We, the people. Not ‘I, the President’
President Trump’s incompetence and recklessness with managing the Coronavirus pandemic are beyond comparison. We see an average of 1,000 deaths per day and close to 100,000 infections per day, and he is conducting superspreader events to make things worse. During one of my conversations with a friend, he laid out his usual “skepticisms” about coronavirus, its origin, and the validity of the numbers. As I laid out my case about Trump’s failure of leadership on handling the pandemic, I explained how Trump failed us on climate change, immigration, law and order, education, healthcare, and the economy as well. I agree with most of my fellow citizens that the pandemic and its mismanagement should be at the forefront of reasons for not giving Trump a second chance. However, we cannot ignore his failure on all the other critical priorities for our great nation. These failures will haunt for generations to come.
Let’s start with his cabinet selection. All Presidents pick the cabinet members for their proven leadership in this area and their passion for supporting the department’s mission they were elected to lead. Donald Trump did the exact opposite — he picked people who not only had any proven leadership qualities, but their experience was to lead causes against the department.
Scott Pruitt:
Title Environmental Protection Agency Administrator
Role under Trump administration: Proxy for Energy Companies, and Environment Destroyer in Chief
President-elect Donald Trump picked Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to run the EPA, putting one of the agency’s most hostile critics and a skeptic of climate change science at its helm. The effects on our planet will be devastating for decades to come. Scott Pruit rolled back several meaningful climate change reforms, rolled back higher emission standards, and revered clean energy production policies. He was not just a bad administrator, but he was extremely unethical and immoral, and his behavior led to several investigations on his conduct while in office. This cloud of oversight eventually led to his resignation.
Betsy DeVos
Title: US Secretary of Education
Role under Trump Administration: Dismantler of Public Education
Betsy DeVos, a businesswoman who’s known best for her efforts to promote school choice, a controversial idea that critics say takes money out of public schools. President Trump selected Betsy DeVos to do exactly what she is best suited to do, dismantle the US public education system. She has negatively impacted the lives of students by enabling borrowers to cheat students on financial aid loans. She has exposed millions of students and teachers to COVID19 by forcing schools to open without providing guidance, resources, or support.
Steven Mnuchin
Title: US Secretary of Treasury
Role under Trump Administration: Guardian of Wall Street
Previously, Mnuchin had been a hedge fund manager and investor. Upon graduating from Yale University in 1985, Mnuchin worked for significant investment bank Goldman Sachs where his father, Robert E. Mnuchin, was a General Partner. He worked at Goldman Sachs for 17 years, eventually becoming its Chief Information Officer. His role under the Trump administration was focused on protecting the interests of wall street instead of fighting for the main street’s interests.
Mnuchin oversaw many destructive policies in his role. However, the worst offense is the rapid accumulation of debt.
From January 20, 2017, to November 1, Trump piled $3.1 trillion onto the debt, amounting to a 16% increase. That’s significantly less than the $4.3 trillion President Barack Obama added from January 2009 to November 1, 2011, but far more than the $1.1 trillion Bush added in a similar period and the $794 billion Clinton did in 1,016 days as president.
There is a crucial distinction separating the circumstances behind Trump and Obama’s debt figures. Trump inherited an economy undergoing its longest sustained expansion. On the other hand, Obama entered the White House as the nation veered into a recession that sparked massive stimulus spending and a bailout of the auto industry. What’s the impact of this unhindered spending? CBO projects debt will reach 98 percent of GDP this year and 104 percent of GDP in 2021, eclipsing the economy’s size for the first time since right after World War II. Trump keeps claiming that he ‘built the best economy in the whole world’ I don’t think bankrupting the federal government is the same as building the best economy. For Trump, they might look the same because most of his business ventures collapsed. I do think Americans are smarter than he gives them credit for.
Stephen Miller
Title: Senior Advisor to Donald Trump
Role under Trump Administration: Implement most inhumane immigration policies
Stephen Miller’s politics have been described as far-right and anti-immigration. He was previously the communications director for then-Senator Jeff Sessions. He was also a press secretary for U.S. representatives Michele Bachmann and John Shadegg. As a speechwriter for Trump, Miller helped write Trump’s inaugural address.
When leaked emails showed Miller exchanging links to publications known to support white-nationalist ideology with a Breitbart editor, Miller was called a “bonafide white nationalist” and faced calls from several House committees for his resignation.
One of the few remaining staffers from Trump’s 2016 campaign, Miller has also written some of the president’s biggest speeches, including Trump’s first State of the Union address.
Impact of having a white nationalist, anti-immigration policy adviser as your right-hand man?
About 545 kids made orphans forcibly by DHS in the name of the “family separation” act.
Trump issued a “Muslim Ban” that was eventually rewritten because of the challenges from the court.
The Zero tolerance policy was called inhumane by Refugees International
In short, Trump’s immigration policies made the following words on Statue of Liberty a joke:
“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Trump and his administration are not just incompetent. They are fulfilling their explicit mission to destroy the organizations they were supposed to protect. Case in point — President Donald Trump nominated former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to lead the Department of Energy — the agency Perry wanted to abolish but infamously forgot to name during a 2011 presidential debate. The answer is simple; the best way to destroy a department is to put its antagonist at the organization’s helm. Rick Perry, Ben Carson, Scott Pruit, Betsy Davos, Steve Mnuchin, and Donald Trump do not care about us. They do care about the deep-pocketed Chartered Schools, Private colleges, Hedge funds, Investors, corporations, lobbyists, and polluters.
Yes, President Trump failed us on COVID19, leading to the deaths of over 228,000 innocent Americans already. But that’s not his only offense.
He is destroying our planet with his EPA deregulations.
He is bankrupting the country with deficit spending.
He is enriching himself by making corrupt deals with dictators and autocrats.
He does not deserve a second chance.
He has failed us as a leader on every front.