As the nation mourns the passing of John Lewis, a Civil Rights icon who risked his life for better treatment of African Americans marching on an Alabama bridge named for a white supremacist, then served in the U.S. Congress making "good trouble" for over three decades, President Donald Trump is doing his best to undo Lewis' legacy by threatening to delay the presidential election that is scheduled for November 3.
His main complaint is that too many people plan on voting by mail beforehand, and that is oh-so-ripe for fraud--never mind that he's done it himself a few times. So he's named one of his political benefactors to head the Postal Service, an organization not exactly known for speediness or for keeping up with the times without having to raise postage rates. You might say this is a case of "do as I say, not as I do".
It doesn't matter that the Constitution says any change to Election Day must go through Congress, not through presidential fiat. But Trump, who is getting thumped in most of the polls by his Democratic rival Joe Biden, is not what you'd call a Constitutional scholar, and seems to be making it up as he goes along.
It also doesn't seem to matter that coronavirus has so far killed more than 150,000 Americans and sickened millions more. The economy has been tanking because of all the restrictions and business closings, which has left millions unemployed. The President's response so far has been (A) favoring quack doctors and remedies while shunting aside more learned physicians and scientists from his own staff that the public trusts more, (B) magically thinking the virus will one day go poof, then (C) lamenting things are going to get worse than better because the virus didn't go poof.
In spite of Covid-19 cases spiking across America and some states having to walk back loosening restrictions on commerce and social distancing, Trump insists on starting schools on time and in the classroom lest he takes away their federal funding. This is freaking out parents, students and educators who would rather be learning online at home than risk getting the virus and passing it along to family and friends. All you need to do is to look at Major League Baseball for a primer on how not to restart in a pandemic.
One of Trump's mantras in his reelection bid (besides tweeting "MAGA!!") is "Law and Order", which has been demonstrated forcefully in Portland, Oregon and other cities the past couple of weeks by unidentified Federal agents who tried to quell otherwise peaceful protestors marching against police treatment of Black citizens. Another example is the commutation of Trump crony Roger Stone's prison sentence. These and others are left to be explained away before a House subcomittee by Attorney General William Barr, another Trump crony. You do know "Law and Order" is just a TV show, right?
The President seems to be less concerned with Russian president Vladimir Putin's signing off on putting bounties on American soldiers in Afghanistan than in getting rid of popular social media site Tik Tok, a Chinese-based company that allegedly shares its privacy data with the government. Does Sarah Cooper's one-note mimicking of Trump bother him that much?
Covid-19 has ended the President's plans for a hastily put together public shindig in Jacksonville, Florida to celebrate his Republican renomination. Instead, the GOP will be going virtual at their original convention site of Charlotte, NC. Much of it will be closed to the press and public, so presumably any delegate who chooses to renominate Trump can do so without anyone finding out.
Far from the eloquence and leadership John Lewis has shown over the decades, President Donald Trump over the past four years has been doing better as a would-be authoritarian with a penchant for bragging and threatening people than for leaving this country in a better place than he found it. If his legacy is acing a cognitive skills test that determines whether or not his mind is going south, then we are in bad trouble indeed.
