So have you finally finished all of the wonderful books you’ve bought over the years and never got around to actually reading? Cleaned out all the closets and washed and packaged up those too-small sweaters to take to Goodwill? Alphabetized the stuff in the spice cabinet?
Finished watching a personal marathon of Law and Order reruns?
Welcome to the wonderful world of the voluntarily housebound! Which gets old exceedingly fast. I – like, I suspect, a majority of folks around here trying dutifully to avoid possible infection with COVID-19 – am getting cranky.
And one of the things I’m cranky about – again, I suspect, like others – is the current presidential campaign.
More precisely, part of the presidential campaign. To wit, the Republican candidate. The Democratic guy, Joe Biden, is just fine. Keeps largely out of our way, and when he does show up he’s polite and neatly dressed with his tidy facemask in place. Downright dignified. In short, presidential.
But our current incumbent president, who has turned out to be a whiny and self-pitying bundle of insecurities and complaints, is a different story. Who knew?
Kidding! We all knew, from the start. The most powerful man in the world – who is also, by his own bragging, worth many millions, even billions of dollars – is a mass of grievances and perceived enemies, starting on that fateful day he rode down the escalator at Trump Tower and complained about Mexico sending us “rapists” and “murderers.” He has been broadcasting his personal hatreds and insecurities ever since, using the world’s biggest megaphone.
In fact, Trump – aided and abetted by his advisers, an incredibly malign circle of vicious, unhinged creeps, as my husband recently observed – is quickly making our nation an international laughing stock, a brilliant example of what can happen when a good country gets a bad leader.
Take, for example, the fact that our nation is by now likely the most coronavirus-ridden country on Earth, thanks primarily to an almost criminal lack of leadership in the White House. Just last week, in a story about how COVID-19 is beginning to make inroads in African nations, I read that medical authorities were hoping that Kenya “doesn’t become the next United States.”
And they do well to worry! The once great, glorious U.S. of A. is awash in the deadly disease, with only our little corner of the country so far relatively healthy. So far. And yet the man in the White House – focusing with almost demented determination on trying to be re-elected – keeps acting as if we’re on the mend, the demon disease conquered.
And his princess – er, daughter – and top adviser Ivanka Trump is trying to jolly us into the spirit of things by spear-heading an effort to find alternative work for the millions out of work thanks to COVID-19.
One of her suggested great jobs, you’ll be fascinated to learn, is contact tracer. You know, the poor soul who has to pore over lists of names and phone numbers to try to warn unsuspecting Americans they’ve been exposed to COVID-19. Under Ivanka’s father, it’s apparently a new career path.
While Ivanka is opening new opportunities for the unemployed, her father is forging ever ahead in his zeal to succeed – by attacking other Americans. In the most recent case, he went after Dr. Anthony Fauci. For those who’ve been in a cave, Fauci is the government’s preeminent infectious disease specialist and has been consulting – and getting along – with presidents going back to Ronald Reagan.
But Fauci won’t go along with the president. He insists on the truth – which is that the virus is getting worse, not better, and thousands more will die – and Trump is distressed. He and his minions tried taking unsubtle potshots at the good doctor, but Fauci didn’t budge in his devotion to truth.
So – quite coincidentally, no doubt – suddenly the president’s trade adviser, Peter Navarro, decides to pen an op-ed for USA Today about what an ignorant stinker the heretofore deeply respected Fauci is. Of course legions of Fauci fans – at least double the number of Trump fans – rose up in indignation.
It’s clear Fauci hasn’t lasted this long without enjoying some pretty nifty political skills himself.
Now Navarro is, deservedly, on shaky ground. And our president is back to the drawing board, trying to think of another way to distract Americans’ attention while doing his best to smear good old Joe Biden.
All that does is remind us of the great old days when we could go for days, even weeks, without bothering even to remember who the president was. When the guy in the Oval Office just fairly quietly went about the job of seeing that the country ran relatively smoothly.
You know – the kind of president Joe Biden will be if given the chance. Blessedly predictable. Boring even! And boring is looking awfully good these days.
(“Monitor” columnist Katy Burns lives in Bow.)