It Just Doesn’t Matter

Bill Murray leads the chant in Meatballs – It Just Doesn’t Matter

This Week

Yesterday we heard tapes of Donald Trump talking to Washington Post columnist Bob Woodward. Back in January and February, we heard him tell Woodward how dangerous and contagious the COVID-19 virus was.  He understood how bad it would be, but he took no action.  He told the American people that it wasn’t a big deal.  And more importantly, he didn’t take scientific advise to get control of the virus.  He wanted to “play it down” so he didn’t “create a panic” (NBC).  

He let the pandemic get hold in America when he could have slowed it. How many folks died? Studies demonstrate that had we closed two weeks earlier, 54,000 fewer would have died. And that was in May, just as we reached 100,000 deaths. We will hit 200,000 deaths this week (NPR).

This week The Atlantic magazine ran an article outlining President Trump’s view of American soldiers as “losers and suckers”.  It was confirmed by multiple sources, now checked by several other media outlets including Fox News.  He was quoted as saying he didn’t want disabled veterans in a parade, “…no one wants to see that”.  And he stood with General John Kelly at Kelly’s own son’s grave in Arlington National Cemetery, and asked the grieving father, “I just don’t get it.  What was in it for him?”

Oh, and we also found out yesterday that the Attorney General of the United States is using the Justice Department to step into a lawsuit against the President, filed by a woman who claims he sexually assaulted her in 1996.  If Bill Barr is successful, the United States will pay for the President’s legal fees, and if he loses the civil suit, the United States will pay his penalties (NPR).

It just doesn’t matter.

Protests and Elections

When the President was frightened and scurried down to the Situation Room because of protests near the White House, he called out the National Guard.  And when he wanted to do a “photo op” outside of St. John’s Church on the other side of Lafayette Park a few days later, he sent those federal forces to “put down” a legal and peaceful protest with chemical weapons and horses.  

The President has stated that voting by mail will benefit his opponent in the 2020 election.  Therefore he is constantly, without any evidence, claiming that voting by mail will be fraudulent.  He is allowing his Postmaster General (who has his own ethical issues) to slow the mail, so that many Americans lose faith in the Postal Service.  And finally he is undermining American’s trust in an electoral result that isn’t “final” the night of the election. He knows that mail-in ballots will take longer than one night to count. 

We read the President’s words telling the President of Ukraine that he could have government aid, if Ukraine investigated the President’s likely opponent in the 2020 election.  It was in the transcript the White House itself issued. We didn’t even need Colonel Vindman:  the President’s own words said he did it.

It just doesn’t matter.

Threats

American constantly watched the President denigrate the American Intelligence agencies, even taking the “word” of Russian President Vladimir Putin over his own advisors.  When presented with evidence that Russian troops were paying bounties to the Taliban in Afghanistan for American deaths, Trump simply denied that it happened.  And when the Department of Homeland Security wanted to issue a report saying that Russia was the biggest foreign threat to the integrity American elections, the report was mysteriously “held” by the White House.

His administration made the conscious policy decision to take children from their parents at the border for the purpose of “deterring” future migrants. They then “lost” children in the bureaucracy of the American Government. Trump lied about it for months, and then reversed and allowed that it was the wrong thing to do.  But it didn’t end, and he asked to re-invigorate the program again.  One reason the United States is sanctioning members of the World Court in The Hague today, is that they may be considering charging the Administration with crimes against humanity.

It just doesn’t matter.

Laws and Lies

The President has lied to the American people more than 20,000 times (WAPO).  He and his children are profiting from the taxpayers, charging exorbitant fees to the government for the President’s own security.  The Secret Service has paid Trump properties more than $760000 in golf cart rental alone (Golfnewsnet.com).

His daughter and his son-in-law were unable to pass the security measures put in place to gain Top Secret access.  His own staff told him they shouldn’t get the clearances.  But the President ordered them to be granted access, against advice, and the Chief of Staff and the White House Counsel both wrote memos noting their objections (Atlantic).

And when the President decided to use the White House and the Rose Garden as part of the Republican National Convention, defying the Hatch Act, the law that forbids using government funds and property for political purposes, he did it anyway.

Guess what:  it just doesn’t matter.

Shooting on 5^th Avenue

It just doesn’t matter – Trump voters are going to vote for Trump no matter what he may do or say.  Then-candidate Trump was right:  he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and no one would care.  Well, at least partially right: his supporters wouldn’t care.  

Even today, after the Bob Woodward revelations and listening to Trump’s own voice acknowledging the lies he was telling the American people, I heard a former Republican Congressman intone that, “this might be the thing that shocks people into waking up and turning on the President”.  

Are you kidding?  They’ll listen to his voice, and still say it’s a lie. 

It just doesn’t matter.  The only thing that matters is that everyone else goes out and votes against Trump in November.  Then the United States will have a new President.

And what Trump thinks of that, well:

It just doesn’t matter.