This week felt so much like insult upon injury. I sometimes think back four years and wonder if I would have believed then that times like these were even possible. This country is being ruled by a narcissistic proto-autocrat that doesn’t care how many people suffer as the result of his enormous selfishness. Because of his massive incompetence and carelessness, more than 210,000 people have died of COVID-19, including people within his own circle of acquaintance; he himself has caught the virus and spent several days in the hospital. And I’m sure the Fareed Zacharias of the world were expecting that he would emerge from that experience a newly sober and serious man, a president at last, ready to take this disaster seriously. They were, of course, grievously disappointed – Trump never changes, and like honey badger before him, he doesn’t give a fuck.

Not sure how Trump thinks people will react to him saying that COVID is nothing to be afraid of and that we shouldn’t let it “dominate us.” There are very few Americans who don’t know someone who’s been affected by this virus. It’s hard to imagine how I would feel if I had lost a family member to COVID and then had to listen to him bloviating in this way. Now he’s claiming that he is not only cured, but no longer infectious – that his therapies were, in fact, “cures” for COVID – this as he staggers around the White House, likely infecting everyone he comes into contact with … a super spreader POTUS. We’ve finally discovered his true super power (and you thought it was making cheeseburgers disappear).

A lot has been said about White House staffers and what a difficult spot this puts them in. Now, I have a great deal of sympathy for the domestic workers, the food service people, the support staff that keep that place running from day to day – they don’t deserve this. But the president’s senior staff; people who have chosen to work with this mad man, to develop and support his policies, to glom onto his celebrity in hopes of furthering their own careers – those people can cheerfully suck my ass. This is the dilemma that their president has bestowed upon all of us. Many of them, in their supreme arrogance, may have thought themselves immune or exempt from the dangers they exposed the rest of us to. Well, it turns out not to be the case. Trump’s irresponsibility and lack of concern for the health and safety of the American people apparently extends to his senior advisors as well. He’s like the gangster who keeps shooting his lieutenants in the middle of a heist. Hey folks … you fucked up. You trusted him.

The White House is literally a major node in the propagation of this disease locally as well as nationally. That’s all you need to know about this administration.

luv u,

jp