Landslide is the only solution

Bob Woodward’s confirmation that President Trump lied about the seriousness of Covid19 is no surprise. Anyone with a functioning brain knows that by now. But getting the admission on tape, along with the fact that the source of some of the information on contagiousness of the virus was Chinese President Xi, was a journalistic coup. It would have been even more so had Woodward published it earlier, but he claims he wanted to save it for his book because that afforded him the longer form to provide fuller context. It also of course helps him market his product.

In a rational world, Woodward’s revelation would end Trump’s ability to market himself. His “playing down” the virus cost more something like 150,000 lives, so far. Shutdowns, masks and social distancing earlier and more consistently would have saved about that many. People are still dying as a result of Trump’s neglect of the most important Presidential responsibility: to protect Americans. This appalling dereliction of duty has had real world consequences.

It is hard for me to imagine how anyone could vote for a President who did such a thing. His achievements are easy to list: appointing supposedly conservative but too often unqualified judges, a massive tax cut for the rich, and validation of white nationalism as a political force in the United States. His failures, in addition to his mendacious response to Covid19, take longer:

• Inability to cope with social justice protests in a productive way and encouragement of violence and threats of violence against peaceful protesters.
• A collapsed economy that even before the epidemic was growing no faster than in President Obama’s last three years.
• A ballooning budget deficit, again even before the epidemic hit.
• Unfounded attacks on the right to vote.
• Repeated efforts to deprive millions of Americans of the health insurance they obtained from Obamacare, without providing an alternative.
• Failure in the trade war with China, which has cost the US government many billions in agricultural and other subsidies to offset the export losses due to tariffs.
• Accelerated Iranian progress towards nuclear weapons, entirely due to Trump’s withdrawal of the US from the nuclear deal.
• North Korean refusal to give up their nuclear weapons, despite offers of massive economic assistance.
• Consolidation of President Maduro’s power in Venezuela.

Trump wants you to think that withdrawal of a few thousand troops from Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the Israel/UAE deal were big achievements. Far from it: the US still has more troops in the greater Middle East than before he took office. The UAE/Israel deal only contributes to peace between two countries who have never been at war and have precious little reason to fight. It makes an Israel/Palestine deal more difficult, not less.

Even before the latest headlines, Jeffrey Goldberg had assembled the evidence of Trump’s disdain for the American military. That, too, was well-known to anyone paying attention to Trump’s mythical bonespurs and his public denunciation of John McCain, but the things Trump has said in private about the troops being “losers” and “suckers” compounded what some might have hoped to dismiss as misdemeanors into felonies. Polling of America’s troops suggests that they will be voting against a Republican for the first time in a long while.

The right thing for Trump to do now is resign and allow Pence to take over, hoping that would improve Republican prospects in the November 3 election. He could then re-assume the office and would be hard to fault for doing so, as the voice of the people would have been heard. He won’t do that, because he can’t afford to lose this election or even leave office for a few months. Both his finances and his freedom are at risk, because the Russians won’t continue anteing up and state Attorneys General will be indicting him on felony charges. So instead he will stay on the ballot and try to de-legitimize the election results, especially if they show him winning on election night but losing due to mail-in ballots a couple of days later.

The only way of preventing that is a landslide in favor of Biden, starting on election night. Even then, Trump may try to prevent Biden from getting a majority in the Electoral College by convincing Republican governors to withhold communication of their electoral votes. But a clear and unequivocal electoral vote victory, in addition to Biden’s all but certain popular vote margin, would do a great deal to save America from a chaotic outcome.