Trumpism

Neither Party has a Monopoly on Good Ideas.

But crises have a way of laying bare truths that, prior, were clouded from public view.

The divergent paths of the United States and South Korea — where the US has been far less successful in mitigating the virus — lays bare the failure of US leadership. Pushing for a premature reopening of the nation’s economy — while the numbers of infections and deaths rise — is to lead the nation on a perilous mission. The Republican Party under Trump is so entranced by markets and money so as to propagate the absurd idea of sacrificing lives in favor of economic expansion. The crisis has laid bare a president so preoccupied with his political fortune as to position himself as the “liberator” of states shackled by his own administration’s guidelines. It laid bare a GOP so mired by divisiveness as to frame an economic rescue package for New York as a “blue state bailout.”

Let’s be frank: both parties are flawed, dogmatic, and have moved from the center in favor of the fringe — to the detriment of the public agenda. Donald Trump is a symptom of this phenomenon, not a cause. However, this Republican Party, led by Mr. Trump, is so obviously inept — lacking experience and shunning expertise — and so clearly corrupt; our children’s children will render judgment and it will not be favorable.

I have no doubt that Trumpism will be thrown into history’s vilified bin of discarded lies.