August 31, 2020: Trump Needs a Scapegoat

 

8/31/20: With the coronavirus spreading unabated the President of the United States decides to focus on finding…what…a cure? 

Nope. He has to find a scapegoat, because saying the virus would “magically go away” didn’t work. Claiming injecting bleach would help was stupid. Taking advice from the MyPillow guy regarding flowers, and the Demon Sperm Lady on hydroxychloroquine didn’t alleviate the problem.

 
In the Old Testament, the goat is released to carry the sins of the people away.

 

Trump needs a scapegoat, and Dr. Anthony Fauci is it. Once the face of the president’s White House Coronavirus Task Force, Trump has soured on his help. In an interview with Laura Ingraham, the president makes it clear who he thinks deserves the blame. Would he put Dr. Fauci “front and center” in his administration’s response to the pandemic, she asks, if he had a chance to do it all again? 

“I disagree with a lot of what he said,” the president says. “I get along with him, but every once in a while, he’ll come up with one [idea] that I say, ‘Where did that come from?’” Trump wants it to be clear. He didn’t pick Dr. Fauci for the job. “I inherited him. He was here. He was part of this huge piece of machine.” 

So, was Trump hinting that Dr. Fauci, who has served every U.S. president since Ronald Reagan, who helped end the scourge of H.I.V., and successfully battled to control the Ebola outbreak … was he part of the “Deep State?” 

Ingraham didn’t ask, because her job at Fox News was to set Trump up to look as good as possible.

 

On the final day of August, with Donald J. Trump in charge of the whole “huge machine” of the federal government, with Fauci merely offering advice, the U.S. hits a grim new milestone:

 

6,000,000 cases of COVID-19.

 

* 

IN A NEW BOOK, Donald Trump v. The United States, by Michael Schmidt, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer for The New York Times, we learn that the president once asked Gen. John Kelly to be Director of the F.B.I. There was an opening, by chance, after the previous director, James Comey, refused to pledge his loyalty. Comey insisted on continuing an investigation into the actions of Gen. Michael T. Flynn, Trump’s first pick for National Security Advisor. 

Trump fired Comey when he refused to give the pledge. Then he called Comey a liar and swore he never asked him for a pledge. 

Schmidt now writes that Kelly turned down the offer and the pledge. “Kelly said that he would be loyal to the Constitution and the rule of law, but he refused to pledge his loyalty to Trump.” 

(If you can find any evidence that Gen. Kelly has denied this story let me know, by emailing me at vilejjv@yahoo.com.)

*

IN A POLL taken by Military Times magazine, even before this story exploded, it was clear Trump was losing support among active duty troops. Asked in late July and early August, 49.9 percent of respondents said they disapproved of his job performance, including 42 percent of all those polled who “strongly disapproved.” Only 38 percent approved. If the election had been held then, 41 percent said they would vote for Joe Biden, 37 percent for Trump. (Another 13 percent planned to vote third party; and nine percent said they’d sit out the election.)