The Dangers of Trump’s Brotherhood of Dictators, and His Rallies

The Dangers of Trump’s Brotherhood of Dictators, and His Rallies

It’s bad enough that Trump asked Xi Jinping for soybean purchases to help him win the election.  Everybody already knows that political approach to getting the farm vote, including Xi, who cut the purchases in retaliation for Trump’s tariffs on China.  The real danger, is it gave Xi something to blackmail Trump with in the present or in the future.  Very possibly it could have been audio recorded, or even video recorded, even though it was a one-on-one conversation, with interpreters of course.  Which also raises the question of why John Bolton was there, or knew what was said verbatim.  He had to extract that in the security check.  However, the revelation of what Trump said, by Bolton, will now save Trump from a possible blackmail by Xi.

Just because Bolton is getting revenge on Trump and Secretary of State Pompeo, doesn’t mean that we should respect Bolton’s lifelong super-hawk policies.  Bolton supported dropping the Nuclear nonproliferation treaty with Iran.  He also opposed the intermediate range nuclear missile treaty.

Update:  Trump clarified that Bolton’s breaches were the “highest classified”, which didn’t used to be a category of classification.  It am always amused by the hypocrisy of classifying that which Trump said to the enemy who you normally are trying to prevent from finding your secrets.  The secrets are only secret from the American public.

Following up my censorship article yesterday, I found that Trump actually said that his conversations were “highly classified”.  Does that mean “Secret”, or “Top Secret”, and why didn’t Trump specify which?  Because he just made it up?  How many years will it take before the records of the Trump Administration can be released to the public.  Probably after everyone involved is passed away.  But in Trump’s case, he will probably leave directions that only the praiseworthy records are released for posterity.  

It’s hard to know what would be in a Trump library.  Perhaps all of the security briefings that he never read.  Probably tapes of his great business history, and of the Apprentice and Celebrity Apprentice shows.  And the “Obsequious Tapes” of his Obsequions’ Cabinet.   Perhaps, Trump will use his library funds to buy the enormous yacht he was going to build once.  He could then float it around the world, with exhibits of his Greatness.  Under the Presidential Records Act, Trump’s records become available for Freedom of Information Act requests 5 years after his term ends.  Watch for him to become the first president to block this.  Of course, praiseworthy documents will be available immediately.

If Trump gets a second term, I imagine he will demolish the cramped White House, or save it as a relic, and build a giant Trump Tower, which he will lease from the government, and occupy the Penthouse, as he did in New York.  Of course, the lease would be illegal, just as the lease of the Washington D.C. old Post Office hotel is to Trump, a government employee.

Back down to Earth, how can Trump possibly see that it would be to his advantage to lead the country to ignore the simplest social distancing and effective face masking in the recovery, to actually make the recovery as costly in infections and deaths, as possible.  This starts with all sorts of propaganda minimizing the dangers of virus spread, something that Trump and the country already went through at great cost.  Why hasn’t Trump learned from the history, not in books, but which he already lived at great cost to his reputation.  It must be that Trump’s compulsion for adoration in his rallies is so overwhelming, that he cannot resist his rallies, despite the cost in spreading the virus, human suffering, and a resurgence in deaths.  The rally of 20,000 could have been held in an outdoor stadium of 100,000 capacity, which would have extra room for social distancing. 

Another problem, is that Trump’s audience is composed of those who believe and follow him in ignoring the threat of the virus, and who have been circulating in society and have become the most likely to have the virus.  Then there is their behavior.  They will show their support by not wearing face masks, and by yelling their support and cheers, thus maximizing their ability to spread the virus, or exposing themselves to the superspreaders.  While their temperature will be checked, only 30% of the infected have temperatures.  As far as the time of exposure, there will probably be warm up local politicians, and then an hour or more of Trump, making a two or three hour event, including the slow screening check-in.  This is the perfect Pentafecta of Infection:  Infective Crowding, Infected crowd, Infectable crowd, Infective actions, and Infectable time duration.  The perfect five in alignment:  Bingo.  Coronavirus Trump will finally have his place in history, replacing the iconic Typhoid Mary.

The overflow crowd is like an outdoor concert, so less danger, although they are still packed together.  Update, June 20.  85 degrees outside, nobody is outside.  Plenty of room inside.  Trump is blaming the media, protestors, the usual suspects.  The campaign expected 40,000 overflow outside.

The governor of Oklahoma will not allow Tulsa to enforce its own social distancing rules, as is also the case in some other Republican dominated states.  One judge has already ruled against such state dominance.  The BOK Arena in Tulsa will become known as “The Room Where it Happened”.

Trump has already proved his medical negligence three times in the past week:  regrouping the White House Press Corp to closely spaced on the White House lawn; addressing a condensed Church audience without masks; and holding his speech on law and order, to a law enforcement audience where they all gathered afterwards close up, without face masks, violating the most obvious laws and order of social distancing.

Trump also has the Vice President giving out lies about how successful the national re-opening is, in the face of many of the states having sharp increases in Coronavirus cases.  There are also the increases in projection of national deaths by Oct. 1 to a total of 200,000, and sharp increases in California and Florida deaths by then, if social distancing is totally relaxed.

 

About Dennis SILVERMAN

I am a retired Professor of Physics and Astronomy at U C Irvine. For two decades I have been active in learning about energy and the environment, and in reporting on those topics for a decade. For the last four years I have added science policy. Lately, I have been reporting on the Covid-19 pandemic of our times.
This entry was posted in Coronavirus, COVID-19, Donald Trump, Economies, First Amendment, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, Health Care, Politics, VP Pence, White House. Bookmark the permalink.

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