45 | Prose in the Pandemic

A homonym for “staff” is “staph”, as in infection, as in sickness, as in being made to feel weak. And the Chief of this country right now is making all of us with a decent IQ and with a high EQ very sick and weak. Or maybe weary is a better word. Weary of his bald-faced lies and frightening egoism and narcissism. Whenever he opens his mouth (according to those who still listen to him; I do not.), the focus of what he says is entirely on 1. him; 2. himself; 3. what a wonderful job he’s doing in the white house; 4. castigating leaders who outperform his leadership; and 5. invecting string of non-sequiturs starved for punctuation or resolution.

The man is a farce. But one can’t laugh at him because he is responsible for the growth of illness and its resultant deaths. Although he says he’s not responsible, he’s in the number one leadership position and with that seat comes: RESPONSIBILITY. He’s responsible for ignoring or suppressing information related to the COVID-19 VIRUS coming into our country. He is a literal image of Alice falling through the tunnel on the other side of the looking glass and ending up on his bottom in the middle of the Queen of Heart’s croquet match in which he has blocked any escape himself.

The real and quite present danger is that this nonsensicality is taking lives, costing money and unseating the social norm. And the shame of it is lost on him or has the shelf life of a dog’s thought.

But we will not forget it. We saw it coming. We saw the danger it threw at our health care system, food supply chain and economic well-being.

And we who’ve suffered at his hand’s folly will not forget.

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In this sentence fragment, what would be the next word I’d use to finish it? Political Crisis Too large to comprehend? Too obscene to merit news coverage? Too regrettable to have happened given the easier course that might have been taken? And changing “too” to “two” would be a gross under-calculation by an order of magnitude going back to November 2016.

The then President-elect hadn’t taken the oath of office yet, but had already engaged in activities creating crises that if not illegal, were certainly against the rules and regulations of an orderly transition of government. For an example, only two weeks after the election, the Government Ethics Office which serves as a partner and “parameter setter” during transitions of power, had lost all contact with the President-elect’s Transition Team. The Transition Team and its President-elect was sending envoys all over the globe to do…? This supplanted the then incumbent Administration’s ability to conduct its foreign policy.

The transition between Administrations and the details and regulations governing them are seen as arcane procedures hardly noticed by the general public. It’s the “making sausage” part of accomplishing the government’s service.

Since its inception, the United States government has gone through, as stated by Ronald Reagan in his first inaugural address: “The orderly transfer of authority as called for in the Constitution…” The transfers have gone smoothly, with a few occasional pranks, such as when incoming staff of George W. Bush arrived in the West Wing to find all of the “W” keys removed from computer keyboards.

The 45th President’s transition was unlike any other, with all sorts of agents storming into cabinet-level departments and running policy. Instead of the transition being likened to picking up the needle from a record mid-song and placing it on another song, the current Administration scratched the needle across all of the vinyl and didn’t even select a song. And with each disregard for policy and protocol, the new Administration all but ensured that crisis would be the way of governing.

And now it’s the new normal, this defensive, unapologetic and at times, vengeful public policy management. One might be inclined to ask: “Is this management style partly responsible for the current crisis related to COVID-19”? The responses would be subjective, depending on whether you’re an elephant, donkey, green blade of grass, or liberated free thinker. But the underlying undeniable fact in common is that this is a crisis, with no obvious end in sight.

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