Not Than You Asked

I just have a few thoughts that keep bouncing around in my brain while I sit in my house and hide from the Corona Virus. Forget the virus, I need a cure for cabin fever.

I've never been much of a believer in conspiracy theories, with the one exception being the Kennedy assassination. However, I have had so much free time, that I've come up with one of my own that might really come to be.

Let's suppose that this virus comes back in the fall, right before the election, as some say it might. Let's further suppose that the President is way behind in the polls, and looks doomed to defeat, which by the way he will label as fake news. Would the President use the virus as a way of postponing the election indefinitely, keeping him in office? If we have learned anything in the last three years, It is that this President is not beyond doing anything.

There is however, a solution. Both parties could begin a nationwide campaign to get voters to apply for absentee ballots. Or the Secretaries of State in each state could send one to every registered voter in their states. That way the election could take place with no health risk, except for those called on to count the votes.

Another result of having so much free time is that the daily White House Virus Briefings have become must see TV. They come off as a cross between a Seinfeld episode and an SNL sketch. Each one begins with the President giving us a happy talk presentation. He says that medical supplies are available, and on their way to the states. He tells us that there are already drug treatments that work. He assures us that he and his people have everything under control. Then he turns the briefing over to the others who struggle to find polite ways to tell us that everything the President just said is not true.

When the President has to defend his Administration's slow response to the pandemic, he relies on several excuses that most of us know by heart by now. He says it is either because the old system was antiquated, previous administrations didn't do enough to combat the virus, or that ventilators are too complex to be mass manufactured. He neglects to mention that his administration disbanded a pandemic response office put in place by the Obama Administration, or that the Corona Virus wasn't around until he was President. He also doesn't seem to agree with his own experts who tell us that ventilators are not that complex.

The best part of the briefings is when they open up to questions. An NBC reporter asked the President if there was anything he wanted to say to the people sitting at home that might calm their fears. He totally lost it. He said that first he would tell them that he was a lousy reporter, and claimed the question was an attempt to sensationalize the crisis. He went on to attack NBC and its parent company. During the tirade the reporter looked at him like he wanted to say, "What did I say wrong?"

To prove that it wasn't a trick question, the same reporter asked the same question to the Vice-President. The Vice-President didn't get angry. He simply said, "I would tell them not to be frightened, but to be vigilant." That was a reasonable response to a reasonable question. I hope the President was listening.

Finally I have to pass along a grammar lesson to a Trump supporter. I was on Facebook Sunday morning when I came across a post critical of the President. One of his supporters decided to defend Trump. He wrote, "Your an idiot." You weaken your argument when you make a mistake that makes you look like an idiot. The writer should have used the word "you're" instead of "your."

Now being someone who was a good student but terrible at math, I understand that a person can be very intelligent, and still have problems with grammar. It's not a subject any of us enjoyed in school. Still, if you are one of those people, and you feel compelled to reply to something you see online, it might be a good idea to have somebody proofread it before you send it.