Embarrassing Chapters in US History, Part 5 (2011-2018)

You're crazy.

Well for starters maybe don't tweet out "when the looting starts, the shooting starts"... and idiotic conspiracy theories about 75 year old men who were pushed to the ground faking their injuries and being agents of AntiFa? That would be one thing. Also not calling in unidentified and unmarked paramilitary troops to the capital where they served to agitate peaceful protesters and make the situation worse would have been a good thing. And not shooting tear gas and flash bangs into another group of journalists and peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square so that he could walk to a church for an obscene photo op, that would have been good.

Seriously, what has he actually done to prevent any looting or riots? He has only poured gasoline on the fire. The most destructive rioting took place in Minneapolis. That eventually died down. Trump had nothing to do with ending those riots. That was in the hands of the city of Minneapolis and state of Minnesota.

and... while I'm not going to argue for the validity of Bush's 2000 election (though he did get more of the popular vote than Trump did), nor am I going to argue for the invasion of Iraq, I am absolutely positive that Bush, as inept and inarticulate as he was, would have done a far better job of handling this situation than Trump. He would have been conciliatory and tried to be comforting. He would have shown (probably genuine) grief for the death of Floyd and empathy toward the mourners, things Trump is incapable of. He would have called for calm on the part of the protesters, for restraint on the part of the police, and unity on the part of the American people - the exact opposite of what Trump has done which was threaten, anger, and antagonize protesters, encourage police to be more brutal, and sow disunity and division in the country. Bush would not have tweeted out insane conspiracy theories. And he would not have militarized the capital for no reason.

In other words he would have done the bare minimum that we would expect from literally any other president who wasn't a completely insane out-of-touch nincompoop. It's almost impossible to imagine a president worse than Trump. It's as if, in any situation, he asks himself what the worst possible thing he could do would be, and then does that. I am just very thankful that he is, in addition to his other very many character flaws, a total wimp and coward, or else I am sure he'd probably have gotten us involved in a full-scale war by now, too. We can be thankful that he is *only* going to completely tank the economy, destroy the environment, create an atmosphere of irreconcilable political and racial animosity that will last for generations, strengthen all of our international enemies, allow hundreds of thousands if not millions to die to a pandemic, and perhaps forever destroy the core of American democracy. But it's doubtful he will ever send us to an actual war. So that's something.