Recklessness

I'll keep this shorter than usual.  It still blows my mind at how stubborn and callous some politicians are.  It is absolutely incredible how low Trump can go, and yet every day he sinks lower.  What's so incredibly depressing is that he is benefiting from the (completely undeserved) impulse to rally-round-the-leader that occurs pretty much in every national crisis.  Aside from deep partisan enemies, people have this instinctual urge in times of danger to feel that there is someone in charge who knows what he (or she) is doing, and whoever happens to be in charge get this mini-wave of support (even a tosser like George W.).  It's absolutely laughable that such an impossibly reckless and terrible politician is going to benefit from this.  All I can say is I am so glad the elections aren't right around the corner, or he would probably win.  By Nov., his complete inadequacy and the fact that he drove the US into a deeper crisis will likely lead to Biden beating him (unless of course he gets the virus on the campaign trail...).  Even a few people were saying that Boris Johnson was acting more like a real leader,* though this seems just as fanciful and mere wishful thinking, and they generally stopped saying that around the time he and his health secretary caught the virus.

The Brazilian stongman and general rightwing dickhead Bolsonaro is going to add unimaginable misery to Brazil by claiming the whole thing is a hoax and not supporting social distancing and generally feuding with the governors of Brazil.  No question Trump is going in the same dangerous direction, though even he doesn't go this far (or not calling it "a hoax" any longer though still half-heartedly feuding with governors and as always reversing himself frequently via Twitter).  In any case, I am still holding out hope that both Trump and Bolsonaro get the disease and in a particularly nasty form.

Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised, but the left wing leader of Mexico, AMLO, is not covering himself with glory either, and is completely downplaying the seriousness of the situation, assuming that it will mostly affect the rich, whom he basically despises, and will leave the poor alone.  Fat chance of that.  So I am quite sure that Mexico will be in a terrible, terrible position in about 3 weeks.

I don't have a lot of hope that humanity will learn from this and will start electing smarter or at least less pathological leaders down the road.  It just seems to be a lesson that we need to learn over and over again, but it never sinks in.  Sad.


* I was completely flabbergasted when I read this in the Guardian, and I wonder if the article has been scrubbed, since I simply can't find it again.