October 22, 2020

By Thom Hartmann

A new study from Columbia University lays the deaths of tens to hundreds of thousands of Americans at the feet of the Trump administration and the Republican party.

Comparing the United States to other developed countries, they laid out how our lack of a systemic federal response to the coronavirus has endangered Americans.

“If the US had followed Canadian policies and protocols, there might have only been 85,192 US deaths—making more than 132,500 American deaths ‘avoidable,’” the researchers wrote.

They added, “If the US response had mirrored that of Germany, the US may have only had 38,457 deaths—leaving 179,260 avoidable deaths,”

The reality is that America has not had a real president for the last four years. Instead, we’ve had a reality TV host.

Donald Trump loves jumping in front of cameras and microphones and crowds, but he has absolutely no interest in actually governing the country. He’s spent almost a third of his entire time in office at golf courses that he owns, forcing the Secret Service and other branches of government to shovel money into his pockets while he plays.

He spends as much as half the day, every day, watching Fox News and other-right wing networks and tweeting and retweeting bizarre conspiracy theories.

Even now, in this time of crisis, he is not being a president. Instead, he’s trying to build and solidify his audience and customer base for future ventures like selling merchandise, subscriptions, and a new television show or even a TV network.

Trump is on to his next money-making scheme. This has been the story of his life. He totally fails and screws up one thing, and then just moves to another, using borrowed money. Steaks, vodka, an airline, casinos, boardgames, clothing – you name it, he has tried it and failed. And then moved on.

Because Trump is obsessed with how he’s going to make money from the presidency, and how he is going to make money after the presidency, he hasn’t had the interest or time to work to protect our nation from a pandemic.

Meanwhile, Mitch McConnell and the Republicans have no interest in helping Americans, either. Their singular obsession is promoting the interest of their billionaire donors, who want right-wing, corporatist judges on the Supreme Court and up and down the federal court system.

As a result, large percentages of the Americans who have died didn’t need to die. They were killed by Republican and presidential inaction.

The study’s lead author, Dr. Irwin Redlener, was also the founding director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness.

He told The Daily Beast, “We have the resources, the economy, the scientific expertise to do this the right way. We’re facing a lethal pandemic, and we had very misguided leadership that chose to berate the purveyors of masks and social distancing. The president himself became a superspreader. He has blood on his hands.”

The right wing billionaires gave Trump and the Republicans their marching orders after the 2016 election.

Trump has put lobbyists and industry agents in charge of virtually every federal agency and pushed through a massive tax cut while Republicans in the Senate have been singularly focused on putting corporate-friendly judges on the federal bench.

Both have consistently blocked efforts by House Democrats to look out for the American people.

Elections have consequences, as Ronald Reagan famously said. Vote.

Thom Hartmann is a talk-show host and the author of The Hidden History of the War on Voting and more than 30 other books in print. His most recent project is a science podcast called The Science Revolution. He is a writing fellow at the Independent Media Institute.

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