September 3, 2020: Peter Navarro Praises His Orange Hero

 

9/3/20: Trump had so much fun on Wednesday, telling North Carolina supporters to go vote twice, he thought he’d suggest it again Thursday, in Pennsylvania. At a stopover for a rally – rallies being the only part of the job he’s good at – the president delivered the same message. Get a mail-in ballot. Fill it out. Send it in. On Election Day, go to the polls. Check to see if your vote has been registered. 

Then vote again, just to be safe. (See: 9/2/20.)

 

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It was the kind of fawning praise any sycophant serving any dictator in history might have used.

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IN A MINOR, yet telling story, Trump economic advisor Peter Navarro defended himself in an interview with CNN. Allegations of verbal abuse of staffers, particularly young females, had surfaced. That would be bad enough. It was his own defense that added a level of extra creepiness to the tale. 

“My mission in this administration,” Navarro said, “ is to serve as a soldier for the greatest commander in chief ever.”  It was the kind of fawning praise any sycophant serving any dictator in history might have used. It was the verbal equivalent of North Koreans clapping wildly, in unison, when Kim Jong-un spoke. 

And need I point out, Trump isn’t a “commander” in any sense of the word, nor is Navarro a “soldier.” Trump dodged service entirely, when he had a chance to lead and fight, getting a doctor to say he had bone spurs.

North Koreans serenading Kim Jong-un

 

In checking on Navarro, I noticed he’s the same age as me, born in July 1949. He never served in the U.S. military, at a time when finding soldiers to send to Vietnam got harder every year. 

“Patriots of the tongue,” you could say.

 

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MEANWHILE, the coronavirus rages. Hospitals continue to overflow. Business operations are badly hampered. School openings are complicated, even where openings get off to a good start. Temple University, facing an outbreak of COVID-19, decided to send all students home. The University of Alabama is hoping to squeeze in a football season, but 1,200 students are infected. Amtrak has announced plans to furlough 2,000 workers, as ridership evaporates. Lego sales, at least, are up 14%, with families stuck at home. The federal government continues to spill red ink. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the accumulated deficit will, by the end of FY 2020, equal 98% of GDP. By the end of FY 2021, we will have a pile of debt greater than our entire annual economic output as a nation. By 2023, the CBO warns, our debt-to-GDP ratio will be higher than it was in 1946, when we had just gone through the Great Depression and fought one of the greatest wars in history. 

More bad news: The CBO predicts the Medicare hospital trust fund will go dry in 2024. 

The Social Security Trust Fund will be depleted by 2031.

 

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LAST, BUT NOT LEAST, former Republican governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder pens an editorial in USA Today. President Trump, he warns, “lacks a moral compass” and “ignores the truth.” Trump, he adds, is a “bully,” and Snyder calls it “a tragedy watching our world suffer from one.” 

He won’t vote for the man.