{"id":110493,"date":"2021-01-07T17:21:44","date_gmt":"2021-01-08T00:21:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=110493"},"modified":"2021-01-07T17:21:44","modified_gmt":"2021-01-08T00:21:44","slug":"covid-21-the-trump-virus-affects-74-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/01\/07\/covid-21-the-trump-virus-affects-74-million\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID 21- The Trump Virus affects 74 million"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Raj Gonsalkorale<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

\u2026.and\nthe White House will be occupied by a downright fool and a complete\nnarcissistic moron \u2013H L Mencken 1920<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\nis 97 years since H L Mencken\u2019s comment was reportedly published in the\nBaltimore Evening Sun on the 26th<\/sup> of July 1920. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Who was this person? As per\nthe Wikipedia Henry Louis Mencken<\/strong> (September 12, 1880 \u2013 January\n29, 1956) was an American journalist, essayist<\/a>, satirist<\/a>, cultural critic<\/a>, and scholar of American\nEnglish. He commented widely on the social scene, literature, music,\nprominent politicians, and contemporary movements. His satirical reporting on\nthe Scopes Trial<\/a>, which he dubbed the “Monkey\nTrial,” also gained him attention. As a scholar, Mencken is known\nfor The American\nLanguage<\/em><\/a>,\na multi-volume study of how the English language is spoken in the United\nStates. As an admirer of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche<\/a>, he was an outspoken\nopponent of organized religion<\/a>, theism<\/a>, populism<\/a>, and representative\ndemocracy<\/a>,\nthe last of which he viewed as a system in which inferior men dominated their\nsuperiors. Mencken was a\nsupporter of scientific progress and was critical of osteopathy<\/a> and chiropractic<\/a>. He was also an open critic of economics<\/a>. Mencken\nopposed the American entry into both World War I<\/a> and World War II<\/a>.\nSome of the terminology in his private diary entries has been described by some\nresearchers as racist<\/a> and anti-Semitic<\/a>,\nalthough this characterization has been disputed. His attitude to\nAfrican-Americans reflected the conservative paternalism<\/a> of\nhis era and “the kind of anti-Semitism that appears in Mencken’s private\ndiary may be found elsewhere: for example, in the early letters of Eleanor Roosevelt<\/a> and Adlai Stevenson<\/a>.”\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nworld could judge whether Mencken\u2019s prediction 97 years is accurate and whether\nthe incumbent in the White House is a downright fool and a complete narcissistic\nmoron\u201d.  The events that unfurled since\nthe Presidential election on the 3rd<\/sup> of November and what was\nwitnessed today (6th<\/sup> January 2021) perhaps will strengthen and\nconfirm Mencken\u2019s prediction 97 years after that prediction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How\nelse could one describe the happenings since November 3rd<\/sup>? Only a\nfool would pursue with the litany of challenges that President Trump engaged in\ndirectly and indirectly through his cronies. The legality and the admissibility\nof all challenges had failed one after the other. But, Trump continued unfazed.\nHis accusations that there was mass scale fraud and failures in the voting\nsystem and mechanisms, were unproven in every State where he made such\nchallenges. The Senate runoff election contradicted his stand that he had won\nGeorgia by hundreds and thousands\u201d of votes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nrunoff election delivered both Senate seats to the Democratic party and the\nhundreds and thousands\u201d of votes never materialised for the GOP contestants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why\nis the President a fool? A simple reason. He has been in power for 4 years and\nboth houses of congress have been in Republican control during his tenure. If\nfraud occurred due to systemic and systematic shortcomings in the election\nsystem, the man who presided over the system was none other than Trump himself.\nIt is then his lack of leadership and ability to manage the system by working\nclosely with State leaders, both Republican and Democratic, to address\nshortcomings, if any, and loop holes, if any, the crux of the problem. When he\naccuses others of fraud and mismanagement, he is in fact spitting in the air\nwith his face up. All the legal challenges have concluded that he has not been\nable to produce any acceptable evidence of substantial fraud or mismanagement.\nTrump should be happy that he had a good system working! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\nabout a person being a narcissistic moron? Help Guide.Org states that a Narcissistic personality disorder\ninvolves a pattern of self-centered, arrogant thinking and behavior, a lack of\nempathy and consideration for other people, and an excessive need for\nadmiration. Others often describe people with NPD as cocky, manipulative,\nselfish, patronizing, and demanding\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is difficult to argue that Trump has not\nshown these characteristics although it is left to the readers to dwell on his\nbehaviour and make up their own minds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Moron? Who is a moron? Dictionaries uniformly\ndescribe a moron as a person who is notably stupid or lacking in\ngood judgment. The encouragement given to the mob invasion of the Congress to\nthwart a hitherto ceremonial final constitutional process of ratifying the\nelectoral college vote was, for many, the last straw. This lack of judgement on\nwhat is more important, whether it\u2019s himself or the country and law an order,\ndemonstrated an elevated degree of stupidity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whilst not wishing to pre judge President\nTrump, his record after four years in office, and especially his judgement and\nactions since he lost the election so convincingly to Joe Biden, does not auger\nwell for him and his place in history. Above all, he has cast doubts on the key\nplank of democracy, law and order, in a country that championed democracy\nthroughout the world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He has divided his own country and he has\nextinguished the flame that the USA held as the citadel of democracy. He has\nbrought it closer to the rank of third world countries as far as law and order\nis concerned, and who were lectured incessantly by the USA about democracy and\nlaw and order. He leaves office as the Emperor without clothes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another aspect to his performance is how he has\nmanaged to infect some 74 million of his countrymen with the deadly virus he is\ncarrying, COVID 21. While COVID 19 affected the lungs, COVID 21 appears to have\naffected the brain. It is unlikely that a vaccine could be found for this\nvirus. Joe Biden and Kamal Harris have a monumental task to bring some degree\nof sanity back to a divided country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, the principle adversaries of the\nUSA, China and Russia are perhaps raising toasts in celebration of what the\nlast four years have done to the USA, and if they had a hand in it,\ncongratulating themselves for winning a bloodless battle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The USA needs to be strong in the democratic\nfront as the alternative of rising authoritarianism is not a welcome\ndevelopment. The expansion of Chinese and Russian dominance in the world needs\nto be kept in check and the USA needs to give leadership to all forces who\ndesire this to happen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, just confirmed as\nthe next President and the Vice President of the USA by a joint session of the\ncongress, have a monumental task to undo the damage done by the outgoing\nPresident and restore the seriously damaged credibility of the USA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Raj Gonsalkorale \u2026.and the White House will be occupied by a downright fool and a complete narcissistic moron \u2013H L Mencken 1920 It is 97 years since H L Mencken\u2019s comment was reportedly published in the Baltimore Evening Sun on the 26th of July 1920. Who was this person? As per the Wikipedia Henry […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-raj-gonsalkorale"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110493\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}