Even in defeat, Trump's GOP enablers can't quit him

Over 150,000 coronavirus cases are diagnosed in the United States every day now.

One in every 378 people in this country just tested positive for Covid-19 this week, and over 10 million Americans are now infected with it.

In Texas alone, one million people have the coronavirus. In South Dakota, the positivity rate has reached a horrifying 68.1 percent, but their Governor has refused to issue stay-at-home orders or even mask mandates.

Even here in New York City, which has made impressive strides to contain the spread, the infection numbers are trending upward again and threatening school closures, the step before a general lockdown.

"The U.S. now confirms more cases in a single day than China has reported since the pandemic began." https://t.co/sTlK7Yvx2J

— Jessica Roy ? (@jessica_roy) November 11, 2020

Where is the Trump administration's response to all this? Why are GOP senators spending all their time attempting to soothe the wounded pride of an inconsolable man-toddler who variously threatens lawsuits, a potential coup after an unprecedented Pentagon head-hunting expedition, and even another presidential run in 2024, when he will be older than the President-elect Joe Biden is now?

Why are the GOP attentively coddling Trump instead of mounting a national response to this terrifying crisis, when it's already in our cities, towns, and neighborhoods nationally? Why are multiple GOP governors vowing to defy the incoming Biden administration on mandating face masks?

Joe Biden has a coronavirus team...Trump’s team has coronavirus. That’s everything we need to know.

— Justin Key l Ent. Entrepreneur (@JustinKey101) November 11, 2020

According to Maggie Haberman in The New York Times, Trump has been pulling aside his advisors and asking them “whether Republican legislatures could pick pro-Trump electors in a handful of key states and deliver him the electoral votes he needs to change the math and give him a second term.”

In other words, he's asked if pro-Trump electors will ignore the manifest will of the people and hand the election over to him. Would they, in effect, destroy American democracy, as a personal favor?

If only the GOP would protect American lives as aggressively as they protect donald trump’s feelings

— Jake Maccoby (@jdmaccoby) November 13, 2020

This is the level of the brain trust now running the United States, so no wonder we are in the mess we're in. At this point, even China has congratulated the President-elect Joe Biden, so that just leaves Putin and the GOP.

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I have never before witnessed so many government leaders attempt to force facts to fit their politics. We have all witnessed the Trump rallies where his team scoffed at mask-wearing, we have watched the Amy Coney Barrett Supreme Court ceremony in the Rose Garden where dozens of his inner circle likely became ill. 

More than 130 Secret Service officers are said to be infected with coronavirus or quarantining in wake of Trump’s campaign travel https://t.co/URkTHjm7Fm

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) November 13, 2020

We have watched as Trump himself, his wife, and son contracted the virus. At what point will we acknowledge that they did so from their disinclination to take it seriously from the start?

This, by any metric, is a terrible time. Millions of us are being needlessly infected by a lethal virus through our lack of a concerted national response. Despite its danger, there is still no national testing and tracing effort to tackle the spread. 

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Shuttered stores are now a common site across the United States

Add to that a rogue and embittered president, the first in American history who has failed to acknowledge his opponents win or share sensitive national security cables that will prepare Biden to take over in January, putting us all at risk. 

Add to that a Republican party who won't admit their so-called emperor now has no clothes, in fear of their lives of his mean tweets, and behind that, his mean base.

That's where we are now. Waiting for Trump to do something truly grotesque and despotic in response to his humiliation, or to quit the stage in the defeat that has already been handed to him.

That the GOP will stand by silently as he menaces the world makes them unfit to govern.

From the start, Trump and his party have treated the coronavirus as a political problem, not a public health one. They managed to contain the political fallout all the way to the election - it's Trump's signature accomplishment - and now that the election has passed, they have dropped the pretense about caring what happens to the millions infected with it. It is what it is.

But voters will remember. 

Word of the day is 'catchfart' (17th century): one who slavishly follows behind their boss and who blows with the political wind.

— Susie Dent (@susie_dent) November 13, 2020