doesn’t like, Trump has stymied independent thinking and actions by officials all across the executive branch of government.  Knowledgeable, skill bureaucrats have been replaced by Trump “loyalists” – turnover in his administration has been head spinning – and many agencies have been left with weak and inexperienced “acting” heads.  The bottom line – Trump’s administration wasn’t prepared for ANY national crisis, let alone a pandemic.

Now, while governors seek solutions, the president looks for someone to blame for his mistakes.  Without evidence he questioned the requests for masks at medical facilities: “Are they going out the back door?”  And alleged that, “We have that happening in numerous places.”  This spurious accusation by Trump is simply disgusting.

The president has even refused to take charge of the production and distribution of medical supplies, leaving states to bid against each other and even the federal government.  This lack of coordination by the Trump administration drives up prices and leaves some U.S. hospital systems with severe shortages.  And there is good evidence that Florida – a state which is critical to Trump’s reelection – is receiving the medical supplies its officials requested from the federal storehouse while other states, both Republican and Democratic, are receiving only a fraction of their needs.

Most U.S. presidents would have been coordinating a response to this pandemic with U.S. allies but it’s always “America First” with Trump.  Consequently, China has been taking the lead in helping Italy and other nations fight the coronavirus.  Asia’s richest man, Jack Ma, co-founder of China-based Alibaba, used his charitable foundation and the Alibaba Foundation, to ship testing kits and masks to the United States and other countries.  And Russian President Vladimir Putin scored a huge propaganda coup by sending an enormous transport plane full of medical supplies to the U.S.

Coronavirus cases reached one million on Thursday, having doubled in a week.  The speed with which this disease has spread in a little over three months highlights Trump’s gross negligence in downplaying the threat for eight weeks.  And after finally admitting it was a problem, he has failed to bring the full power of the federal government to bear on protecting the American public.

A Boston Globe editorial on Monday went so far as to state that the president has “blood on his hands”.  The same accusation could be leveled against many conservative media personalities who minimized the coronavirus threat, including talk show host Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and numerous other Fox News commentators.  Fox’s Tucker Carlson was one of the few to sound an alarm.

No thinking person with knowledge of how the coronavirus spread in China and the drastic measures required to quell it would minimize the threat from this disease.  Anyone not living in a cave for the past thirty years had to be aware that millions of Chinese are constantly visiting the U.S.  Yet, Hannity and some other conservative commentators chose to ignore the facts and the obvious logical conclusions.  Their unbounded zeal to protect Trump and denigrate Democrats caused them to frame the news about the coronavirus as an attack on the president and downplay its veracity.  It seems they were blinded by their far-right ideology.

Trump has frequently benefitted from the fast-moving news cycle to avoid scandals that would have destroyed most politicians.  Shortly after the nation was shocked by hearing Trump brag about grabbing women by the crotch on an Access Hollywood video, this sensational story was quickly overshadowed when Wikileaks released a tranche of emails that Russians had stolen from Democrats.  Trump’s affair with Stormy Daniels, his positive comments about the Charlottesville white supremacists and his obstruction of justice as detailed in the Mueller report, all faded from public attention relatively quickly.

Well, neither Russian hackers nor exculpatory legal opinions from Attorney General Bill Barr will shield Trump from blame this time.   The coronavirus pandemic will dominate the news for months and Trump’s indefensible two-month hiatus in responding to it will come under intense scrutiny as the number of deaths rises, the economy falters and this disaster escalates.

MAGA is becoming a cruel joke – and Trump is the punchline.

President Donald Trump should be the best-informed person in the nation, if not the world.  He gets daily briefings from a highly skilled U.S. intelligence apparatus.  If the Chinese were attempting to minimize the coronavirus severity, these people would have known that.  There can be no doubt, Trump was well informed of the impending threats to this nation in early January.

But the president has a habit of trusting his “gut” more than any expert advice so this may be why he downplayed these warnings.  Still, it’s impossible to know what goes on in this man’s mind.  Sometimes it appears as if he lives in an alternative reality.  The following quotes from a Washington Post article on March 14 clearly serve to prove that point.

When Trump was asked about the first coronavirus case in Washington state during a January 21 interview on CNBC he said, “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”  During a February 2 interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity he assured listeners that, “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China.”

At a February 10 campaign event – and four more days that month – Trump claimed the virus would miraculously go away by April when it gets warmer.  And he substituted wishful thinking for reality during a February 25 news conference with, “We’re very close to a vaccine.”

The next day on the 26th Trump remarked that the existing 15 cases, “within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero,” adding, “that’s a pretty good job we’ve done.” OMG!  He praised himself for a decrease in cases that was never going to occur.  Several days later, a dozen more U.S. infections were identified and a person had died.  After two weeks, 1,000 cases had resulted in 28 deaths.

This news conference produced more notable Trump downplays, “This is a flu. This is like a flu.”  And “I don’t think it’s inevitable [spread of virus]. It probably will. It possibly will. It could be at a very small level, or it could be at a larger level. Whatever happens, we’re totally prepared.”  He definitely wasn’t.

The stock markets ended lower on Friday, February 21 on fears of a faltering Chinese economy, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) dipped below 29,000.  During the week of February 24 through 28, however, the markets cratered into correction territory.  By Friday, the DJI had shed almost 3,600 points for the week to close at 25,409, as high volatility prevailed.

In early March, Trump turned defensive after being criticized for his faltering response to the coronavirus threat.  That usually means target the black guy and Trump didn’t hold back.  He claimed that President Obama “didn’t do anything about” the 2009 swine flu outbreak, which was absolutely, provably false.  He also claimed, “The Obama administration made a decision on testing that turned out to be very detrimental to what we’re doing.”  Trump earned Four Pinocchios from Washington Post fact checkers for this dishonesty.

It’s difficult to tell if the president is ignorant, if he just says what he wants to believe in his alternative universe or if he simply lies.  On March 6, however, he assured us that “Anybody that wants a test can get a test,” which apparently isn’t true to this day.  Several days later he offered a false excuse and claimed credit for his reaction to it, “This blindsided the world. And I think we’ve handled it very, very well.”

During his address to the nation on March 11, Trump patted his back again and began messaging to blame outsiders: “This is the most aggressive and comprehensive effort to confront a foreign virus in modern history.”  Later, it became the “Chinese virus.”

The Federal Reserve cut interest rates to near zero on Sunday, March 15 and Trump came up with this beauty the next day, “We have a problem that a month ago nobody ever thought about.”  When asked to rate his response to the pandemic on a scale of 1 to 10, he ludicrously rated it a 10.  But his lie on the 17th was absolutely jaw dropping, “I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.”

Why go back over this history?  Well, on March 15, I accidently tuned in to ultra-conservative Mark Levin’s show on Fox News.  He and his guest were singing Trump’s praises, giving the president great credit for his response to the pandemic.  And some polls indicate that the president’s approval rating has improved significantly.  Really?

Various administration officials, including the totally obsequious Vice President Mike Pence, pile kudos on the president during daily updates on the virus situation, while Trump approvingly absorbs it on camera in the background.  And the White House rejects any criticism of the president as illegitimate and blames Democrats and the media of a relentless, biased political assault.  They claim the president has taken historic, aggressive action to protect the American people.  It’s enough to make one ill.

Well, we can’t let Fox News, conservative media and the White House spin machine convince the public that Trump deserves accolades.  His response to this pandemic has been self-serving, misleading and woefully inadequate.  He justly deserves public outrage over his eight weeks of lies and colossal leadership failures.

No matter what problems threaten, or how bad they might get, there’s one thing we must always remember – most of President Donald Trump’s decisions are focused on glorifying his time in office and getting reelected.  I see no evidence that he has a long-term vision for the nation or its citizens, whether it’s health care, infrastructure improvements, environmental protection, fiscal responsibility, civil rights, whatever.  He is totally focused on himself.

The coronavirus epidemic is a perfect example:  It was obvious from the outset that Trump’s main concern was preventing a significant downturn in the stock markets, which he sees as a key to his reelection.  So, instead of calling for calm and getting the nation well prepared to handle the crisis, he lied about the potential, saying there were only 15 cases and they would be decreasing soon.  At a political rally, he even called the democratic response to his handling  of the coronavirus epidemic a “hoax.”

After wasting precious time trying to downplay the quickly developing threat, Trump finally handed off the problem to a poorly prepared Vice President Mike Pence.  Later as the virus continued spreading, he was playing golf at Mar-a-Lago.  If President Obama had done this, Republican hair would have stayed on fire for weeks, prompting calls for an impeachment hearing.  And Fox News would have devoted hours of programming, unmercifully bashing Obama.

When Trump finally addressed the nation from the Oval Office, his wooden demeaner and the bungled message he read from a teleprompter caused an all-time record drop in the stock markets the next day.

What Trump never mentions, however, is the 2018 decision by his former National Security Advisor, John Bolton, to eliminate the global health teams that Obama set up in the National Security Council and the Department of Homeland Security to monitor potential pandemics and other global health emergencies.   Nor does he highlight the large funding cuts he has proposed for the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and other federal health programs.  Trump’s resentment of scientists and others with expert knowledge is dumbing the government down to his ill-informed level.

But here’s the thing.  While a pandemic can’t be stopped by Trump’s lies or angry tweets, his vindictive management style creates a very dangerous stranglehold on his administration.  Cabinet officials and staff are afraid to make a comment or a decision that might anger him.  Consequently, silence and delay are their safest courses of action.  This fear of retribution from the president is what impeded the government’s response to the coronavirus.  But it’s also preventing effective measures to thwart Russian attacks on our election and blocking election protection legislation in the GOP-controlled Senate.

Equally damaging is Fox News and the conservative media that are in lockstep with Trump in misinforming their viewers and listeners.  Fox’s Sean Hannity recently claimed the coronavirus could be a “fraud” perpetrated by the deep state to cause panic and affect the economy.  Fox Business anchor Trish Regan told her viewers that the virus was another attempt to impeach the president.  What some Fox News pundits did in framing this health crisis as a plot against Trump is almost criminal.  Polls show that Republicans are much less concerned about the virus than Democrats, no doubt due to Trump’s initial lies and the conservative media downplay.  Some may fail to take appropriate precautions and die as a result.

Yet, it was clear almost from the beginning of his presidency that Donald Trump’s erratic decision making, his tariffs, his rebuffs of allies, his focus on immigration and his colossal ineptness would cause the bull market to hit the wall eventually.  All it would take would be a crisis that many of us thought he would have no idea how to handle.  Well, it’s here – and we were right.

I have had this nagging fear, however, that after a Democrat is elected president in 2020, the markets would collapse due to Trump’s mismanagement.  That’s exactly what the economy did as Barack Obama was being elected president at the end of President George W. Bush’s two terms.

Yet, Fox News and other right-wing media somehow convinced many of their viewers and listeners that President Obama was at fault for the Great Recession.  It is maddening to hear conservative Obama haters spout this nonsense and rail against his deficit spending.  But of course, it’s hard for them to recognize reality when they have their head up their ideology.

So, they accept huge deficits caused by Trump’s tax cuts and increased spending even though federal red ink is already at unsustainable levels according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.  And now the economy may go into recession, which will require even more federal borrowing.  Some analysts say it’s already there.  Unlike what Trump has done with numerous of his failed business ventures, he can’t declare the United States bankrupt.

After rejecting responsibility for inadequate coronavirus testing and leading from behind, Trump finally declared the coronavirus outbreak a national emergency yesterday and has signaled his support for responsive legislation designed by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.  Both will result in greatly increased government spending.  But unlike Obama’s 2009 stimulus package, which they almost unanimously rejected, Republicans will support Trump and pass these necessary measures.

We should all be thankful that Democrats control the U.S. House, led by Speaker Pelosi.  If anyone can help lessen the burden from this crisis on the American people, they will.

A conservative friend who doesn’t particularly like President Trump told me he couldn’t possibly vote for Sen. Bernie Sanders if he becomes the Democratic nominee.  Why?  Well, he believes capitalism has served this nation well for many decades and Sanders is a socialist.

Leaving aside the fact that Sanders’ policies don’t actually fit the definition of socialism, I advised my friend that Republicans were driving this nation toward embracing the democratic socialist programs that Sanders champions.  After giving him some examples, he replied “You mean by what they don’t do for people?”  I said, “Precisely.”

Recent Census Bureau statistics indicate that around 88 percent of Americans have a high school diploma and 33 percent have a bachelor’s degree or higher.  No doubt, the roughly two-thirds who lack a higher education have diminished chances for a decent paying job in today’s high-tech economy.

The old days of graduating high school, joining a union and getting a job where your dad labored for decades are gone forever.  Union membership fell to a record low of 10.3 percent of the workforce in 2019, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  Which political party has done everything in its power to stymie organized labor, including promoting charter schools in an effort to weaken the large teachers’ unions?  The GOP.

Unions wouldn’t be so important if the U.S. had a decent minimum (living) wage.  But Republicans strongly oppose raising it from today’s $7.25 per hour rate, which keeps many American workers below the poverty level.

To make matters worse, today’s job seeker faces an environment where companies are automating the repetitive jobs that require minimal skills.  That means even the human jobs remaining in the workplace require a much higher level of education than in the past.

Having a college degree is no guarantee of a secure future but it sure helps.  Yet, college is very expensive and classrooms aren’t always accessible, particularly in many rural areas.  If parents can’t afford the tuition, borrowing to go to college entails a significant risk.  Just ask one of the many individuals attempting to pay off part of the $1.5 trillion in student loans.  And some of them didn’t even graduate.

Trump’s latest budget, however, proposes cutting the Department of Education budget by 8 percent.  This includes eliminating $3.9 billion from the Pell Grant program, which helps low income families afford a higher education.  And some Republicans advocate eliminating this agency and its job training programs completely.

What is so obvious though, is that GOP policies favor corporations and the wealthy.  The prime objective of the Trump/Republican 2017 tax cut was to lower the corporate tax rate from 35 to 21 percent, while significantly benefitting the rich and giving meager cuts to almost everyone else.

Ordinary taxpayers weren’t fooled and they aren’t happy with it at all.  And there are good reasons for their anger.  Corporations didn’t invest in new plants and equipment and create good paying jobs as Republicans promised; they mostly bought back their stock and increased shareholder’s dividends.  This drove the stock market to new highs, which greatly benefited the top 10 percent of the wealth holders who own around 80 percent of the shares.

Well, what about the not so rich?  According to the Census Bureau, approximately 50 percent of households have a 401(k) plan through their employer where they “might” own stock.  For those under the age of 44 who have a retirement account, the average value is $66,250, according to a recent article in TheStreet.com.  Let’s just say that stock market gains haven’t enriched the vast majority of Americans very much.

Then there’s the cost of health care that millions of Americans under the age of 65 struggle to afford.  The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) significantly increased the number of our citizens who have health insurance from private insurers and Medicaid.  Even more would have coverage if 14 states controlled by Republicans had agreed to expand Medicaid.  Georgetown University researchers reported that children in these states were more likely to be uninsured, thereby missing the medical care that the American Academy of Pediatrics advises is critical for a child’s development in the first six years of its life.

Which political party has worked ceaselessly to repeal Obamacare, greatly cut funding for Medicaid and turn Medicare into a premium support program?  The GOP.

But I think the annual survey on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households released by the Federal Reserve last May tells the real story of the inequality that Republicans have helped create with their focus on the wealthy.  It revealed that almost 40 percent of households would have to borrow or sell something in order to pay for an unexpected $400 expense and some would not be able to cover it at all.  Another disturbing revelation from this report indicates that 64 percent of non-retired adults don’t believe their retirement saving is adequate and one-quarter of these “have no retirement savings or pension whatsoever.”

I do not support Sen. Bernie Sanders nor to I believe this nation is ready for his “revolution.”  But as I advised my conservative friend:  If Republicans keep exacerbating an already serious inequality problem by favoring the rich and taking government support away from everyone else, democratic socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will run for president sometime after she is eligible in four years – and she will win in a landslide.

My last blog introduced the Autocracy Clock, a time piece of my imagination that suggests our democracy will have ended when the midnight hour is reach.  It concluded with: “The Autocracy Clock has not yet struck midnight; but that fateful hour is getting closer by the day.”

Well, President Trump hasn’t wasted any time in manipulating the hands on that clock – and neither have his allies in the Senate.  The president quickly moved to fire NSC European affairs Director, Lt. Col. Vindman and his twin brother, having them escorted off the White House grounds like wrongdoers.  Then he fired EU ambassador Gordon Sondland.  Col. Vindman and Sondland became Trump’s enemies after their impeachment inquiry testimony in the U.S. House angered him.

On the day they voted to acquit the president, Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) sent a letter to the secret service director seeking information on Hunter Biden’s use of government transportation to conduct private business.  These two senators also issued letters requesting records on former VP Joe Biden and his son Hunter from the departments of State, Treasury and Justice and the FBI, according to reports.  A Democratic staffer disclosed that Treasury had supplied highly sensitive financial records about Hunter without a subpoena. Remember, the executive branch stonewalled subpoenas for documents issued by House Democrats during the impeachment inquiry.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has promised investigations into his former friend, Joe Biden.  These senators are attempting to accomplish what Trump failed to get foreign governments to do, smear the Biden’s.

Graham also said that Republicans intend to launch investigations of the whistleblower, whose complaint resulted in the disclosure of Trump’s nefarious call with Ukraine’s President Zelensky.  He warned that they were “going to get to the bottom of all of this to make sure this never happens again.”  Did he mean silence all whistleblowers?

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has made several attempts to publicize the whistleblower’s name.  His obvious goal is to subject him or her to abuse and threats so others won’t make the same mistake of disclosing Trump’s illegal activities.  These actions by Senate Republicans are not only appalling and shameful, they strike at the heart of the rule of law and our democratic processes.

A few days later, Attorney General William Barr announced that Justice had begun accepting information on Joe and Hunter Biden’s activities in Ukraine from the field, including from Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani.  This might have remained a clandestine operation but for Sen. Graham who had disclosed the process on national television.  Giuliani is supposedly under criminal investigation himself for his activities in that country but Barr has ordered that all probes involving Ukraine be referred to main Justice [Barr] for handling.  Hmm.

It’s too late for Barr to stop prosecution of other high-profile Trump associates.  Some, like Trump’s former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn have pled guilty; Paul Manafort and Roger Stone have been convicted by juries of numerous criminal charges arising from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.  Now it appears, however, that Barr is placing his heavy fingers on the scales of justice to help both Flynn and Stone.

Barr has engaged an outside prosecutor to review the criminal case against Flynn before he is to be sentenced.  And after Trump railed in a tweet against the 7 to 9-year sentencing guidelines that federal prosecutors had recommended in the Stone trial – calling it “a horrible and very unfair situation” – Barr quickly withdrew that recommendation and suggested a lighter sentence.  Today, Stone was sentenced to 40 months in the slammer; Trump hinted about a pardon.

After three of the prosecutors resigned from the Stone case and one resigned from the Justice Department, Barr was called out and embarrassed.  So, he criticized Trump for tweeting about DOJ affairs, saying the president was making it impossible for him to do his job, i.e., Trump’s covert fixer.

Fox News host Lou Dobbs – one of many outspoken Trump supporters on that channel – railed against Barr’s rebuke of the president’s tweets about Stone’s trial.   Dobbs demanded to know why dozens of people in the “politically corrupt deep state within the Justice Department and the FBI” hadn’t been arrested.  He said he didn’t “want to hear any crap about an independent Justice Department.”

Anonymous sources claimed that Barr might resign if the president didn’t relent.  Yet, Trump ramped up his rhetoric, claiming that he is the “chief law enforcement officer of the country,” a title typically given to the U.S. attorney general.  And yesterday he called on Barr to “clean house” at the DOJ and the FBI.  Could it be that Trump had listened to Dobbs?  It wouldn’t be the first time that the president followed Fox News’ reckless commentary.

Barr’s fealty to the president and his dereliction of the rule of law have been dramatically displayed.  One columnist called him “Trump’s stooge.”  And over 2,000 former federal prosecutors and DOJ officials have called for Barr to resign.

Just how far will Trump and Barr have to go, however, before their supporters in Congress attempt to stop them?  Will congressional Republicans object if Hillary Clinton, the whistleblower or Hunter Biden were charged with a crime?  Or are they so deep in Trump’s pocket that they will endorse anything he does?

Well, Trump will go too far – and that could be his undoing at the polls.