DONALD TRUMP IS A MASS MURDERER (AND SO ARE HIS ENABLERS)

I have written many things over the years of this blog; some serious, some humorous, many sarcastic or cynical. It's been OK, because few people read this thing. But sometimes I wish lots of people read my blog.

I usually, mostly, think about the words I use here. For this post, I considered words very carefully. I decided that the words in my title are good words, and truthful words; Donald Trump is a mass murderer.

The novel coronavirus that causes the illness labeled COVID-19 is a serious and dangerous disease. Donald Trump and some of his enablers (Rush Limbaugh comes to mind) have said that the COVID-19 coronavirus is just like the annual, seasonal flu, and no big deal. Trump said initially that the coronavirus is a big hoax perpetrated by the Chinese and supported by the Democrats. Wrong. The seasonal flu has a lethality rate of under 1%; COVID-19 has a lethality rate of somewhere between 2% and 5% (the determination is difficult), and that is a huge difference. The U.S. has, as of today, more than 24,000 confirmed new cases per day, and more than 2,000 deaths per day. To date, there have been almost 800,000 confirmed cases in the U.S., and almost 42,000 deaths.

Donald Trump did not cause the coronavirus pandemic, but a great many of his actions, inactions and comments have resulted in the U.S. response to the pandemic being greatly delayed and seriously flawed. Here is a good article documenting my conclusion. Trump has politicized the federal government response to the pandemic; he has also failed to provide the leadership and resources needed to minimize the pandemic effect. Trump likes to tout the United States as being Number One. Well, we are number one in the world in the number of COVID-19 cases and the number of COVID-19 deaths. The best responses in the U.S. to the pandemic are at the state level, with a number of governors providing the kind of leadership and resources needed, in spite of federal efforts to undermine them.

As if the above isn't bad enough, the past few days have seen demonstrations in several states against the "shelter at home" and business closing orders. These demonstrations have been organized by conservative right-wing groups that have ties to the Trump campaign, and are taking place in states with Democratic governors. In addition to carrying signs about the social distancing orders, the demonstrators carry signs and wear hats for the Trump presidential campaign, some carry guns and 2nd amendment signs. In other words, these are political campaign demonstrations by Trump supporters. Tragically, most of these demonstrators do not wear masks or maintain a safe distance from each other, with the certain result that the coronavirus is being spread through the crowds and is then carried back into the communities where these idiots live.

Trump not only supports these demonstrations, he encourages them on Twitter, on Fox News, and in his daily statements. "LIBERATE MINNESOTA" he tweets."LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!" The tweet about Virginia was interpreted by extremists as a call to arms! 

It is neither "fake news" nor hyperbole to state that Donald Trump is directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans by COVID-19. And so are his many enablers, from Republicans in Congress to hosts on Fox News to the people who throng to these dangerous demonstrations. Trump is an extremely dangerous madman who needs to be removed from office as soon as possible. Unfortunately, our best chance to remove him will be the 2020 elections, and he will continue to murder people and cause other great harms to America and the world until then. 

I mourn the victims of Trump's evil. 

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