Mission Accomplished
It was May 1st, 2003. President George W. Bush, a veteran jet pilot in the Vietnam era Air National Guard, landed in an anti-submarine aircraft on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. He wasn’t piloting, but he was in a flight suit. It was scene reminiscent of the 1996 film Independence Day, when that President flew a fighter aircraft attacking the alien invaders. The cameras “ate up” President Bush, surrounded by flight crews, a natural presence in the military world after 9-11.
Bush later gave a speech about the success of American operations in Iraq. A banner flew from the bridge of the Lincoln, “Mission Accomplished”. However, the war in Iraq, the mission supposedly accomplished, would last for another seven years. Bush never lived down the moniker of “Mission Accomplished” for a war that seemed to have no end.
President Trump gave another public press conference yesterday. The President, whose attitude against testing for the COVID-19 virus delayed action for months, now surrounded himself with the latest testing equipment. He lauded the fact that the United States now had tested more people than any nation in the world, perhaps even many of them combined. Banners were mounted on the White House, “US Number One in Testing”.
The Buck Stops There
Harry Truman had a sign too: “the buck stops here”. Donald Trump, in this most important crisis of his Presidency, has spent much time and effort making sure that “the buck” stops almost anywhere else, mostly with the state Governors. He hid behind a façade of “Federalism” to avoid demanding that states “close” their economies and “shelter in place”. It was up to governors to decide. Some closed their states, Republican and Democrats alike. Ohio, Michigan, Massachusetts, Maryland, Illinois and New York, California and Washington are examples of that. And it was other governors, in Florida and Georgia, Texas and South Dakota, who placed their states in greater jeopardy by refusing to take a stand.
Transition to Greatness
But the one person who dodged “the buck” was Donald Trump. And it is Donald Trump who now is pressing the “good” governors of both parties, to open their states, ready or not. Trump didn’t want to close anything, and he won’t “order” anything opened either. But he’ll make sure the “COVID protestors” feel supported, and he’s pressing business to open. He claims we are making a “transition to greatness” in reference to his old MAGA slogan, and demands that it’s time to open up. In reality, the phrase “It’s the economy stupid” is the mantra of the Trump Campaign: if he can’t make the economy trend upward by Labor Day, he doesn’t think he can be re-elected. HE needs the economy to re-open, virus ready or not.
To force a re-opening, he’s only supporting plans to finance Americans who are working. They “one-time IRS payment” of $1200 is long spent by those who lost their jobs. It’s absolutely a class divide: if you have the “right” jobs, you can stay at home and work safely from the couch in the living room. If you have the “essential” jobs, you go out in the world and risk contact with the virus. And if you have a job where you are at risk, and don’t want to get sick, then you choose: got to work and get sick, or stay home without pay.
And for the over 33 million Americans who’ve lost their jobs, the President’s payroll tax cut won’t do them a damn bit of good. To point out the obvious, payroll tax cuts only help those on a payroll. Trump is saying to workers the same thing he said to the meat packers: take the risk and keep your job, don’t take the risk and starve.
We Have Prevailed
“We Have Prevailed”: Trump in the press conference floated his newest campaign slogan. Don’t be surprised to see it echoed over and over in social media, “We Have Prevailed” over the corona-virus, and “we have prevailed” over those who know that opening the economy will create an unacceptable loss of life. Even the so-called Presidential plan to re-open has been thrown out the window. There isn’t a state, even New York; that has achieved the fourteen-day decline in infection rates. But every one is opening anyway. The Presidential led pressure is too much.
This press conference, on the heels of the news of high-level White House infections, may be Trump’s “Mission Accomplished”. It will certainly be the fodder for Biden campaign ads, “We Have Prevailed” backed up by increasing death tolls due to increasing social interaction. Or maybe it will be more blunt: “we have prevailed” in killing many more Americans.
All sacrificed so a President can get re-elected.
