Coop Scoop Nov 30: Our Own American Perón Edition
THE COOP SCOOP: OUR OWN AMERICAN PERÓN EDITION
November 30, 2020
Issue #48
No, it’s not the prolonged soporific quality of roasted turkey that is still making your head cloudy and disoriented. It’s more likely you made the mistake of sneaking a peak at the news even for a few minutes sometime over the holiday weekend.
It is amazing, isn’t it? Here we are, a month after the national election, and #DiaperDon seems as crazy as a loon, descending now into almost total incoherence, and performing a spot-on impersonation of Mad King George. He’s gonna go. He’s not gonna go. Yes. No. Yada Yada Yada. Who cares what he says? I am confident he will be gone on Inauguration Day one way or another.
Not soon enough.
Since election Day, more than 30,000 Americans have died of COVID while Trump has gone golfing nine of those same days. This, in itself, should be an indictable war crime. Then again, as we approach a season of even greater mass death mixed with the imminent introduction of a vaccine, the situation is far too delicate and unstable that I really wouldn’t want Trump to get within 100 miles of it. Fine with me if he is indefinitely confined to the Trump National Golf Club in Virginia for the rest of eternity.
As we ride out these Final Days there is only one national issue that matters: battling the pandemic. Anything else is a distraction. And let’s be clear: while the vaccine offers the possibility of mid-term relief from COVID, right now the disease is worse than ever. Don’t make any illusions about that. The pandemic today permeates every corner of the country, it is accelerating and spreading. Infections are now up to a million per week. And fatalities are beginning to peak over 10,000 per week – a mind boggling number to which we have become far too numb.
Dr, Fauci said over the weekend that we should expect “a surge superimposed on a surge” as a product of the holidays. Yes, it’s not just Donald Trump who seems intent on flouting the virus. So did millions of Americans who defied stay at home orders, prioritizing stuffing and mashed potatoes over when Granny might have to take her last breath.
Everybody reading this, I am sure, is up to date on COVID, So the only other detail I will add is this: By February, even with a vaccine beginning to appear, we will have racked up more deaths than the toll of American soldiers in WWII – 405,000.
Historians will look upon this period as one of the greatest natural or perhaps man-made disasters in world history.
#DiaperDon Trump has already been allotted the title of worst president in American history and his deadly management of the pandemic is already recognized by many as the greatest public policy and political failure in our own 244-year history.
So, where does that leave us 6 weeks before the Inauguration?
The short answer: I am not sure. I cannot imagine anyone who is. Indeed. I delayed writing this edition a handful of days to see if I could gain any more clarity before shooting my mouth off. And I am now confident enough (barely) to trace out a few somewhat broadly defined scenarios for our immediate future with the caveat that, myself included, nobody knows nuthin’.
The War With Iran Scenario:
Trump and his minions are frantically trying to sabotage as much as they can of Biden’s margins of political maneuver before the transition is over. He already stacked the Supreme Court. He went ahead and ordered last minute troop withdrawals from our two losing wars (probably the one good idea Trump had).Literally hundreds of business and commercial regulations are being wiped off the books as I write. And the US government bureaucracy is being salted with manifold appointments of Trump loyalists who can now bore from within.
Most alarming was the recent assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, undoubtedly at the hands of Israel’s secret service – a notion that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has buoyed.
The Israeli action had a very clear goal. Anger Iran enough that it might retaliate and be drawn into war or at a minimum make it damn near impossible for Joe Biden to re-engage in the Iran Nuclear Deal.
That second goal, unfortunately, has probably already been accomplished unless the Iranians demonstrate truly superior political skills, figure out the playing board, and decide to play it cool and eventually engage with Biden.
On the other hand, would you do so if you were an Iranian leader? I think it is now manifestly clear to them that 10 year long treaties mean very little when one of the major signatories has an election every 4 years and the new admin can tear up that treaty. Any move by Iran to de-escalate will mean they have discarded the possibility of Trump getting re-elected in 2024.
Much more disturbing, however, is the very real possibility that this assassination heralds a coming Israeli-Iran war in which, I have to think, Donald Trump would be more than happy to lend a hand before packing up. At that point, I give up speculating. Whatever would come of that would NOT be good.
