Born in the first years of the Boomer generation, I have witnessed a number of presidents and cannot remember one who abdicated responsibility as Trump has while thousands of Americans died each day.
Calling himself a “wartime president,” Trump has explicitly refused to use his federal powers to compel manufacture of, for example, personal protective equipment desperately needed by health care workers and first responders for their safety while they tend to sick and dying.
The inevitable result of Trump’s abdication of responsibility created a seller’s market, driving up the price of formerly inexpensive masks and gowns to stratospheric levels as states bid against one another and the federal government. Bottom line: taxpayers will pay far more than they otherwise would have for life-preserving essentials, only because Trump refused to take responsibility – in essence, refused to do his job.
No other president in recent history has failed to take responsibility for Americans’ lives, health and economic welfare as Trump has. George W. Bush’s Katrina failure was epic. But, tragic as it was, Katrina was a more localized failure that did not involve anywhere near the continuing fatalities and economic loss as COVID-19.
In my view, there is no rational way a voter could choose a president who has so clearly and dismally failed – at such great cost of American lives and taxpayer funds – to do his job as Trump
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Arthur Hoffman
St. Louis
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