WILL TRUMP’S CULT HANG IN IN HIS CHAOTIC “GREAT AMERICA”

As the election date gets closer and closer any hope of rationality from a desperate Trump is wishful thinking as he hangs on to his bizarre fantasy of what his Great America is and what it should be .The coronavirus pandemic has laid bare the cavern like fissures in his government which is bereft of organization, loaded with nepotism, cronyism. incompetence, inefficiency, corruption, and now even abandoning the rule of law. Throwing all caution to the winds he does not care that the fact checkers cannot keep up with his lies even denying what he said the day before as the tape rolls on the split screen with him mouthing what he is denying. By mid April the Fact Checker had recorded over eighteen thousand what they euphemistically labelled “false or misleading” statements in his presidency.

The question uppermost in Jay H. Ell’s mind is what will it take for his cult to come to terms that the Emperor has no clothes? Will it be his inept destructive answer to the coronavirus pandemic that finally awakens America to his corrupt nepotistic despotic and egomaniacal leadership?

What is most bizarre is that the reality he has spun, totally contrary to the facts, is believed by his cult who are unmoved by what is going on around them. Trump has holus bolus taken over the Republican Party. Although the GOP has lost their intellectuals, advisors, suburban women and over a quarter of the millennials, the base hangs in and has been transformed into the cult of Trump. While defeat is staring him in the face he knows full well he is always in with a chance if that forty percent of the electorate that the cult represents holds tight. 

Bearing in mind the current chaos that surrounds his Presidency what would it take for a section of the cult to spit out the Kool Aid? Will the fact that he has not delivered on any of his electoral promises have any impact on their decision? What were the factors that created his election in the first place to the leadership of the Republican Party and then to the Presidency? Who make up the cult?

It is naive to believe that Trump was elected in a vacuum and did not fill the needs and the expectations of a large minority of the population. He is a populist like many that have emerged throughout the world. He is one of the autocrats that have convinced their electorates that he alone can solve their problems be it at the cost of the rule of law and accountability. However the Trump Presidency assumes a significance in that the Great America he now heads was a short while ago a leader of the “free world”. Now it is the laughing stock.

TRUMP’S COUNTERNARRATIVE GAMBLE

Trump has taken a gamble to spin the pandemic scare as part of the continuing conspiracy that the dark state and the Democrats have engineered against him. There was the Russian hoax, followed by the Ukrainian and now the virus hoax response to ruin the economy and his Presidency. 

So far the delusion is holding. He is being assisted in this narrative by some Republican Governors and the Republican Legislators. They have for the main morphed from their traditional Republican value system of support of the rule of law, conservative fiscalism, separation of powers and small government to laissezfaire Trump chaos. 

The irony is that it is a tiny virus that Trump can’t spin. For the moment it isn’t buying the Trump pitch. He is selling the wholesale spread of the coronavirus as a Democratic State problem. So far the cult are listening to his exhortation that the virus can be contained while it increases in plain sight. He is followed when he cheers them on to open their economies, and not heed the Center for Disease Control, (CDC), as to when and how to do it. The underlying message is that this is a problem of sick geriatrics, who are going to die anyway and that the wildfire spread in nursing homes, prisons and meat plants is going to be contained. Further the unspoken word is that African Americans and Latinos are the demographics largely affected, anyway. 

All this while food lines get longer and longer in the Red States such as Texas and Arizona and eleven Secret Service agents, Trump’s valet and Pence’s Press Secretary are diagnosed with coronavirus. On top of this the key members, Dr. Fauci and the heads of the FDA and CDC, of his “popular” ineffectual Task force, have gone into quarantine.

In order to get across his counter narrative Trump and Vice President Pence make public appearances without masks. Trump smears the Democratic Governors such as New York’s Cuomo, California’s Newsom, Washington’s Islee and Illinois’s Pritzker who are doing sterling work at containing the scourge. He simultaneously is cheering on the Republican Governors who are opening their economies or never shut them while their states’ morbidity and mortality increase. In spite of the resolution of all fifty Governors unanimously agreeing on a five hundred billion dollar bail out that should be shared proportionately to their losses, the POTUS claims that it is the Democratic States that are the ones involved. Trump threatens the meat packing industry to reopen their cesspools of infection to avoid a meat shortage.

All in all he has is on an out and out campaign to Reopen America which although not supported by the overwhelming majority of citizens is supported by his cult. 

THE EFFORTS IN SPITE OF TRUMP THUS FAR IN THE PANDEMIC

Trump has been assisted by others who in the teeth of his lunacy have ameliorated the tragedy. There have been massive Congressional financial packages thus far as unemployment surges. Trump has taken credit for all of this even insisting on the delay of payment so his name can appear on the checks, As his Administration is chaotic, aid to businesses have not been evenly distributed and haven’t reached the small businesses who need them most. The bonus checks have been delayed and the presence of miles long food lines bear testimony that the relief packages aren’t working that well. However on the macro level between Congress and the Federal Reserve they have poured in four trillion dollars into the economy which has had the impact of result in stabilizing it for the moment. The stock market, Trump’s parameter of the state of the economy, has recovered two  - thirds of its losses. The flood of internal money has been magnified by the international flow to the American markets that are considered the most stable and lucrative at the moment.

Generally speaking Trump has seen this as a financial problem - not a health crisis. The other ideas coming from the WhiteHouse have been more of the same. - capital gain tax relief, more tax cuts that will benefit the rich disproportionately and the like. However he is being assisted in the health arena by the health care and other first line workers. Then there are the superhuman efforts by research laboratories both public and private sector to get on top of the disease. In contradistinction to his screwball lay suggestions and theories there is one medical treatment that is available to ameliorate the disease process while several hundred further trials are in process. The latter is coupled with innovative attempts at creating a vaccine as early as September.

None of this ameliorates the staggering American statistics of near eighty thousand dead and over a quarter of a million cases recorded even though the percentage of the population tested lags behind the rest of the Western world. 

WHO MAKES UP THE CULT?

Generally speaking the Red Southern States have voted Republican since the days of Nixon. They are made up to a large extent of the cultural groups below. The Southern States abandoned the Democratic Party after Lyndon Johnson enacted the Civil Rights Act legislation. They are more conservative and fundamentalist than the North and West Coast states but with demographic shifts a few are in the sights of the Democrats in 2020.  

As Trump rather than come clean, like his mates Netanyahu and Johnson did with great results, what chance he has for survival rests with his loyal base which are made up of the following broad sectors - anti - immigration advocates, fundamentalist evangelicals and white voters who have felt left out and abandoned for decades. While there is a crossover of these groups describing their features separately allows for an easier understanding.

Trump dialed into the fears of browns overwhelming America thereby threatening the white majority that has been in this country since its inception. He kicked off his campaign by attacking the Mexicans who were criminals, rapists and murderers. His policy is and was to stop illegal immigration, upon which the agricultural, landscaping and construction industries were dependent on, as well as legal immigration which the technology, health and scientific industries bank on. He also wants to cut off the vast number of foreign student population to the Universities who provide an essential injection of cash into the thousands of tertiary care institutions. The rationale for this is that several of these do internships with American companies upon graduating and thereafter obtain jobs. 

Then there are the Evangelicals who are the most vocal section of wishing to rid the judiciary of the abortion gay loving judges. They are also the principle reason for Trump’s support of Israel as they believe that the Messiah cannot return unless there is an Israel for Him to return too. Although there have been some murmurings in that group they fervently believe that Trump has been put there for a reason and come hell or high water they will support him.

The third major component of his cult are the white conservative rural population and the white urban blue collar workers. The former has never been given their full due by either party and the latter had been the backbone of the Democratic Party since Franklyn Roosevelt’s New Deal. The rural whites have always voted Republican and their major contribution to the Trump cause was to get him the Republican Party nomination. 

The urban blue collar white’s plight is the loss of manufacturing, industrial and mining jobs. Their situation had not been addressed sufficiently by either Party and Trump struck a chord when he promised to bring back jobs to America and penalize companies who had outsourced. He would open the coal mines again because he “loved coal”. They are Trump’s biggest problem because thus far they have been delivered nothing. Without them he is chanceless having already lost the suburban Republican women, a quarter of the Republican millennials, an unknown number of Republican intelligentsia and the independents. 

WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW

Not only is Trump spinning the virus and reassuring Red America that they won’t be affected when he can’t even keep it out of the WhiteHouse he is upping up his ante against the institutions and the rule of law. In any other time any one of his actions and revelations of the inner workings in his sanctum would have been front page news but something has to take back stage. 

The WhistleBlower action by the Administration’s chief vaccine expert who claims, replete with documents and e mails, that he was fired for not backing Trump, is nothing short of sensational. Dr. Roy Briggs alleged that he warned about the threat of the coming virus pandemic and refused to collude on the President’s priority of flooding the States with the President’s “game changer” unproven drug which was being manufactured in non FDA sanctioned factories in India and Pakistan. He also witnessed crony overpayment to Administration friends for research material.

What normally would be considered the most overwhelming attack on the rule of law occurred last Friday.  Attorney General Barr did what James Comey refused to do by “letting” former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn “go”. However Barr’s action was so egregious that it rocked the whole legal fraternity who reeled at the third world behavior. Barr sought to “let Flynn go” when he was about to be sentenced for crimes he had pled guilty too.  The Judge had already called Flynn a traitor to America for lying to the FBI and acknowledging that while being the National Security Advisor he was an undeclared agent for a foreign government. Flynn had pled guilty twice and Barr was now withdrawing the charges. When Barr was asked how history will view his actions, he responded that, “History is written by the winners”. Trump crowed that Flynn was a hero.

Trump, is in this medical crisis, fighting in the Supreme Court to eliminate Obamacare thereby depriving tens of millions of health care. Needless to say he has nothing to replace it with.

Trump declared he had learned from the Nixon Presidency!

WHAT IS TO FOLLOW

The Supreme Court is to rule on whether Trump has to reveal his taxes in the near future. 

Federal Judge Sullivan will comment on Attorney General Barr’s request to withdraw charges against Flynn.

The Red States should come down to the inescapable conclusion that if Trump can’t even keep the virus out of the WhiteHouse he can’t keep it emerging from the nursing homes, prisons and meat packing factories because like in the WhiteHouse their employees live in the real world.

Trump will do everything to keep his cult intact . Although he realizes that that isn’t enough to sneak another minority win without them he has no hope. Rest assured he will do whatever it takes to keep the chaotic “Great America” in the Trump family’s list of assets.