We're Now Living the American Carnage Trump Promised Would End at His InaugurationTrump is not respo

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We’re Now Living the American Carnage Trump Promised Would End at His InaugurationTrump is not responsible for the virus itself, but he must be held accountable for his horrifying response to it.

By DAHLIA LITHWICK at Slate

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/04/trump-coronavirus-american-carnage.amp

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In his inauguration speech, the president promised that “What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people.” And yet, this government is not controlled by the people; it is controlled by a single, seemingly drunk and increasingly deranged party that is hellbent on cashing in on this pandemic, using it to harm women and the poor, and decimating the right to vote. The party that controls the government is using the excuse of the pandemic to cram judges onto the courts and build a metaphoric wall between the United States and Mexico. Having used his inaugural address to insist that there were no parties, only people, the president has gone on to vilify his own military, his own intelligence apparatus, and his own Justice Department. He spends his daily briefings trashing Democrats and everyone who votes for Democrats. There is only one party left, in his universe, and it’s the party of him.

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America is not winning. It has been among the least prepared of the developed nations for this pandemic. Keeping the total number of deaths below 100,000 is not winning. America’s economy, operating on a razor-thin margin, was never going to be able to handle an event like this, but the federal government’s lackluster response to keeping people afloat is not winning, either.

Above all, Trump’s inauguration speech promised unity. Everyone needed to pledge patriotism and in exchange, he vowed, “we will rediscover our loyalty to each other. When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice. The Bible tells us, ‘How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity.’ ” And yet in Donald Trump’s America, as people suffer and die, the only patriots left are those who show fealty to Donald Trump. Everyone who is disloyal, well, they deserve what they get. No matter if that group includes high ranking military officers, all New Yorkers, Asians Americans, hospital workers, blue-state governors, the media, his own inspectors general—in fact, that’s the whole point.

Donald Trump is not responsible for the American carnage we are now facing. But he is wholly responsible for his failure to prepare for it, to respond to it, to rise to it, and to deal honestly and even-handedly and effectively with it. Instead, he and his confederates and cronies will profit from it, while blaming those who suffer the most for failing to show appropriate gratitude. If you didn’t recognize the country he described in 2017, you’ll see it now. That first inaugural was less a diagnosis of what had come before than a pledge of what was to come. Today’s American carnage transcends rusted out factories and inner cities and gangs. We are all American carnage now. 

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[denbot]

1. Kick and a rec.

Excellent post.