Warp speed, warped mind

PERRYSCOPE
Perry Diaz

President Donald Trump kicked off “Operation Warp Speed” a month ago.  As the name suggested, it is an attempt to fast track the coronavirus vaccine development to be completed by the end of 2020.  It’s never been done before but Trump is adamant; he wanted it done at “warp speed,” which reminds me of the Star Trek series a generation ago. 

It’s about the voyages of the starship USS Enterprise on a mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before. 

Trump, who only has five months left before the November 3 election, is pressed for time to find a treatment or a vaccine for the COVID-19 coronavirus. 

With the number of cases mounting fast at warp speed, and the number of deaths passing the 100,000 mark, and the ranks of unemployed have risen to 40 million – one in every four Americans -- he is faced with an insurmountable problem. 

He began to see the handwriting on the wall, which was pretty obvious from the get-go but chose to ignore it; he’s facing an election defeat – big time! 

                He could have avoided or at least mitigated the depth of the pandemic had he acted fast and listened to the scientists and experts in his administration. 

Instead, he appointed a person with no experience in public health and whose background as a dog breeder to run the administration’s day-to-day response to the coronavirus pandemic. 

That’s like putting a blind to lead the blind.  But that’s just a microcosm of how Trump is presiding over the coronavirus response, which is marked by nepotism, incompetence, mass corruption, white nationalism, wholesale assault on the concept of truth – he has told more than 18,000 lies so far since the start of his term -- and pure raw evil.

Now he finds himself too deep in a quagmire that any attempt to extricate himself would only exacerbate his dire situation.  As the saying goes – he’s in deep shit!

His main problem is his ego. He’s a megalomaniac convinced of his power and greatness.  He was convinced that he will be re-elected in a landslide come November.  He bragged about it.  “The American people love me,” he told a nationwide television audience.  He boasted that his TV ratings are the highest. 

His daily press briefings were like campaign rallies where he claimed that he created the greatest economy the world has ever had.  He claimed that world leaders have called him to tell him what a great job he’s doing.  On the contrary, he is now the laughing stock of the world.

And after a month of pummeling the audience with his braggadocio, telling them how many ventilators the government has in storage, the millions of masks, gloves, and other personal protective equipment (PPE) his team has ordered, the people got tired of his statistics, they want to know how the search for a treatment and vaccine is proceeding.  The people want results, not promises. 

And then the man’s ego burst into pieces. He said that by infusing infrared light and injecting disinfectants into the lungs would kill the virus.  What happened to him?  Has he lost his mind?

The episode went viral in the TV networks.  The following day, in an attempt to characterize his comments the day before as a jest, claimed that his comments were just sarcasm.  He was merely responding to a sarcastic question from one of the reporters. 

Nice try, Mr. President.  I don't think any intelligent person would buy that, except those who are beholden to the Trump cult.  Yes, there is such as group of die-hard followers who believe that Trump is the personification of God. 

They swear that anything that contradicts Trump and the gospel he’s preaching is “fake news.”  They don’t believe in the polls, which have lately tanked.  They said that the coronavirus pandemic is a hoax perpetrated by Democrats. 

On April 29, 2020,Trunp’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, when interviewed in Fox News, was asked about two questions that kept coming up over the weekend on the Sunday shows. 

The first was “Where’s the national strategy?” and the second, “Why did you guys collapse the pandemic office when you guys took over?” He skirted the questions and instead said, “We’re on the other side of the medical aspect of this and I think that we’ve achieved all of the different milestones that are needed, so the federal government rose to the challenge and this is a great success story.

And I think that that’s what really needs to be told.” A great success story after 58,000 Americans died (it’s now over 100,000) and 1.6 million cases that keeps on increasing every day?  Come on, Jared, give me a break!

But Operation “Warp Speed” has been moving fast enough but not enough to stop the death toll, which is increasing more than 2,000 a day.  Although vaccine development has been progressing at a modest pace, it’s a process that cannot be abbreviated. 

The scientists have to follow a strict set of protocols.  Experts from all over the world are saying in unison, “It will take 12 to 18 months to develop a vaccine.”  But Trump is optimistic that it could be done by the end of 2020, which makes one wonder:  Why does he think it can be done by then? 

One thing comes to mind; he’s trying to condition the minds of Americans that a vaccine will be ready by then time he is sworn into his second term in January.  Even Kushner was saying that come July, the virus will go away and the economy will recover soon after.   

Dangerous game

Evidently, Trump and son-in-law are playing a dangerous variety of Russian roulette.  Five chambers in the revolver have bullets and one chamber is empty.  That gives them one chance in six of surviving.  Then Trump spins the cylinder, places the muzzle against his head, and pulls the trigger.  The question is: Do you think Trump is going to survive?  Remember he has one chance in six of surviving. 

                What Trump is doing is a desperate attempt to do whatever it takes to win – by hook or by crook.  He has tried several times peddling conspiracy theories like “Obamagate.” 

On May 10, Trump tweeted 126 times about “OBAMAGATE” without giving any evidence to support his claims.  He has fired many shots at Obama accusing him of conspiracy to topple his early presidency.

When a reporter asked Trump his reason behind his accusation, he was quoted as saying, “It’s been going on for a very long time… You know what the crime is.  The crime is very obvious to everybody.”  Huh? 

Five days later, he announced that Obamagate is the “greatest political scandal in the history of the U.S.”  Obamagate has since fizzled out.

Blaming China

The biggest conspiracy theory Trump has concocted is blaming China for the global spread of the coronavirus.  He said the outbreak had hit the U.S. harder than the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in World War II, or the 9/11 attacks two decades ago.  He is weighing punitive actions against China over its early handling of the global emergency.

This could be an attempt by Trump to lay the groundwork to blame China for the pandemic.  Political pundits believe that this is Trump’s ace card to win re-election in November.  However, it may put world peace in a dangerous position.

A few days later, the Pentagon deployed seven nuclear attack submarines to the South China Sea.  The submarine force said the missions were mounted in support of the Pentagon’s “free and open Indo-Pacific” policy aimed at countering China’s operations in the South China Sea.

As America confronts China and readies itself to go to war, the world teeters on the brink of World War III.  While it remains to be seen who would start the war, Trump’s purpose is to bring the U.S. on war footing to impress the American people that he would protect American interest by confronting China, hoping that China would back down and sue for peace just in time for the November 3 election. 

That would translate to a political victory for Trump, which begs the question: Would a political victory over China enough to overcome the damage caused by the coronavirus to the morale and well-being of American citizens that would result in blowing the U.S. economy to smithereens?   

At the end of the day, while it is unlikely that Trump could achieve his “Warp Speed” goal of developing a vaccine for Covid-19 by the end of 2020, he’s still convinced that it can be done by that time.  Trump has demonstrably manifested his perverted mind that could imperil his presidency if he’s reelected.  Warp speed, warped mind indeed.

(PerryDiaz@gmail.com)