No American commander-in-chief would send American fighters into combat with some weapons but attack a deadly enemy without a supply chain to make those weapons actually function, disband his general headquarters staff responsible for detecting the difficult-to-detect enemy, eliminate his in-country expert observer of the gathering storm, leave “empty” his nation’s strategic stockpile disaster reserves essential to combat that very enemy for his three commander-in-chief years before the attack, and ignore specific impending disaster warnings of his predecessor made three years before the attack.
But Trump would and did, repeatedly so.
No American commander-in-chief would facilitate transportation of 17.2 tons of PPE to a foreign power, PPE soon to be in fatally short supply for his country, despite boasting he knew the enemy was a pandemic “long before it was called a pandemic,” already was in-country, and despite his own top health advisor’s even earlier public warning.
But Trump would and did, remorselessly so.
No American commander-in-chief would repeatedly accept no responsibility for the deadly successes of the enemy overwhelming his people, blame the actual leaders in the field and who voluntarily went into harm’s way to protect their people, nor promise the actual leaders they had complete authority to implement recovery plans, then immediately, specifically and blatantly incite rebellion against some of those leaders who are not members of his party, and their consistent public health plans.
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But Trump would and did, bitterly so.
No American commander-in-chief would repeat this cycle, much less with strutting claims of testing “capacity,” but typical ignorance about missing “ammunition” to make “capacity” actually work, again pulling the American people, the real governing leaders of the American people and America’s frontline defenders into his responsible-less, angry, confused world of denial.
But Trump would and did, dangerously so.
Right matters. Truth matters. Decency matters.
John Erickson
Brainerd
