Four more years?

I am suffering from Trump Fatigue Syndrome (TFS).

Trump dominates the news. When he was president 92 percent of the media coverage of him was negative. Now still 92 percent is negative. Amazingly – but not surprising – Biden has received less negative media coverage than any president on record. Who was it that said that the legacy media was the PR arm of the democrat party?

There is a new COVID virus afoot and the Biden, the CDC and the media are already starting to raise the possibility of masks and mandatory vaccinations. I thought this was the “my body my choice” crowd?

Trump has a video in which he says “The left-wing lunatics are trying very hard to bring back COVID lockdowns and mandates with all of their sudden fearmongering about the new variants that are coming.” “But to every COVID tyrant who wants to take away our freedom, hear these words: We will not comply, so don’t even think about it. We will not shut down our schools. We will not accept your lockdowns. We will not abide by your mask mandates, and we will not tolerate your vaccine mandates.” “When I’m back in the White House, I will use every available authority to cut federal funding to any school, college, airline, or public transportation system that imposes a mask mandate or a vaccine mandate.”

I guess that he forgot that he was the first to impose mandates that shut the economy down, issued mask mandates and closed the schools. Remember flattening the curve? Remember 15 days to stop the spread? That was Trump. Remember Operation Warp Speed and the rush to produce mRNA experimental vaccines that indemnified Big Pharma? That was Trump. 

I don’t blame Trump for his initial response with all the fear mongering from Fauci, the CDC and all the models predicting the end of the world. But Fauci and the CDC were lying and the models were bogus. I do blame Trump for shutting down small businesses while allowing the giants to remain open leading to thousands of small business failure. I do blame Trump for not pivoting when the evidence came in showing the folly of masks and vaccines for less vulnerable groups. Masking and vaccinating children is akin to child abuse. Those who were vulnerable – those over 70 with co-conditions – should be protected and the rest of us left alone. For the vast majority of us, COVID was a bad cold or the flu and we don’t shut down and mask for either.

Biden is now asking Congress for $35 million to fund the development of a vaccine to counter the new COVID variant. Big Pharma made billions on the old vaccines. Couldn’t they afford to pay for the new one? Of course, scientists are uncertain whether the vaccines will be effective for the new variant and history has shed doubt on the efficacy of the old ones.

There have been serious adverse effects of the previous vaccines. I have two otherwise healthy friends who almost died from the Moderna vaccine. There were adverse reactions to the Pfizer/AstraZeneca vaccine with myocarditis and pericarditis risks. It just stands to reason that if Big Pharma is indemnified then they will be less careful in the production of the drug.

It’s a wonder that the democrats do not blame Trump for rushing through the production of the vaccines and all their adverse side effects.

Trump’s first campaign was overtly racist. Remember when he advocating banning all Muslims for entering the country? He also said that a Latino judge should recuse himself because of his Mexican heritage. I also remember him being especially vocal about Mexican illegals and pointing out how many were criminals and rapists. I remarked at the time that I had not heard such a racist campaign since the days of the segregated south and that I thought George Wallace was dead.

Biden is so bad that he has made Trump look good. We tend to forget Trump’s inability to govern. He pledged to end the administrative state and reform the Civil Service. He did neither. Instead he wasted his time on efforts to “repeal and replace” Obamacare. I said this was a mistake. The two should be separate. The first effort should be repeal and then introduce an act to replace. The effort failed due to the one vote of John McCain who likely voted “no” simply because he hated Trump. Now Obamacare with all its warts is imbedded and will never be repealed.

Although he didn’t attack the administrative state, regulations fell during Trump’s presidency. The number of pages in federal register fell dramatically reducing the regulatory burdens on the American public. The reduction was 35 percent less than under Obama. Biden’s number is larger than Obama’s.

Trump also ranted and raved about NAFTA claiming that it was the worse trade deal ever. He was wrong but was trying to appeal to workers in the industrial north who had lost their jobs because of NAFTA. Studies had shown that those states most adversely affected by NAFTA actually had positive gains in employment post NAFTA. But facts don’t matter in politics. So Trump and his people worked for countless hours to replace NAFTA with USMCA – the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Rolls right off the tongue. Close scrutiny shows that there is not much difference in the two despite the rhetoric.  The main difference is that the USMCA imposes a $16 hour minimum wage on workers in factories that import to America. Apparently, Trump and his people figured that the new wage would force manufacturers to move their work to the United States rather than pay Mexicans the higher wage which was three times what they were earning. The response of the manufacturers was to realign the Mexican workforce and to pay the higher wage. There was no bump in hiring more American workers.

At least he appointed three Supreme Court justices.

I have written earlier about Biden’s cabinet being the worse and most incompetent one I have seen. Well Trump’s was the second worse. Just to refresh your memory Tom Price at HHS was forced to resign. Jeff Sessions at Justice was a disaster and lost his senate race in Alabama to an Auburn football coach. David Shulkin at VA was an embarrassment as were Ryan Zinke at Interior, Wilbur Ross at Commerce and Rex Tillerson at State. Only Betsy DeVos and Ben Carson were great but they were hated by the left: DeVos because she was a stanch advocate of school choice and Ben Carson because he was black.

To quote Gil Scott-Heron: “four more years of that?” The sad truth is that four more years of Trump will be better than four more years of Biden and his crew.