A MONUMENTAL JOKE

by Vijaya Chandrasoma

The only predictable thing about Trump is his predictability. He failed in his efforts to con his way to a Nobel Peace Prize, even with a forged letter of recommendation from Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Now, a “monumental” suggestion has 16been made by the White House to the Governor of South Dakota, Kristi Noem, to add the face of President Donald Trump to the four presidents already memorialized at Mount Rushmore.

Mount Rushmore is located in a National Park surrounded by the beauty of the Black Hills of South Dakota, and contains 60 ft. high faces, carved in stone, of the majestic figures of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. The Father of the Nation, the Founding Father who was mainly responsible for drafting the Constitution, the president who signed the Proclamation of Emancipation and a Nobel Laureate famous for his Square Deal program, known as the “three Cs” – Conservation of natural resources, Control of corporations and Consumer protections. High company indeed.

The carving took 14 years to complete, having started in 1927, ending in 1941. There is room enough to add a fifth, even a sixth face to the monument.

Trump is convinced that he belongs in the illustrious company of these great presidents, conclusive evidence that his Narcissistic Personality Disorder is alive and kicking.

In an interview in 2018, Noem talked of a conversation she had with Trump in the Oval Office, during which he said that it was “always my dream to have my face on Mount Rushmore.” Said Noem, “I initially thought he was joking and started laughing”. Then she realized he was deadly serious.

Trump again mentioned his “dream” in 2017, at a campaign rally in Youngstown, Ohio, saying that it (the carving of his image on Mount Rushmore) will “stand forever as an eternal tribute to our forefathers, and to our freedom.”

At a speech on the eve of the 2020 Independence Day, Trump continued with his political strategy of further dividing the nation. He attacked the recent protests against police brutality, accusing the protestors of “engaging in a merciless campaign to wipe out our history”.

Trump indicated that his role in saving these monuments, which his white supremacist mind honoured American heroes, was proof of his eligibility to be honoured at Mount Rushmore. Even though some of these “heroes” were traitors like Robert E. Lee, a general of the Confederate army who waged a war of secession against the USA to perpetuate the inhuman institution of slavery.

He added more achievements in support of his inclusion in Mount Rushmore. Below are some of his greatest achievements, according to his Adderall deluded mind. Unfortunately, in reality, they represent the realization of the ambitions of Russian President Putin and those of Khrushchev, who famously said in 1956:

“We will take America without firing a shot. We do not have to invade the U.S. We will destroy you from within.”

Trump has behaved throughout his presidency as if he’s more interested in fostering Russia’s foreign and geopolitical aggressions in Ukraine, Syria and Afghanistan. Even recent evidence provided by the US intelligence agencies that Russia was paying bounty to the Taliban to murder US soldiers in Afghanistan has elicited no response from Trump, though he has had conversations with his master after this crime was disclosed to him in his daily briefings.

A classic case of treason by omission, rivaled only by his support of Putin at the world stage in Helsinki in July 2018, when he agreed with the Russian president that there had been no Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Against the evidence provided to him by all 17 US intelligence services.

Trump’s lies about his major achievements are:

“I created the greatest economy the world has ever seen, out of the ruins I inherited from the Obama administration, all by myself”.

He has repeated this appalling lie so often that it has become the truth in many minds. They were initially believed by those voters who resented eight years of the scandal free presidency of an African American, which had gained universal admiration.

Obama’s presidency engineered the recovery left over by the deep recession caused by the reign of error of the George W. Bush administration, with a series of effective economic, stimulus and health programs. By the time he left the Oval Office, the economy was booming, unemployment was at its lowest levels in decades and Obamacare won health insurance for tens of millions of hitherto uninsured Americans, including those with pre-existing conditions.

The economy is in shambles today, with unemployment running at 12.5% and nearly 40 million people unemployed, mainly because of delayed action by Trump in containing the virus.

Trump continues boasting of his magnificent performance in controlling the Coronavirus, a recovery which exists only in his Alternative Universe. His ridiculous lie at a Coronavirus briefing last Monday that America “will be in very, very good shape in a short period of time” was made in the light of his colossal mismanagement of the Covid19 pandemic, which has already claimed over five million infections and 162,000 deaths, currently increasing by 1,000 per day. A continuing tragedy caused by his incompetence and “happy talk” in March and April, and a similar prediction a few days ago that the virus will disappear “like a miracle very, very soon”. Contrary to the rational predictions of his own scientists, who have been warning, from January 2020, that the virus will spread exponentially unless preventive action is taken immediately. And so it has been spreading, with no sign of abatement, from March until the present day.

The US, in spite of the backing of the greatest medical and technological infrastructure in the world, sees no end to the virus. With 4% of the world’s population and 25% of total deaths by the virus, the US is far behind the progress made by other developed nations, nations like Germany, South Korea and the United Kingdom which are on the verge of defeating the first wave of the virus and returning to normality. A happy situation brought about by competent leadership. New Zealand has not had a single Covid case in the last 100 days!

Trump lies of other achievements. During a Memorial Day speech on May 25, he lied that he signed the Veteran’s Healthcare bill in 2014, which was enacted during the Obama presidency! Just the other day, he announced that he was going to sign an Executive Order mandating all insurance companies to provide health cover to those with pre-existing conditions. Ironically, such cover is already the law of the land under Obamacare, which the Trump administration is currently trying to repeal in the courts. And, of course, he established the Space Force, primarily designed to fight the teeming crime, the murders, bank robberies and rapes committed by Blacks, Mexicans, Muslims and other Aliens rampant in outer space.

Great presidents of the 20th century, eminently suitable to have been memorialized at Mount Rushmore, never begged for this privilege. To make such a narcissistic suggestion would never have even occurred to them.

Franklin D. Roosevelt (Democrat – 1932 to 1945) guided the country through the Great Depression, introducing the “New Deal”, a series of socialist programs and projects aimed to restore prosperity in the country.

Dwight D. Eisenhower (Republican – 1952 to 1960), served as the Commander of the American forces in Europe at the end of World War II, and was the first Supreme Commander of NATO from 1951. As President, Ike launched the Interstate Highway Network in 1956.

Jack Kennedy (Democrat – 1960 to 1963), whose chief success came after his assassination, encouraged the Apollo space program, and USA became the first country to put a man on the moon in 1969, “surely the most dramatic technical and engineering achievement ever, one of the great undertakings in all of human history”. Kennedy was a gifted orator, and the most charismatic president in our lifetime.

Barack Obama (Democrat – 2008 to 2016), Nobel Laureate, ended his second term with 72 straight months of economic growth. He enacted the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), which paved the way to Single Payer healthcare. Obama is also a fine orator, a man of deep compassion, whose speeches echo the values of integrity and patriotism, of honesty and decency, values which have disappeared from the White House of today.

In bleak contrast, Trump has dragged a united country to a level of polarization and economic and social inequality no one would ever have thought to be possible.

Many people, even some independent voters outside his base, believe Trump’s lies today, lies that are reaching a crescendo as the election draws near. He still has supporters in spite of his incompetence, ignorance and the crimes he has committed, against America and against the world. He has also changed the Party of Lincoln to the Party of Trump, members of which are complicit in the regress of a once great nation to tyranny. The success of this massive con is Trump’s real achievement.

The credit for Trump’s major achievements, which have only served to hasten Russia’s return to its lost glory as a global superpower, really belongs to President Putin. Perhaps Putin’s face should be memorialized on Mount Rushmore.