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These days it’s feeling more and more like we’re all living in a 1950s B horror flick wondering if the good guys will figure out a way to save us all from the invisible menace before it’s too late. One can’t help but wonder how many people will have to die before responsible government leaders—if any indeed remain—send trump to his room and begin doing what’s necessary to best contain the growing epidemic.

This past Sunday’s press conference by the baldness-concealing bloviator began with the usual treacle. Those surrounding him on the dais, still too close in proximity to one another for safety and continuing to send  mixed messages concerning the importance of social distancing, appeared, by the looks on their faces, to be more concerned than they looked a couple of days ago. Pence, for the first time abandoning his customary semi-comatose expression, appeared as if it took all the self-control he could muster to prevent him from throttling the verbally perambulating president and assuming control of the situation himself.

trump is that most dangerous of fools—too Ill-equipped to realize just how ill-equipped he is to perform the duties every president before him regarded as part of their job. Harry Truman is remembered for stating this commitment succinctly when he famously said “the buck stops here.” trump’s approach, on the other hand, is to disavow responsibility for anything that happens on his watch.

The feelings of revulsion president unicorn elicits with each succeeding self-praise-session-disguised-as-a-press-briefing are reaching epic proportions. When told at Sunday’s largely inaccurate press briefing about Senator Romney’s having chosen to go into self-quarantine, trump responded sarcastically “Romney’s in isolation? Gee, that’s too bad.” This man’s inability to feel others’ pain knows no bounds. The president’s actions a day or two later more closely resembled those of the wizard of Oz than they did the president of the United States when he pronounced, despite concerns of health officials saying it’s too premature, his inclination to end restrictions on public gatherings by Easter Sunday, based on nothing more concrete than his belief that the holiday is a “nice day.”

If wishes were fishes, mr. president, we’d all cast nets.

We are now well beyond the point at which the need for a capable leader—someone who can guide us through the confusing and frightening time in which we find ourselves—is urgent if we are to prevent the novel coronavirus epidemic from reaching proportions unprecedented in modern times. The current situation calls for a leader capable of setting aside his own needs to focus on those of the public, someone who knows how to lead, someone who possesses the ability to appear presidential and someone capable of inspiring the kind of confidence das Blödführer sorely lacks.

At present, we have no such leader. What we have instead is a self-possessed narcissist preternaturally unprepared to separate his personal needs from those of the people he has pledged to protect.

A leader who knows nothing about caring for the needs of others is like a pilot lacking the skills necessary to fly an airplane; it’s the last thing we need right now to guide us through this challenging time.

If Senate republicans persist in their determination to support trump’s presidency through their refusal to support any meaningful measures to sideline him over his continued, tragically flawed leadership, allowing him to continue to risk peoples’ lives through his mismanagement of the coronavirus epidemic, trump will, before he is finished, bring our nation to its knees!

Tim Konrad

2020.03.25