Hope starts slipping away
Most Americans, it would seem, are unhappy. And who could blame them? The country cannot escape the threat of death posed by COVID-19, a threat exacerbated by a disturbing lack of national leadership. These dangers, in turn, have created an unstable economy and concern about election integrity heading into this November’s presidential election.
Perhaps the worst aspect of our current situation is that we have no idea when it will end. The issues are not equals, but I like to make a parallel between the nation’s crisis and a more personal (and trivial) difficultly, such as when the water is shut off in my condominium. It is inconvenient, as I’m forced to go without a shower or a pot of coffee. But I know that relatively soon, the water will be turned back on.
Not so with the coronavirus.
Our pharmaceutical industry, so adept at turning us upside down and shaking out every nickel, has not been able to put a timetable on producing a vaccine. Our political leaders, in the meantime, push us to reopen the economy before anyone is sure that it is safe to do so — an electoral tactic if I’ve ever seen one. And despite this rush to get the economy roaring again, the government continues to take a half-speed approach to testing, I suppose on a theory that you can better fight an enemy if you do not know where it is.
But the coronavirus is not at the top of President Donald Trump’s to-do list; his own re-election is, to the surprise of none. Yet Mr. Trump seems not to realize that were he to competently negotiate the difficulties of the COVID-19 pandemic, he could cruise to reelection, and maybe even put himself in line for that Nobel Prize he occasionally dreams about.
But, if my experience reading John Bolton’s recently released memoir “The Room Where It Happened” taught me anything, it is that the Trump White House is the picture of chaotic decisionmaking and electorally motivated policy determination.
Add to this mess the recent reports that Mr. Trump and his staff were aware perhaps as early as March 2019 that the Russian government was offering Taliban fighters cash bounties for killing American soldiers. Mr. Trump, who has been far too cozy with the authoritarian leadership of Russia and has attempted to do it favors many times throughout his presidency, will have to answer to these allegations. But it remains to be seen what the long-term effects of this burgeoning scandal will be.
The presidential and congressional elections in November might offer some hope of an end to our current miserable circumstances if one could convince oneself that former Vice President Joe Biden and whomever he brought in with him would do a better job of addressing our problems than the current administration.
With summer in full swing, and natural beauty springing up around us, one could reasonably feel some hope for pulling out of the slough of despondency we are currently in. I may be too cynical, but I myself am not expecting much.