CommentsONE MAN’S OPINION-Here in the United States, there are three main components that make up the current pandemic: a virulent virus, mental illness, and political cowardice.
On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Covid-19 a pandemic, but before that, back in early January 2020, we knew that a viral pandemic was loose in the world. Each person who had the virus could spread it to other people and unlike the childhood game of tag, once it tagged another, the “tag cootie” did not leave the first kid. Rather, now two people could infect others.
Among the group of teens and twenty-somethings who partied on a Florida beach during Spring Break, the chance for spread was great. If one of them infected another, and those two each infected another, and those four infected others, soon the entire beach would be tagged. Of course, one gregarious partygoer could also infect 20 or 30 people.
Two factors increase viral virulence: (1) Asymptomatic people spread the virus, and (2) no one has immunity.
Standing alone, a virulent virus will not become a pandemic, as we saw from the Ebola outbreak. The Obama Administration not only sent advance medical teams to Africa to study that virus, but it developed a Protocol called Identify, Swarm, and Isolate. They learned how to identity people with the virus, swarm them to track down all the contacts, and isolate every contact. Only two people contracted Ebola inside the United States and they recovered. Thus, the virulence of a virus is a function not only of the nature of the virus itself but also of the response of a population to it.
President Donald Trump Suffers from Serious Mental Illness
Just as there are different types of viruses, there are various type of mental illness. A person need not be catatonic to the point of being unable to move or so delusional that he wears a tin foil hat to stop the insertion of thoughts by the CIA to be too mentally disturbed to function as President.
As I started warning in my February 27, 2017 article, Donald Trump suffers from two extremely serious personality disorders. He should be removed from office. “Right now the [mental illness] category de jour is Narcissistic Personality Disorder (DSM-5, 301.81), but I think we need to pay attention to Histrionic Personality Disorder (DSM-5, 301.50).”
In June 2017, I again raised the danger of Trump’s two personality disorders. People with a Histrionic Personality Disorder are more incapacitated than Narcissists because Histrionics are unable to comprehend complex ideas. They are consumed with being the center of attention and must have constant praise. Hence, Trump daily sent out tweets about everything, but it all was ultimately about himself. But people were in collective denial that Trump’s mental illnesses posed a lethal threat to the nation. While many criticized him, political opposition was woefully inadequate in conveying the serious threat he posed should a national crisis arise.
On October 9, 2017, I discussed the extreme danger that a mentally unbalanced President portended for the nation, focusing on those who were stopping the legitimate discussion of the obvious. Trump’s mental illness was the elephant in the living room which no one would acknowledge.
On October 26, 2017, I again sounded the alarm in “Cheers and Adulation: Why the 25th Amendment Cannot Handle a Mentally Ill President:”
“Trump, however, is unique – he is seriously mentally ill and he poses a clear and present danger to us all. . . Trump himself is mentally ill, and it takes a fool, a coward or a villain not to see that fact. The problems are far worse than Trump’s multiple Personality Disorders which make him untethered from reality. . .
“A tyrant who intentionally uses the Big Lie Theory is still connected to reality. Because Trump’s falsehoods are the product of Histrionic and Narcissistic Disorders, we have a President who is unhinged from reality. Americans need to wake up to the fact that Trump is a madman.”
Craven Political Cowardice Allowed a Madman to Remain President
The October 26, 2017, another of my articles addressed the real problem -- craven political cowardice.
“The 25th Amendment cannot handle a mentally ill President. It rests upon the faulty idea that members of the President’s cabinet and Congress will be people of integrity. . . While it takes no integrity to admit that a President who has lapsed into a coma falls under the 25th Amendment, men of cowardice will never move against a vindictive mentally ill tyrant. Rather they will turn the nation over to his insanity.”
The Pelosi Dems Knew the Danger, but Believed a Disaster on Trump’s Watch Would Benefit Them
The nation has a bipartisan protocol to remove a President. The leaders of both parties visit the President and advise him that they have enough votes in the House and the Senate to remove him from office and then in graphic terms lay out exactly what faces him if he does not resign, including but not limited to prison. This process is called Nixonization. Very early in Trump’s first term, Trump could have been Nixonized. The traditional GOP leadership wanted Trump out, but as we can divine in retrospect, the Pelosi Dems wanted Trump to remain in office, thereby killing any Nixonization.
The Dems knew that would leave the GOP no alternative but to make deals with the lunatic right-wing fringe, i.e. the Freedom Caucus. The Dems figured that a Trump Presidency which tethered the GOP to the extreme right would garner the Dems so many votes in November 2018 that they would sweep into power in both the House and the Senate. But while Nancy Pelosi regained her personal power, the Senate became more Republican.
During the House phase of impeachment when it had the sole constitutional power to gather evidence, many in the GOP were beginning to turn against Trump. Even Fox News was showing signs of cracking and GOP leaders were signaling additional evidence to bring forth so that they could Nixonize Trump without committing political suicide.
Prof. Noah Feldman pointed out the constitutional need to continue with evidence gathering and not throw it over to the November 2020 elections. Nancy Pelosi’s power, however, would have fallen to nil if Trump were to be Nixonized, and America’s moderates would likely rally around the courageous GOP who helped to remove Trump. That’s why Pelosi pulled the plug on the House’s evidence gathering and Trump was still President when the Covid-19 Pandemic arrived.
Neither the Pandemic’s Onslaught nor Trump’s Mental Deficiencies Were Unknown to Washington’s Elite
All officialdom knew the Pandemic was coming and that Trump was doing nothing to prepare: His mental illness had thrust him deep into denial which helped make a needless Pandemic inevitable. Pelosi was silent during the weeks leading up to the Senate vote on February 5. Ineffective as always, Sen. Chuck Schumer uttered a few feeble words.
The Pandemic Was Avoidable
While no one could stop the emergence of the Covid-19 virus, the United States did have time to institute the Ebola protocol. That would have prevented the American pandemic. But due to craven political cowardice, a mental defective remained President, costing hundreds of thousands of lives and destroying the entire economy – and for what?
(Richard Lee Abrams is a Los Angeles attorney and a CityWatch contributor. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Abrams views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.) Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images. Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
