Upon the United States’ entrance into World War II, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt didn’t sugar coat the picture to boost the stock market. He didn’t promise a quick and easy victory, or that, like a miracle, conflict would simply end. He didn’t contort himself into a pretzel, patting himself on the back, congratulating himself for “doing a spectacular job,” while whining about governors and mayors not sufficiently articulating their fawning appreciation for his noble leadership.
Instead, Roosevelt looked America in the eye and asked everyone in the nation to make personal sacrifices in support of the war effort. That’s what a wartime president does.
Able-bodied Americans answered the call, interrupted their careers, put their lives on hold, left their families behind, and risked life and limb to serve the war effort. On the home front, folks did what needed to be done, despite rationing of essential items like gasoline, butter, sugar, and milk. Families took pots and pans from their own cupboards to supply steel for the manufacture of tanks and battleships. Americans even had to go without chocolate and nylon stockings.
Donald Trump calls himself “a wartime president.” Yet, he lacks the minimal leadership required to follow guidelines recommended by his own administration. “I won’t be doing it, personally,” he said, with oily condescension, after reading a CDC recommendation that the general public wear protective face masks. “I don’t know, I just don’t see myself doing it. Maybe I’ll change my mind.”
Nowhere in the history books does President Roosevelt say, “You know, I don’t think I see myself giving up Bundt Cake. You guys can do what you want but I’m keeping plenty of butter and sugar in my kitchen.”
Trump has continually demonstrated that he considers himself aloof from the inconvenient trappings of Plebian drudgery. Perhaps that’s part of his appeal to those who believe their personal liberty is vastly more important than any sacrifice that might benefit the common good.
One might attribute that attitude to good, ol’ fashioned American individualism. But, in a crisis or a war, Americans have traditionally come together to co-shoulder the burden. Trump, however, takes egocentricity a giant stride further. His idea of personal sacrifice is having to lift the Big Mac up from the wax wrapping to his own salivating pie hole. As a presidential candidate, Trump declared, “We don’t win anymore!” Maybe that has less to do with all those other meanie nations taking advantage of ineffective American leadership and more to do with slovenly, fast-food-addicted Trumpists’ inability to see their own feet.
President Roosevelt created the Office of Price Administration (OPA) which placed ceilings on what companies could charge for goods, while establishing a rationing regime to conserve and distribute resources equitably. Again, that’s what a wartime president does. And every overly testosteroned American who might have joined an armed demonstration to protest his precious freedoms getting trampled on was off combatting evil Axis forces or skirmishing with the Japanese.
In direct contrast, President Trump is setting states up to bid against each other for essential life-saving equipment, so he can then confiscate that equipment for the federal government. He saves his war powers to order meat processing plants to remain open, thus keeping the public’s arteries as log-jammed as his, and putting the lives of a half-million workers at risk. Heaven forbid that any MAGA-capped American is deprived of his next pulled-pork sandwich! That would be too great a sacrifice to ask of any red-blooded patriot.
Now that Americans have grown weary of televised marathon indulgences in self-aggrandizement, blatant prevarication, and bone-headed harangues against representatives of the “fake news,” preparations are being made for POTUS to take his snake-oil sales pitch out to the Heartland. First stop, Arizona!
In addition, to keep his ever-so-fragile ego inflated, the Big Boss Man sprung a surprise on West Point, by inviting himself to give the venerable institution’s 2020 commencement speech. Never mind that “Pomp and Circumstance” had already been put on ice and grads dispatched homeward, to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Now, 1,000 young men and women will be traveling back to campus, only to be quarantined for 14 days, just so the enormous Orange Cock can strut and crow incoherently for an hour.
“The president feels cooped up,”Washington Post White House Bureau Chief Philip Rucker remarked Wednesday on MSNBC. This, Rucker explains, is why the White House staff is jumping through hoops to satisfy Trump’s insatiable need to remain in the spotlight.
“Well, BOOHOO!” Nicole Wallace responded to Rucker. “So does my 8-year-old. But I’m not going to take him on a caravan across the country and endanger American lives.”
One wonders how “cooped up” Trump would feel if he were a laid-off waiter or a barber sheltering in a tiny inner-city apartment with two or three kids bouncing off the walls. Now, that’s sacrifice!
Wallace, a vet of the GW Bush White House, noted that it requires a support staff of hundreds to facilitate any presidential jaunt — secret service agents, pilots, drivers, flight attendants, cooks, logistics personnel, advance liaison, etc. Presumably, the president and his massive entourage will all be privileged with access to frequent quick COVID-19 tests.
Meanwhile, Blowhard McTrump will be out there leading the cheer: “Let’s get back to business as usual! Let’s get the economy booming again!” The people he’ll be targeting with this dubious rallying cry, however, will not have access to testing — until, of course, they begin showing symptoms. Still, he’s urging them to throw caution to the wind, jeopardize their health and the health of their families, co-workers, and customers. Again, Americans, you make the sacrifice, you engage the risk, while this self-described “wartime president” refuses to even cover his smug, rusty mug with a surgical mask.
A side note: Air Force One and the fleets of Limos and SUVs that will be convoying the whiny brat prez on his preening parade across America will be giving a desperately needed boost to the fossil fuel industry, while bilging global-warming emissions into what have been extraordinarily clear skies. Surely, Trump sees all of this as a win-win-win.
The final question is… Who gets the envious job of hoisting that heavy cheeseburger up to ravenous Fat-Elvis’s mouth? For dessert, Mr. President… may I suggest Bundt Cake?
Rand Bishop (Gimpy Ol’ Norman) is the author of the memoir, TREK: My Peace Pilgrimage in Search of a Kinder America. Part One of Bishop’s new serialized satirical e-book novella Option (D): Dosing Donald is now available in Kindle edition.