If six commercial airliners with 160 souls aboard crashed every day, the federal government would ground the fleet. Why then, in the face of that number of daily fatalities from Covid-19, is the federal government silent? I guess President-elect Biden is right: Donald Trump has surrendered. He has said nothing about the ravages of the current surge. His vice president is also missing in action. When they do talk, it is to brag about how “beautifully” they’ve handled this crisis, or to take credit for Pfizer’s vaccine breakthrough, as if they were the research scientists who actually deserve the credit (P.S. Pfizer refused government money, and is not part of “Operation Warp Speed” precisely to remain above the Trump fray). Meanwhile, the White House continues to be a super-spreading location.
Remember, the speed of the leader determines the speed of the pack.
Instead of leading, the President is hunkered down in the living quarters, refusing to accept reality, and tweeting madly about election fraud that by any and all measures is nonexistent. Denying reality serves two purposes. It allows his fragile ego an explanation of events too horrible to ponder, and it keeps his followers focused on him and his lost election battle rather than on us and our losing coronavirus battle.
So far, few Republicans have dared utter this truth in public: The king is naked.
Fear of retribution keeps his minions silent. As the expression goes: the angriest person controls the room. They are trying not to raise the ire of an unstable president with a bad Twitter habit.
We should not be surprised, but we are. Continually. Because we are subject to the whims of an unstable personality, and our own rational minds won’t—can’t—reset to deal with the onslaught of neediness. Psychoanalyst Dr. Michael Levin explains: "This disconnect exists because we're living in a world that is grounded and checked by reason. [Trump’s] is grounded only in his emotional needs and fantasies. I think this is a useful framework to understand why we all have repeatedly been shocked by his behavior for years. It's just a bridge too far for most of our psychological imaginations ... Most of the commentary I'm seeing in the press about his narcissism seems not to get that, deep down, it's not about feeling good. It's about psychic survival. I think this is the case with most of his base too. It's not the garden variety narcissism of someone like Elon Musk or Bill Clinton. It's much more desperate and psychotic."
Dave Pell at NextDraft.com observed, “Indeed, we keep applying strategic goals to what is a narcissistic sociopath's emotionally disturbed reaction to a fear of shame and humiliation. Trump truly believes he's being cheated because the alternative is too brutal and painful to accept; even if democracy has to be destroyed so his fantasy, and thus his psychic existence, can survive. When we see mental illness play out in public or celebrity spheres, we often view it as a side-show. When we encounter it in real life, we know it's the whole-show. Those politicians who cynically use Trump as a battering ram for their own ends will be able to let go of him when his usefulness declines. For his true believers, the relationship is less transactional and operates more like a religion. And that's a lot to ask someone to give up because of the small reality of a few million votes. Will the unnerving and democracy-smashing coup-like attempt continue? How far will the GOP enablers take this? I don't know. But I do know that the psychic frenzy it's stirred up among millions of Americans cannot be turned off with a switch. An addiction to falsehoods is not easy to relinquish. And no one wants to go cold turkey for Thanksgiving.”
As the Democracy Destruction Tour 2020 continues its phantasmagorical run, a few reality-seeking rats are beginning to jump off the sinking ship of state. Karl Rove, “Bush’s Brain,” WSJ columnist, and stalwart conservative fire-starter, is among the latest. He’s trying to use logic by explaining to the President that there is no mathematical way forward, and that the likelihood of getting enough state legislatures to refuse to certify the results, and then create their own Trump-leaning slate of electors, is highly unlikely. Sadly, for the man and the republic, logic is always Trumped by narcissism.
So we have a leader who has surrendered to a virus, but refuses to surrender to the will of the people. No sense in going on about the lasting damage he’s doing to half the electorate’s faith in democracy’s foundational process. Much has already been written about that by greater societal and constitutional experts than I.
Of course, expertise is also on trial, according to half of us.