The word of presidents, past, present and prospective

By Sid Schwab / Herald columnist

Question: If those long-gun-toting, body-armor-wearing, priapic protesters storming the gallery of the Michigan legislature had been African-American, Latino, Muslim or Native American, would their deaths be considered Covid-19 related?

When Trump called them “very good people,” was he distinguishing them from the “very fine people” marching for white supremacy in Charlottesville? Or was it random, simply reinforcing his impeachable calls for insurrection and his insecurity around powerful women, like Michigan’s Gov. Whitmer? What if they’d taken a knee?

Actual good people are raising thoughtful questions about how to calibrate reopening. Among them, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has produced detailed guidelines, which Trump immediately spiked. But those Michigander embarrassments to the male gender weren’t there to be thoughtful. They were there to intimidate, implicitly threatening violence, cheered on by their “president.” (Swastikas and Confederate flags, evidently indispensable to the movement, remained outside.)

They were terrorists. That our “president” suggested making “a deal” with such people underscores the obvious: Donald “I’m-treated-worse-than-Lincoln” Trump has neither interest in nor understanding of democracy. Those gunmen have even less. In this democratic republic, they should be heroes to none, no matter one’s views on reopening. But here we are, and there they are. Our “president” celebrates them, and democracy is on a ventilator.

By contrast, George W. Bush, with whom I rarely agreed but never considered an empathy-free, self-aggrandizing, full-time liar (only part-time), just produced this: (YouTube: tinyurl.com/good4george)

President Obama already had: (YouTube: tinyurl.com/baracktalk)

How sad that former presidents are needed to fill our current moral leadership vacuum. Sadder still that protesting poseurs can’t see what’s behind premature reopening: States can cancel unemployment from workers who refuse to return before it’s safe. Federal aid can be withheld from small businesses who, out of concern for employee and customer health, don’t yet open. And if Moscow Mitch’s suggested state bankruptcies were to happen, there goes their employees’ retirement benefits. Meanwhile, troll-bots are flooding social media, fanning the protests. From where, do you suppose, and for what purpose?

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