Running Against Phantoms

 

 “Oh God… In any other country, Joe Biden and I would not be in the same party, but in America, we are.”                     

Freshman Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York Magazine, January 6, 2020

The progressive wing of the Democratic Party watched as conservatives – from a 95-year-old WWII veteran, Colin Power and John Kasich (who remain Republicans) to a litany of former Republicans rejecting Donald Trump – formed the backbone of individual presentations at the Democratic Convention. Sure, progressives were given their moments in the sun – AOC and Bernie Sanders included – but the overall tenor of the Convention was dominated by a message in the middle. As Donald Trump famously embraces his base, caters to their whims and pretty much reject most of the rest of the country, Joe Biden touted his commitment to be a president for all Americans. He even suggested the “C” word: compromise, a concept that is apostacy to almost every Republican in Congress.

The promise of an optimistic Republican Convention, a contrast to the campaign against the GOP-imposed “darkness” repeatedly described at the Dems’ event, seems a bit forced. A law and order agenda, refocusing on building an unpopular wall in lieu of a coherent immigration reform package, continuing to dismiss the rising toll of COVID-19 victims under an obvious lack of federal leadership and bragging about a stock market rise amidst the worst slam on individual workers and small businesses since the Great Depression required more. How about a radical, lawless, Democratic Party unable to accomplish anything (but they weren’t the party in power?), fomenting riots, crime in the streets, an erasure of cultural heritage (like slave owners and those who fought for their right to keep slaves) about to confiscate everyone’s guns ready to give away taxpayers’ money to people unwilling to work for a living (Jobs? Now? Really? Where?).

That would work for those who have kept their heads buried in right-wing sand… but since that isn’t remotely what the Democrats are or what their Convention reflected, what to do? Since not too many diehard Trump followers wasted their time watching the Convention, choosing instead to believe the distorted summaries of that political event delivered by Fox News anchors and analysts, reality could easily be ignored. Simply: Fabricate a Democratic Party “antifa” enemy of American patriotic values and run against that! What a concept. Ignore the real Dems and run against this fake image of Dems. How about continuing to deny the pandemic damage, blame Democratic governors for any failures, take credit for real or imagined “success” (even if statistical evidence of that “success” requires additional distortion and fabrication), and deny and denigrate data that contradicts any of the above. It worked in 2016 and during Trump’s entire reign, so why not stick with that strategy.  

Observers from overseas continue to be aghast. They look at the United States as a rogue nation that has taken a truly bad situation and made it so much worse. Nothing screams American incompetence – really the failure from the top – like the Newsweek chart above. A significant number of older Trump supporters have watched nursing home fatalities at staggeringly horrible levels. No amount of GOP grandstanding can negate their fears, their repugnance at the false Trump platitudes, even snake-oil “cures,” that substituted for viable solutions as elders were the largest single segment of US pandemic fatalities, have simmered to the surface. Oh, and their
Social Security checks and Medicare shipments are stuck in a shutdown post office somewhere. A gift from “vote-by-mail” opponent Donald John Trump.

The political polarization of scientific and medical containment practices – those who took precautions were instantly labeled Trump-opponents focused on shutting down the economy to make their leader look bad – were found to be shocking evidence to the rest of the world of the danger of a thoughtless, cavalier United States. Absent a compelling justification, American travelers are banned from entering countries all over the earth, particularly in most of Europe. America has become the great contaminator, singlehandedly able to rekindle that dreaded second wave of the novel coronavirus.

Nothing illustrates this fear, this reviling of America, like the behavior of US soldiers stationed in Okinawa, a small island at the southern reach of the Japanese archipelago. Americans brought their rejection of science and medical reality to a nation that was totally committed to facts and containment efforts. “Shortly after July 4, a video emerged online showing crowds of revelers dancing at a party on one of Okinawa’s beaches. The event to celebrate American Independence Day was hosted by a former U.S. Marine, and not one person in the video was wearing a face mask .

“To ordinary Japanese watching on social media — who had spent four months in self-restrained voluntary lockdown — it was a stunning snub to the nation’s efforts to keep the coronavirus under control… ‘We’re all being extra cautious not to allow any infection, so to see that video made me so angry and disappointed,’ said Chieko Oshiro, who heads a residents’ group in Okinawa, Japan’s southernmost island… ‘We’re all being extra cautious not to allow any infection, so to see that video made me so angry and disappointed,’ said Chieko Oshiro, who heads a residents’ group in Okinawa, Japan’s southernmost island.

“The virus outbreaks since, which have made Okinawa the hot spot of Japan’s second wave of COVID-19, may not have been directly linked to the party — or the others like it held on the island that evening — but in the court of public opinion, it was the smoking gun… It has stoked anger within Okinawa, where the heavy presence of U.S. military bases and the behavior of the 20,000 Marines and other military personnel stationed there have been a long-standing source of tension… ‘Trust in the [Japan-U.S.] security alliance is on the brink of collapse,’ Denny Tamaki, Okinawa governor and a former leader of the anti-U.S.-base movement, warned on a recent TV program.

“In theory, Okinawa should have been well placed to manage the spread of COVID-19. Visitor numbers plummeted after Japan declared a state of emergency in April, and the military bases that dominate the island should have been shining examples of discipline and control… Instead, many Okinawans were left feeling betrayed by two governments — Japanese and U.S. — that they believe rarely work in their best interests.

“There was Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ill-conceived campaign to reignite domestic tourism that led to more than 100,000 arrivals in June from cities such as Tokyo and Osaka undergoing their own outbreaks… Islanders also watched in dismay as more than 340 U.S. military personnel tested positive for the virus in the months after the first confirmed case on one of the island’s bases in late March.” Kana Inagaki and Leo Lewis writing for the August 23^rd Financial Times. This is the legacy of Trump’s failed leadership, the GOP’s continuing embrace of that failed leadership, and the undercurrent that not only defines Trump’s political legacy but ripples beneath every aspect of the Republican Convention. If you are rich and do not have empathy or if you prefer mythology and despite facts, Trump is for you. If you are anyone else….

            I’m Peter Dekom, and facts just are, will continue to operate without care of political unpopularity, and they will take out non-believers with super-efficient disdain for their beliefs.