Malcolm Gladwell wrote about tipping points recently; his work focused on this thesis: “Epidemics don’t build gradually and steadily; they grow and reach a boiling point or critical mass, at which point they explode and turn into an epidemic. That threshold is called the tipping point.”
I am less interested in products and the success of business as Gladwell is; no, today’s pandemic is much bigger than an epidemic and my focus is this: When does this nation reach the point when an overwhelming majority of American citizens realize that the Trump Administration, and for that matter his Republican enablers, are in the words of Mark Twain — rapscallions.
Ifyou are unfamiliar with Huckleberry Finn’s adventures down the Mississippi, then you may not recognize the word rapscallions. Let me enlighten my readers. A rapscallion is a flim-flam man, a con artist, a selfish blowhard…in a word Trump.
If you are watching the news, reading the papers, checking out books or anything that does NOT involve Fox News, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh or Brietbart and its ilk, then you are patently aware that Trump has been a failure at most every endeavor that his father’s money bought him. Casinos. Airlines. Universities. Various products including steaks, booze, and fat ties made in China. All failures. As former Republican strategist Rick Wilson puts it, “Everything Trump touches DIES.”
What people are less aware of is that it is Russian Oligarchs who have laundered money through the German Deutsche Bank as The New York Times ‘ David Enrich (2/4/2020) reported in his article “The Money Behind Trump’s Money: “The roughly $425 million …arrange(d) for Trump back in 1998 was the start of a very long, very complicated relationship between Deutsche Bank and the future president. Over the course of two decades, the bank lent him more than $2 billion.”
Enrich continues, “…the bank’s relationship with Trump extended well beyond making simple loans. Deutsche Bank managed tens of millions of dollars of Trump’s personal assets. The bank also furnished him with other services that have not previously been reported: providing sophisticated financial instruments that shielded him from risks and outside scrutiny, and making introductions to wealthy Russians who were interested in investing in Western real estate. If Trump cheated on his taxes, Deutsche Bank would probably know. If his net worth is measured in millions, not billions, Deutsche Bank would probably know. If he secretly got money from the Kremlin, Deutsche Bank would probably know.”
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| Jogen Hailand Courtsey of Upsplash |
So for the first time in American history, a United States President is “owned” by a foreign company with assets controlled by a foreign adversary: Russia and most likely Putin. In the lexicon of the new century Trump is “compromised.” It is the word that best explains Trump’s actions as it relates to all foreign policy decisions. It is why he allies with our enemies and makes enemies of our allies. Anything pro-Russian is pro-Trumpian. It is why Rex Tillerson was the Secretary of State; because Exxon- Mobil was needed to get the oil out of the Russian arctic according to numerous sources compiled in Rachel Maddow’s Blowout.
Of course, that applies to the foreign owned (Rupert Murdock, Australian-born) Fox network. This so called news outlier operates as the president’s personal PR firm. It is the only news organization that gets full access to him because they will promote his product. Virus? Nope. It’s a hoax. Or it is the plot created by the Democrats to take him out of office. Or it will just go away by Easter. Yada Yada. Whatever you say, Mr. President.
Covid-19 is sadly the tipping point for this president.
The question remains: when will the vast majority see the light? The evidence is beginning to percolate upward as his popularity and trustworthiness trends ever so slowly downward despite non-stop Fox bloviating.
By now most people are aware that in a time of crisis American presidents ride a surge in “rally around the flag” support. Even the terribly unpopular George W. Bush when leaving office surged to 90% popular support after 9.11. FDR, LBJ, Even Ronald Reagan were immensely popular figures, even though two of the three ended their term on the decline. What they all had in common was that their trustworthiness, their work ethic, their willingness to step out front and take responsibility for the issue that plagued America made them heroic.
Trump, the rapscallion, dodges all responsibility. He claims to have always made the “perfect call”; bragging that things are going “beautiful.” He naturally hired only “the best people” and has fired them at levels no president has ever come close to matching. Why? Because most of these people, competent and diligent, faced a moral dilemma: state that the president is a rapscallion (the emperor wears no clothes) or acquiesce to his will. Hundreds of them tried to stay on the Trump’s ever self-indulgent message until they just could not look at themselves in the mirror and live with what Trump was doing. Some stayed on just to make sure America was protected from the president’s follies.
Covid-19 is sadly the tipping point for this president. Yes, his popularity for one week ticked up to somewhere around 53% in terms of whether he was handling the crisis well. After spending hours and hours, days and days, spouting off incorrect information (contradicted immediately by the real experts who surrounded him — diplomatically, naturally, or else they incur his wrath).
Nevertheless, after a merely a week he is back underwater with public opinion polls that measure his job approval in this crisis — back to 47%. Those numbers will sink gradually as things worsen and more untruths (now called alternative facts) come out. No, Easter is not happening. Neither is April miracle. The power of positive thinking may be a “secret’ — but tell that to the doctors and nurses who were positive the ventilators would come that the president now says are exaggerations.
Here is my hope: That Leadership matters. Competence matters. Voting matters. Let this be a lesson to us all.
No, the hospitals are not getting what they need. No, the States are getting screwed in trying to purchase equipment. No, Jared Kushner does not know what he is talking about regarding the Federal medical surplus — which he deems (on whose authority?) the States have no right to procure. Yes, it is utterly untrue that a drug that treats malaria is a “miracle cure” — even the doctor who claims this admits there is no clinical, quantitative evidence to support the latest presidential “miracle cure.”
Huck Finn’s experience with the rapscallions who pretend to be kings and dukes shows that only when people realize that they have personally be cheated: of life, of income; of jobs; of security; of freedom — that is when the people will rise up. That is when not even Fox News will resonate with the people. Why? Because the president did everything possible to remain arrogant and blissfully, ignorant of science, of medical experts, of global trends, of the necessity for allied governments and organizations to work together…just to name a few.
Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Britain’s Neville Chamberlin seriously underestimated Adolph Hitler and England faced its darkest hour. Richard Nixon believed the ‘Great Silent Majority” would continue to support the war in Vietnam until the National Guard killed four innocent college kids in Ohio at Kent State. Clinton and Bush paid too little attention to Osama bin Laden and then the Twin Towers came apart, and with it New York, Pennsylvania and the Pentagon bowed and prayed. Meanwhile, Donald Trump played golf on the critical weekend before this all began — par for his course.
Eventually, the truth catches up to the imposters, the rapscallions. In Huck Finn’s world, those rapscallions are tarred and feathered when the people find out they were cheated. They died a gruesome death. Tragically, this pandemic has become a tipping point, leading America to hundreds of thousands of equally gruesome deaths.
Gladwell’s ‘Tipping Point’ is defined as an ‘explosion’ of opinion. In which direction should America ‘tip’? Here is my hope: That Leadership matters. Competence matters. Voting matters. Let this be a lesson to us all. As Mark Twain often closed, ‘Nough said.”
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