"There are real and perilous consequences when we choose the wrong leaders."
Back in early 2020 when US President Donald Trump still acknowledged the coronavirus as a threat, he closed his country’s borders to travelers from China, where the pandemic started, then also barred visitors from the European Union, where the virus quickly spread.
Those measures, we now know, proved inadequate to stop COVID-19, as the disease came to be known, from spreading like wildfire across the United States.
Today, the US has the highest rate of coronavirus deaths and infections in the world. On Tuesday afternoon in the US, at least 2,329,637 have been infected in the country and 121,029 have died, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center.
Still, these days, Mr. Trump is in denial and behaves as if the virus threat in his country has been defeated, and eschews all the common sense precautions—wearing face masks, maintaining physical distance, and testing—that his own government’s health experts recommend.
Ironically, it is the EU now that is considering barring visitors from several countries, including the US, because of the spread of COVID-19 there.
In an election year, it is easy to dismiss the Republican Party as Mr. Trump’s enabler, turning a blind eye to his incompetence, his abuse of office and his complete disregard for the truth.
But every so often, we are reminded that not everyone in the now-disgraced party has sold his soul in the service of Trump.
Over the weekend, Steve Schmidt, who ran John McCain's 2008 campaign for president, offered a stinging repudiation of Mr. Trump in an interview with MSNBC.
His words bear repeating:
"Donald Trump has been the worst president this country has ever had. And I don't say that hyperbolically. He is. But he is a consequential president. And he has brought this country in three short years to a place of weakness that is simply unimaginable if you were pondering where we are today from the day where Barack Obama left office. And there were a lot of us on that day who were deeply skeptical and very worried about what a Trump presidency would be. But this is a moment of unparalleled national humiliation, of weakness.
"When you listen to the President, these are the musings of an imbecile. An idiot. And I don't use those words to name call. I use them because they are the precise words of the English language to describe his behavior. His comportment. His actions. We've never seen a level of incompetence, a level of ineptitude so staggering on a daily basis by anybody in the history of the country whose ever been charged with substantial responsibilities.
"It's just astonishing that this man is president of the United States. The man, the con man, from New York City. Many bankruptcies, failed businesses, a reality show, that branded him as something that he never was. A successful businessman. Well, he's the President of the United States now, and the man who said he would make the country great again. And he's brought death, suffering, and economic collapse on truly an epic scale. And let's be clear. This isn't happening in every country around the world. This place. Our place. Our home. Our country. The United States. We are the epicenter. We are the place where you're the most likely to die from this disease. We're the ones with the most shattered economy. And we are because of the fool that sits in the Oval Office behind the Resolute Desk."
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. This is yet another grim reminder that there are real and perilous consequences when we choose the wrong leaders.