A 2nd Trump Term Might Injure The Democratic Experiment Beyond Recovery, Wash Post, Editorial Board
'A second Trump term might injure the democratic experiment beyond recovery.' Opinion by the Editorial Board, The Washington Post, Aug. 21, 2020. Excerpts, Ed.:
After he is nominated at a pared-down Republican convention next week, President Trump will make this argument to the American people: Things were great until China loosed the novel coronavirus on the world. If you reelect me, I will make things great again.
Our Democracy in Peril
Part one of a series of editorials on the damage President Trump has caused- and the danger he would pose in a second term. Seeking reelection in the midst of the worst public health crisis and sharpest economic downturn of our lifetimes, this may, realistically, be the only argument left to him. But, fittingly for a president who has spoken more than 20,000 lies during his presidency, it rests on two huge falsehoods. One is that the nation, his presidency and, above all, Mr. Trump himself are innocent victims of covid-19. In fact, his own negligence, ignorance and malpractice turned what would have been a daunting challenge for any president into a national disaster. The other is that there was anything to admire in his record before the virus struck. But beyond the low unemployment rate he gained and lost, history will record Mr. Trump’s presidency as a march of wanton, uninterrupted, tragic destruction.
America’s standing in the world, loyalty to allies, commitment to democratic values, constitutional checks and balances, faith in reason and science, concern for Earth’s health, respect for public service, belief in civility and honest debate, beacon to refugees in need, aspirations to equality and diversity and basic decency- Mr. Trump torched them all.
Four years ago, after Mr. Trump was nominated in Cleveland, we did something in this space we had never done before: Even before the Democrats had nominated their candidate, we told you that we could never, under any circumstances, endorse Donald Trump for president. He was, we said, “uniquely unqualified” to be president. “Mr. Trump’s politics of denigration and division could strain the bonds that have held a diverse nation together,” we warned. “His contempt for constitutional norms might reveal the nation’s two-century-old experiment in checks and balances to be more fragile than we knew.” The nation has indeed spent much of the past three-plus years fretting over whether that experiment could survive Mr. Trump’s depredations. The resistance from some institutions, at some times, has been heartening.
The depth of the president’s incompetence, which even we could not have imagined, may have saved the democracy from a more rapid descent. But the trajectory has been alarming. The capitulation of the Republican Party has been nauseating. Misbehavior that many people vowed never to accept as normal has become routine.
A second term might injure the experiment beyond recovery.
And so, over the coming weeks, we will do something else we have never done before: We will publish a series of editorials on the damage this president has caused — and the danger he would pose in a second term. And we will unabashedly urge you to do your civic duty and vote: Vote early and vote safely, but vote. “I alone can fix it,” Mr. Trump proclaimed at his convention four years ago. How has that turned out?..But, you say, is it fair to blame him for the coronavirus? No. Mr. Trump did not cause the pandemic; and China, as he says, mishandled it at the start. But every other nation in the world has had to deal with the same virus, and most of them have done so far more competently, and with more evidence of learning and improvement as they go, than the United States.
More people have died of covid-19 in the United States than in any other country. Even adjusted for population, the death rate here is almost five times worse than in Germany, and almost 100 times worse than in South Korea.These are facts. This is reality. And the excess deaths and illness are directly attributable to Mr. Trump’s failures of leadership.
He failed to prepare the nation for a pandemic, though experts for years had warned of the possibility. When the virus emerged, he first praised China’s handling of it, then imposed travel restrictions too slapdash to offer any protection. For months, when he could have been preparing the nation, he insisted the virus would just go away. When reality washed that nonsense away, he allowed government experts to guide the nation for a few weeks. But as the nation began to make some headway, Mr. Trump — more concerned with the impact on his reelection prospects than with the risk to human life — urged Americans to ignore expert advice and “liberate” their states, never mind masks or social distancing. The result is the worst of all worlds: unneeded deaths, no possibility of real reopening and intensification of the markers of “carnage” that Mr. Trump railed against four years ago: unemployment, inequality, opioid addiction.
Perhaps most frightening: Even now, there is no plan, no learning, no strategy for testing and reopening. Under his leadership, it is all too easy to imagine that our children will still be out of school a year from now, or two, or three.
A president’s first duty is to keep the nation safe. If he has failed at home, maybe Mr. Trump has a better record overseas?..
As FDR said 80 years ago, when democracy was similarly under threat, “There can be no ultimate peace between their philosophy of government and our philosophy of government.” If they should gain the upper hand around the world, “We should enter upon a new and terrible era in which the whole world, our hemisphere included, would be run by threats of brute force.”
Mr. Trump, in his 4th year, has branded China an enemy, mostly because he needs a pandemic scapegoat, but also because he hopes it will give him a campaign issue...
More, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/08/21/second-trump-term-might-injure-democratic-experiment-beyond-recovery/
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As if it's even a question anymore. 
We already have been severely injured in just about every way. It will literally take decades, at the very least, to undo the harm done in three+ years by Trump and his corrupt, craven and cowardly cronies.
