A Sick Gorilla

I made the following comment on Owen's blog this morning regarding Donald Trump:

To watch Trump turn this thing [Covid-19 crisis] into a personal exercise of ego and imbecility makes me believe we live next door to an egregiously backward nation, one that can no longer command any worldwide respect.

May that contagion never spread.

Clearly, I am not alone in that view. In today's Star, Bruce Arthur offers this observation:

... we don’t have a North American ally anymore .... We have a sick gorilla in a cage, and we have to constantly worry how it might lash out.

... it is obvious to anybody who watches Donald Trump for five minutes that the man is a wicked, lying child who bluffed his way into being in charge of an aircraft carrier, and has no idea what to do now.

The crisis the world today faces puts in stark relief Trump's myriad shortcomings:

The president is in denial, and spends every day going on television performing a grotesque improvisational opera of empty promises, disinformation and blame, while agitating to reopen the country for the sake of the stock market.

Most of us have known for some time, of course, just how toxic, dysfunctional and disabled the United States has become as a consequence of their elevating Trump to the presidency. Unfortunately, there is no inoculation against their folly.

So yes, the United States holding up a shipment of masks at the U.S.-Canada border that was meant for Ontario — a shipment of three million, according to Ontario Premier Doug Ford, of which 500,000 were released as of Monday morning — was a big deal. But it was more than that, too.

Shortages in Ontario hospitals are entering a new stage. Ford claims the province is a week from exhausting its own stores of PPE. On Thursday of last week some hospitals in the GTA started asking employees to save N95 masks, and said they anticipated there would be a way to decontaminate and reuse them.

When you have a system where healthcare and equipment is available to the highest bidder, chaos is inevitable:

In a for-profit medical system, the top employers of ER doctors are groups owned by private-equity companies, including Canada’s Onex. ProPublica reported they are cutting doctor hours, because the demand for non-COVID-19 health care has collapsed, and the revenue isn’t there.

Red states and blue states are getting different amounts of PPE, but it sounds as chaotic as anything. After several shipments of PPE destined for the states were essentially hijacked by the federal government, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker had to go on a stealth mission to China with the owner of the New England Patriots under the guise of a humanitarian mission to secure 1.5 million masks.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported an Illinois official had to race to a McDonald’s rest stop outside Chicago with a $3.4 million (U.S.) cheque to beat out other bidders for N95s. California is putting together a consortium of states to bid collectively. If only there were another way to say “A Consortium of States.”

Every day, as the Covid crisis rolls on, I am deeply, deeply thankful to live in a country with leadership that, while not perfect, has not forgotten the people it serves.

Clearly, the same cannot be said about the rapidly declining, unwinding United States of America.