[Vision2020] David Frum on Trump's Speech

[Nicholas Gier]

Conservative David Frum, writing for *The* *Atlantic*
<https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/trump-ensuring-worst-possible-outcome-coronavirus-crisis/607867/>,
has a hot take on Donald Trump’s stilted, dopey,
teleprompter recitation delivered Wednesday night from the Oval Office. His
verdict? Trump’s “address” was less than worthless.

If anything, it made things worse: worse for the health of the public,
worse for the economy, and worse for America’s global standing as the world
desperately looks for some kind of leadership in responding to the
coronavirus pandemic.

A merely worthless speech would have delivered nothing. And make no
mistake, there was plenty of “nothing” there.

He offered no guidance or policy on how to prevent the spread of the
disease inside the United States. Should your town cancel its St. Patrick’s
Day parade? What about theatrical productions and sporting events? Classes
at schools and colleges? Nothing.

He offered no explanation of what went wrong with the U.S. testing system,
nor any assurance of when testing would become more widely available. His
own previous promises of testing for anyone who needs it have been exploded
as false. So what is true? Nothing.

Layoffs are coming, probably on a very large scale, as travel collapses and
people hunker down at home. Any word for those about to lose their jobs?
Only the vaguest indication that something might be announced sometime soon.

Trump did say in this Stephen Miller-Jared Kushner
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-address.html>production
of “reassurance” to Americans that there would be no co-pays for
coronavirus testing. The problem is that in this country, thanks to a
complete lack of preparation and direction from the administration, there
are virtually no tests to be found (although Tom Hanks apparently found one
in Australia
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/world/australia/tom-hanks-rita-wilson-coronavirus.html>
).

And as Frum points out, there is truly something pathetic in the spectacle
of an American president, who reflexively blames everyone but himself for
everything, pleading for an “end to finger-pointing.” No one has pointed
more fingers than Trump. Remember just two weeks ago, when this was all a
Democratic-inspired “hoax
<https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/03/trump-coronavirus-threat/607825/>,”
concocted to make him look bad? Pointing fingers is all he has ever done,
all his life.

But after the empty, vacuous words had mercifully ended, Frum notes, the
real blame for the escalating crisis remained visible, sitting there,
stupid, clueless, and in plain sight. The plain fact is that Trump’s
ineptitude has made the crisis worse by orders of magnitude.

More people will get sick because of his presidency than if somebody else
were in charge. More people will suffer the financial hardship of sickness
because of his presidency than if somebody else were in charge. The medical
crisis will arrive faster and last longer than if somebody else were in
charge. So, too, the economic crisis. More people will lose their jobs than
if somebody else were in charge. More businesses will be pushed into
bankruptcy than if somebody else were in charge. More savers will lose more
savings than if somebody else were in charge. The damage to America’s
global leadership will be greater than if somebody else were in charge.

In the end, it all comes back to the venal, malevolent character of the man
who Americans foolishly put into this position of authority.

There is always something malign in Trump’s incompetence. He has no care or
concern for others; he cannot absorb the trouble and suffering of others as
real. He monotones his way through words of love and compassion, but those
words plainly have no content or meaning for him. The only thing that is
real is his squalid vanity. This virus threatens to pierce that vanity, so
he denied it as long as he could.

Now that a very uncomfortable reality has set in, Trump’s true character
has been laid bare. As Frum states, any Americans looking for hope or
assurance were left staring into the abyss. Americans need to face the fact
that our leadership, as Frum writes, is “as empty as the glazed eyes of the
man who spoke from that office tonight.”

Not convinced? Watch what Trump did after he thought the cameras were
turned off.

-- 

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they
shall never sit in.

-Greek proverb

“Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.
Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance
from another. This immaturity is self- imposed when its cause lies not in
lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without
guidance from another. Sapere Aude! ‘Have courage to use your own
understand-ing!—that is the motto of enlightenment.

--Immanuel Kant
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