Trump has got us in a right States

Once-great nation has become the world’s biggest joke

AMERICAN exceptionalism – the inherent belief that no country on earth is more prosperous, better prepared, as intelligent and successful as the States.

Throughout generations, from one leader to another, no nation has done more to promote itself as having a unique destiny, and which stands alone in shaping the rest of the world, than the States.

Walk down Main Street in any town and you’ll find starspangled flag-wavers only too happy to boast about having the best economy, the strongest military, more wealth and more freedoms than anywhere else on the planet.

If America was made of chocolate, it would eat itself.

And, according to Donald Trump, never before has the country been more edible than it is today.

From entering the White House, the US leader set the tone, bragging his inauguration crowd was the largest ever – it wasn’t.

It was a sign of what was to come. Over the past four years nobody, he says, has done it better. America, Trump claims, leads the world in every conceivable way including its handling of the coronavirus.

He has pitted the States against all other countries, friends and foes alike, repeatedly boasting no one else has tested more people for Covid than his administration.

The harsh truth for the reality TV star is, however, exceptionally bad.

Through his chaotic leadership, no one nation has endured as much death from the virus, nor nearly as high a death rate, as has the States.

While Trump once bragged the virus would very quickly disappear, while presiding over just 4% of the world population, his country now accounts for around 30% of pandemic fatalities.

And while he uses China as his new scapegoat the States is now the only advanced nation where the death rate is still climbing.

While experts predict 3,000 a day could die until June 1, Trump has pushed for social distancing measures to be relaxed while loosening lockdowns. Both have led to a spike in mortality.

And while he continually blames an Obama administration that has not been in power for almost four years for lack of tests (Covid did not exist in 2016), no other developed country has been as unprepared for the pandemic as was the US.

Nor has any other left it to local governments to acquire personal protective equipment and ventilators or had states and cities forced to bid against one another to see who lives or dies. You’d think it couldn’t get any worse, but it does. When you consider how Trump has boasted how wealthy he has made America, no other western country has placed so many of its citizens into poverty so quickly.

Around the world, governments are providing generous income support, but not here.

At best, Americans have received one-off payments of €1,100, barely enough to cover things such as the mortgage, bills and food for a week.

So busy are the unemployment offices, having to deal with 33 million new claims, very few are being processed to get paid out.

It is a far cry from the world Trump promised Americans in January 2016.

“I will fight for you with every breath in my body – and I will never, ever let you down. America will start winning again, winning like never before,” he declared.

But almost four years in, an everincreasing number of Americans are still waiting for their first victory.

Together with his cronies he has taken a once-great nation and led it to become the world’s biggest joke.

Sure, any country can make a mistake in electing a poor leader once. But if Americans choose Trump again come November, there could be no more unmistakable message they are giving to the rest of the world that stupid extends far beyond the White House fence.