The Best: A look back on a Trump Presidency…
He’s the best business man, the best politician, the best Covid planner, and now, thanks to his mask-less idiocy, he’s now the best Covid patient ever! Oh, wait. He’s already cured! He’s fantastic! It’s amazing–maybe he’s immune, to quote the moron himself. Okay, emotional rant finished, everything to follow will be facts, meant for Democrats AND Republicans alike, promise. (It will also be snarky. Still based on facts, though, so you can understand how it is impossible for me to resist.)
I was reading about a lot of different Trump stuff, taking a look back at his presidency, and one tangled web led me to another. We already know about mega donors, and overlaps with Ambassadorships and appointments and all of that, but it is worth a fresh look, I think, as we face our election in 20 days.
What a strange time we are living in. Trump saves the world by making America great again, right? Since Trump came into office, he’s appointed his family as experts, and his cronies in all kinds of positions. A king must secure his castle. He’s had several press secretaries after hiring, then firing, “the best people.” Trump’s cabinet, too, has changed and shifted multiple times with various cabinet members– several of them with dubious qualifications. (Clearly, this demonstrates why Trump is the best President and the best manager.) To name just a few examples, Trump appointed a Secretary of Education (Betsy Devos) who doesn’t believe in public education. Educational qualification: a Bachelor’s degree from Ripon College, a small, private one.
Betsy DeVos and Trump 
Betsy DeVos’s Summer home
To replace Rick Perry, Trump’s first pick for Secretary of Energy was Dan Brouillette who, like Trump, believes that forest management is to blame for the West coast’s raging fires. His college degree is a BA. In dietetics. (Dietetics is the study of nutrition.) In a previous position, Brouillette was Vice President of the Ford Motor Company. The list continues as several of Trump’s cabinet members have changed –multiple times– over the years he has been in office.
Dietetics Dan 
Forest Management
Let’s also not forget that President Trump hired a Postmaster General with no postal service work experience. When questioned, DeJoy did know the price of a stamp, to be fair. He did not know, however, the price of a postcard stamp. Hmm. Over many years, DeJoy was a “mega donor” to the Trump campaign and to the Republican party, according to both Washington Post and Fox news. Fox News!! After he was hired, DeJoy almost immediately eliminated and dismantled several mailboxes throughout the country… at a time people need to vote by mail more than ever. During a pandemic.
It is well established that both DeJoy and his wife, Aldona Wos, are mega donors to both the Trump campaign and the Republican party at large. According to Forbes, they’ve donated $1.2 million, to be exact, to the Trump Victory Fund alone. According to NPR, they’ve donated more than $2 million dollars to the RNC.
Working backwards in the timeline, DeJoy’s wife, Aldona Wos, became the newest ambassador to Canada after Kelly Craft. Craft left the ambassador role with some controversy. The Senate foreign relations committee questioned her absence from Canada: More than 300 days absent out of 19 months of service. Multiple sources show that Kraft was often in one of her homes (plural) in Kentucky, or Oklahoma, USA, which, as it happens, are not in Canada. Craft’s absences included 60 personal days and the equivalent of seven months spent in places where she had homes. (Again, not Canada.) After such a stellar performance, Trump nominated Craft for the trifling role of UN Ambassador. Her nomination was approved.
Trump: Best manager ever.
Trump claims that the ballots are fraudulent for an election that hasn’t happened yet. His threat undermines public confidence for some people that the election, yet to take place in person, is hardly worth voting in. Mr. President claims that vote by mail is, or will be, illegitimate, in an election that hasn’t happened. This in a democracy that has seen overseas service men and women vote by mail for years. This in a democracy, where the sanctity of the vote has been a foundation of our country. A caveat: It is true that even after African Americans “won” the right to vote, our ugly history shows a different reality. Fights for the right to vote continued post-Jim Crow, the movement for women’s suffrage and the 60s fights for civil rights. We’ve already fought for those rights. We’ve already won those rights. With the help of DeJoy, Trump’s dismantling of the voting system is a threat to Democracy, period. This is wrong, plain and simple.
Finally, for the first time in our country’s history, a President has suggested that he will not allow a peaceful transfer of power. This is a veiled threat from our President—and the veil is very thin, believe me. Trump has threatened to ignore the vote if Biden wins. “There will be no transfer of power,” he confidently stated, because there will be a “continuation.” This is terrifying, clearly. Trump is doing his best to undermine the confidence in our voting system. “I’ve been complaining for months that the ballots are a disaster.” This doesn’t even make sense. How can the ballots be a disaster? Why would the ballots be a disaster? Not only that, but his very own mega-donor buddy is responsible for making sure the election—particularly our mail in ballots, are not a disaster. In spite of polls suggesting Trump’s pending loss, he has already said, multiple times, that the only way he can lose is if the election is rigged. Never before has our country—and our democracy–been at such risk. Vote.
Part 2…
Ah, if only it were so easy. Throughout the entire country, the number of ballot drop off locations have been pared down or eliminated altogether. To use just one shocking example, let’s look at Harris county, in Texas.
As per the Guardian: “Harris county is the third most populous county in the country with more than 4.7 million residents. As of 2018, it has nearly 2.4 million registered voters. After [Governor] Abbott’s new order, the vast county has gone from having 12 ballot drop-off sites to just one, located at the NRG Stadium in central Houston.” In other words, in a county of 2.4 million voters, all of those voters can go to just one place to drop off their ballots. One.
The virus looks like this 
Harris county voting looks like this (left)
One, and only one, voter ballot drop off place for 2.4 million people. Um, hello? Hello?
Let’s please just take a random look at what 2.4 million means, in real terms.
1). 2.4 million is the number of who filed for unemployment in one week in May 2020 in the entirety of the United States.
2). There are 1.4 million Americans who are transgender. 2.4 million is one million more than that. 21 of those transgender people were murdered this year, so far, according to the Human Rights Commission, as found in USA today. 3). An Apple company update explains that 2.4 million is the “job footprint” of Apple, which includes employment directly with Apple as well as the larger “footprint” for construction, development and so on. 4) In the entire United Kingdom, 2.4 million is the number of patients awaiting cancer screen, tests, or treatment with the wait due to Covid, according to the BBC. (Told you it was random).
5) There are 1.4 million cases of Hepatitis in the US., according to the World Health Organization. 2.4 is, well, you know, one million more than that.
6) 2.4 million is roughly the millions that DeJoy and Wos gave to the RNC. It’s 1.2 million less than DeJoy donated to Trump’s Victory Fund specifically.
7) I learned from “Rochester first.com” that in September 2020, Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand announced that the Frederick Douglass-Greater Rochester International Airport will receive $2.4 million in federal funding.
8) 2.4 million is the number of dollars people have at which point Americans consider them “wealthy,” according to Newsweek.
9) The population of the entire state of Wyoming is just under 600k. The population of the entire state of Maine is 1.4 million.The Texas ballot drop offs have been limited to one per Harris county, with a registered voter population of 2.4 million. One drop off box. One.
Imagine driving through county-wide traffic to ensure your ballot gets to the drop off. You’ll be just fine. I’m sure there won’t be any traffic whatsoever while you and your county mates do the same thing, all 2.4 million of you. Hang on…Of course, not every voter will want to vote through mail, even in the middle of the pandemic, so I’ve exaggerated. I am quite confident that lots of people will still feel comfortable voting in person, even while Texas infection rates continue to increase (as the virus continues to spread).
I am not sure, personally, what to do about this strange state of “democracy.” Trump has undermined the confidence in our voting. The “ballots are a disaster.” The Texas governor has supported the ruling that has allowed the ballot drop off boxes to be removed. The boxes have been removed. Gosh, damn, is this a great country or what?
