While I keep sheltering in place, fully aware of the dire need for everyone here and abroad to be smart and do the same, I am unable to forget how we here in the U.S. got to this point, on April 1. Of course, it’s because covid-19 is an invisible, lethal enemy. However, this precise point in time-cruelly April Fools day–should have taken place no less than seven to eight weeks earlier. Why do I assert such a claim?

Look no further than the occupant of the White House, who downplayed the seriousness of this virus and its potential for global disaster. But he is concerned not about the globe rather only the U.S. And not the general population of the U.S. No, only for the U.S. economy, which he appears to place above people’s lives. You should all understand how much he has blatantly made this priority clear. He wanted to “re-open” businesses by Easter Sunday, but with the covid number skyrocketing, he has had to let that absurd notion go. What he needed to do, long before letting his Easter dream go, was act on real, verifiable, information from the World Health Organization those many weeks ago and ordered the shelter-in-place/social distancing order with all due haste.

That’s what any other President in my lifetime would have done, and by extension I mean every last one who preceded our current occupant of the White House. Of course they would have. But there has never been a person with absolutely no ability to lead or a self-awareness that the job he holds demands leadership, in the best of times but especially in a national crisis. The only reality for this man stares back at him in a mirror. And he always is then self-aware and approving of that reality.

Alas, I belabor the OBVIOUS on this point! Well, for some of us that is, it is abundantly obvious. For others, not so much. Those others would be the ones who, in some recent polls, give him a thumbs up on his job performance. Yes, his polling numbers have gone up. These polls are shocking, disturbing and surreal–like the man for whom the polls measure likes and dislikes. Then again, the people who are themselves self-satisfied with their thumbs up in the polls, are also shocking, disturbing and surreal. Well, but his true believers have always come across that way to me. His being given the keys to White House was an abhorrent aberration. Mind you, I despise both Republicans and Democrats, and have cringed at how some of these office holders ever gain traction with voters. But the 2016 outcome exists in its own political universe, galaxy, solar system, star, planet, moon and asteroid pecking order. 2016’s stunning election results (corrupted by an outdated system, foreign interference, voter suppression, all proven as contributors to the outcome) have been a waking nightmare for those who once laughed at the mere notion of such an outcome; but we get the government we deserve. Right. Wait, but do we deserve this? That is, gross incompetence is one thing, but willfully ignoring proven science weeks and weeks ago means, at this moment, April 1, 2020, that ignorance has cost people their lives in creasing numbers.

As if he cares. He is considered by mental health professionals to be a “sociopath”. His hideous character warts have been on display for decades. Now his most glaring shortcoming–not having any empathy whatsoever–has become weapons grade lethal.

Well, I wish everyone well, even those who literally–albeit unwittingly– voted for this. The virus does not discriminate. It’ll kill friend and foe of our current resident of 1600 Mar-a-Lago. That was its modus operandi months and months ago, when it first become known as a matter of importance. If only we could have been given facts about the gravity of the situation before the virus itself forced the facts to confront our reality-denying president. Mind you, he very reluctantly has made recent concessions to our current reality. He has at last–and VERY late in this matter–conceded to the seriousness of the moment. I’m sure he loathed having to concede to the facts of this matter. No, sir. Covid-19 is so not fake news!

If only the mistakes of others only had consequences for those who made the mistake. But that’s not the way it works. We here in the U.S. of A. are all paying for that shocking, disturbing, surreal outcome back on November 8th 2016. I knew no good could come of it. But I never figured it would come to being THIS BAD, as much as I knew it had potential for unprecedented outcomes.

And what is good, Phaedrus, and what is not good,

need we ask anyone to tell us these things?

Gee, good question. Maybe a poll could be taken to answer that one.