“I alone can fix it.” But You Didn’t
An open letter to Donald J. Trump
Mr. Trump:
“Nobody knows the system better than me. Which is why I alone can fix it.” Do you recall these words? They are yours, spoken while accepting the Republican nomination for president, exactly four years ago, July 21, 2016.
You spoke a lot of crazy s##t during that campaign. For me, this statement stuck. I wondered if you could possibly be that self-absorbed, so blind to your limitations, or oblivious to the underlying reason for your success. That would be your father. And his money.
Fixing, no matter what system you referred to, involves identifying your goals, getting into the weeds, finding your way through and thanking everyone else for clearing the path. Obama didn’t personally fix the 2008 financial crisis. He never took credit for any success his administration had in working through this disaster. After 9/ll, for all our military might, George W. Bush didn’t come close to eliminating terrorists or stabilizing the volatile Middle East.
So who could imagine a national calamity so immediate, pervasive and existential that any one leader could take control of, and fix, by him or herself? “Not gonna happen,” is how you describe something very unlikely. But I was wrong.
The opportunity to curve the pandemic then straighten the impact presented itself a few months ago, teed up like one of your Donald Trump Presidential Seal golf balls, on a Trump branded golf course.
The fix, of course, was to nationalize the public health system sufficiently to manufacture and distribute the PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) to the hospitals, the testing equipment and infrastructure to public health departments, and the health care professionals to locations where they were most needed. Then bring in the smartest people to operationalize all this for the near and long term. Finally, establish and adhere to your target goals for new infections before gradually opening up the economy.
Hillary would have aced this fix, being so organized. And female. But as the New York Times laid out in their Sunday, July 19 front page cover story, you didn’t make much effort.
In mid-April, “even as a chorus of state officials and health experts warned that the pandemic was far from under control, Mr. Trump went in a matter of days, from proclaiming that he alone had the authority to decide when the economy would reopen to pushing that responsibility onto the states. The government issued reopening guidelines, but almost immediately, Mr. Trump began criticizing Democratic governors who did not ‘liberate’ their states...On April 16, when Mr. Trump announced the guidelines publicly he made the message to the governors explicit. ‘You’re going to call your own shots,’ he said.”
I’ve never understood how you can unapologetically admire strongmen like Korea’s Kim Jung Un, or Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan; yet learn nothing from them about being an authoritarian. Adapting that role could have made a big difference in your numbers. Polling data, infection rates, Dow Jones averages or COVD deaths. Your choice.
The Times piece continues,“the approach he embraced was not just a misjudgement. Instead it was a deliberate strategy that he would stick to as evidence mounted that, in the absence of strong leadership from the White House, the virus would continue to infect and kill large numbers of Americans.”
“Strong leadership from the White House,” appears to have been the missing link. You can bet that won’t be missing in the Biden presidency. Democrats practically invented the concept of a strong national response.
Then comes the matter of the masks. There’s general agreement that masks, and social distancing are key to stopping the spread. Yet you still refuse to wear one, much less make a definitive public statement in support. Republican mayor Francis X. Suarez, of Miami, expressed frustrations with your dismissive approach to mask wearing. “People follow leaders.” Then he added, “People follow the people who are supposed to be leaders.” Just so you know, this past Sunday, Miami-Dade county added 12,479 new cases of coronavirus infections.
But if you need to feel exceptional, Donald, consider this: you, and only you, could have persuaded millions of MAGA voters to do something they feel the government has no business ordering them to do.
But this effort required a forceful, yet reassuring, voice. A leader speaking straight to the American people, without glancing sideways at stock prices and poll numbers. Working closely with Democrats would have been a plus. In effect, we needed a father figure.
Obviously not your strong suit. As your niece Mary Trump has pointed out in her new book Too Much and Never Enough, your father, Fred Trump Sr., was “an abusive patriarch who taught his “favorite” son to behave like a “killer” and see everything through a “prism of money.”
It was your father, Ms. Trump writes, who drilled the concept of “toxic positivity.” into your head. Everyone who has watched your news conference delivery of your predictions for the pandemic knows exactly what this means.
One additional theme from Ms.Trump’s book needs to be highlighted. She writes of your family’s reactions to illness and death, which was to minimize, deny or ignore. By many accounts, for example, you were at a movie when your older brother Fred Jr. died, in the hospital, with no family member present, from an alcohol- induced heart attack.
In your personal behavior toward the virus you choose denial, as if refusing to wear a mask proves your invincibility. You rarely appear to observe a 6-foot social distance, but because you are tested daily, maskless Trump is effectively telling his voters that no virus can touch the Donald.
Well, Mr. Trump, you might survive the pandemic after all. But COVID 19 is killing your presidency, will shred your legacy, maybe even write your epitaph. So if anyone asks, here’s my entry:
Donald J. Trump valued numbers... but never gave a s##t for any other number than #1.
Sincerely,
Frank Barthell
