Damage continues from Trump’s battles against the truth | Randy Schultz
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The flood of demagoguery and incompetence that has been the Trump presidency crested last Wednesday.
People died that day because of what Trump did. On that day, however, people also kept dying because of what Trump hasn’t done.
A week ago, the country set a daily record for COVID-19 deaths. We broke that record a day later.
A domestic siege of the U.S. Capitol — aided and abetted by the president — is unprecedented. For months, however, the nation has been under an unprecedented public health siege that President Trump tried to wish away. Each happened because Trump chose lies over reality and his enablers let it happen.
The president summoned his anti-democratic goons to Washington on the lie that Joe Biden stole the election. Beginning last February, the president summoned his anti-science political and media allies to a campaign against the truth of COVID-19.
Both lies feature many of the same co-conspirators. Right-wing media talkers dismissed the virus as a plot by Democrats and the deep state against Trump. Medal of Freedom honoree Rush Limbaugh compared it to “the common cold.”
Gov. DeSantis did his part, perpetuating the myth that Florida could have Spring Break and full football stadiums despite the pandemic. The governor embraced the ravings of Scott Atlas, Trump’s preferred virus “expert.” Few Republicans in Florida challenged Trump’s anti-science orthodoxy, even when he recommend bleaching and sunlight injection.
With such acquiescence in place, why would Trump have expected any GOP dissent to his lies about the election? He got none in Florida from Republicans who mattered.
Once the goons had stormed the Capitol, some of them reportedly smearing excrement on the walls, we heard from Florida’s craven Republican senators. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott condemned the violence. Both refused to remove Trump a year ago. They get no pass.
Similarly, DeSantis ran from his own rhetoric. After the election, he urged Trump to “fight on.” Trump did.
Among those subservient Florida Republicans is a cold-eyed political calculus. They want to avoid annoying the Trump cultists, for fear of a primary challenge or not having their support for higher office.
Similarly, Trump hopes to retain his standing, if not run again. During his non-concession concession speech, Trump told the cultists, “Our incredible journey is only just beginning.”
But here’s another cold-eyed political calculus beyond the horror of last week and the last 10 months: Do Republicans want to stick with such a loser?
After Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock won in Georgia, Donald Trump became the first president since Herbert Hoover in 1932 to lose both houses of Congress and re-election. Ironically, those most wishing for Trump’s fade to irrelevance might be GOP party leaders. They realize the damage Trump has done to their brand. They worry that he might run as a third-party candidate.
They never understood that Trump ran as a Republican only as the means to his end. Party doesn’t matter to Trump. Neither does country. Only Trump matters.
In return for appointing right-wing judges, decimating environmental regulations and isolating us from our allies, Trump demanded total loyalty and got it. For the Republican Party, the reckoning has arrived.
In a week — perhaps sooner — what Donald Trump says won’t matter. He will lose many or all of the social media platforms that gave him air.
Yet the temptation to follow him — will remain. Right-wing sites are competing to see which can lie more forcefully to the cultists.
But traditional media also have profited from — and helped — Trump. One study after the 2016 election found that he had received more than twice the free media of Hillary Clinton.
Much may remain to report about Donald Trump. Soon, however, there will be no reason to hear from Trump. The cleanup at the Capitol is a metaphor for the cleanup that confronts Biden,
Many thousands of Americans will keep dying of COVID-19. Trump might have spent the last nine weeks working on the vaccine rollout. Instead, he kept lying and the cultists kept believing, until it was too late. Donald Trump surrendered to the virus and made war on American democracy.
