I can see situations where being vaccinated will be mandatory just to ensure that people don’t turn themselves into a lethal weapon and unwittingly end up killing someone because they are COVID positive – although they don’t know this and are a-symptomatic  for the virus –  and then give it to someone else who might die from it. This might happen in situations where social distancing isn’t an option – such as on airplanes – or when a population group is particularly vulnerable such as senior care homes where the vast majority of deaths (80% in Canada) have occurred.

It might be said that such restrictions infringe on personal rights and freedoms, but I see this more as just another way to ensure each other’s safety, e.g.,  such as restricting vehicles to speed limits or one-way traffic or mandatory stop signs so we don’t all end up killing each other when driving our cars.

Reasonable people with some sense of social responsibility should not take issue with this, but it is clear that not everyone is that way inclined or appears to have evolved  to the point that they are capable of thinking that way.

To take this latter point a little further, no doubt that in the end,  when all this COVID trouble  is over – here’s hoping! – there are going to be people who will proudly proclaim that they were able to survive this plague without being vaccinated or, for that matter,  without wearing a mask or social distancing, so what was the big fuss all about?

However, it is less likely that they survived the pandemic unscathed regardless  of their non-adherence to recommended public safety measures in light of COVID. More likely, it was the fact that the vast majority of people around them did  follow the recommended procedures such as masking up and getting vaccinated and so prevented the anti-vaxxers  from  becoming infected  with this potentially deadly virus even if they themselves were infected with it.

No, you couldn’t prove that of course, but you shouldn’t have to as this is merely an appeal to reason – and  it is an unfortunate fact that, from the looks of it,  not everyone is in possession of this faculty, and so they will not be able to get the point.

I’m looking at this in the context of  the 45th president of America now  having  left the White House, as reluctantly as that would have been the case.  He rejected the outcome of a democratic election by declaring it to be fraud,  and going as far as inciting an insurrection by urging a viscous mob to violate and ransack the US Capitol,  and trying to justify this with the – since deleted – tweet on January 6, stating that “these are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away.”

The fact that he or his supporters could not produce one shred of  credible and verifiable evidence in support of that bizarre and outrageous claim is just one more reason to refer to his turbulent and abysmally divisive four year term as the head of the USA as a unique phenomenon that requires  some exploration.

I’ve written enough about this now ex-president  in earlier posts to make it  clear that, yes,  I have an intense dislike for him – and for all the reasons  that are perhaps best summarized by something his former National Security Advisor John Bolton once said about him: he has a hole where his character should have been.

If the 45th president of the United States has demonstrated anything during his noxious reign, it is the fact that he appears to be totally devoid of humanity. By the time he left office on January 20th, over 400,000 Americans had been killed by current pandemic, yet one would have a hard time recalling even one instance in which he publicly expressed genuine empathy towards the families affected by the tragic loss of their loved ones.

Nor did he demonstrate at any time the kind of  resoluteness  and  determination required to address this deadly pandemic with the  sense of urgency that one would expect from the leader of a country that is being ravaged by it. The conclusion has to be:  he couldn’t  care less! After all – be it one or 400,00 dead Americans – they  are of no use to him, i.e., they will not  be able to pledge fealty to him, let alone vote for him. At most they are an embarrassment for having died in such numbers during his term in office, to the point that when his presidency came to an end the USA had the highest number of novel corona-virus  deaths in the world

Throughout his career in private business and during the last four years as a politician it has become very clear that the only person he cares about is himself.  Add his inability to admit mistakes by always blaming others  and deliver false and misleading claims on just about any subject should that serve his purpose: you have the textbook definition of a sociopath!

While he might seem to care about those who support him and appear to be loyal to him, the moment that seems no longer the case you may as well not exist, i.e., you are of no value to him, as many of his former supporters have found out. A case in point would be the situation his ever-loyal vice-president  found himself in on January 6, 2021, when Mike Pence decided to uphold his country’s constitution and certify the election results – as he was legally required to do – instead of complying with Trump’s  demand to throw them out so he could stay in office.  More recently it appears his ever loyal legal  sidekick Rudolph Giuliani has now been given the heave-ho, presumably for services perhaps not so successfully rendered.

So the question remains:  how was it  possible for a sociopath such as  Trump to be elected as the 45th president of the US? I don’t believe I can offer any kind of unique insight  into this – for me –  baffling phenomenon but the short answer appears to be: he benefited  from the significant and historically longstanding divisions within the country,  by appealing to the disgruntled hard hearted side of the  political spectrum and  become their chosen champion  to rebuild the USA in their image.

Moreover, he was able to  transformed the Republican party from a political organization into a cult of personality that would endow him with a sense of reverence seldom seen within Western politics. The upshot was that he could do no wrong; he could count on their absolute support for whatever action he would consider necessary  – legally or illegally – to make the country  see things his way.

That he was able to accomplish this over a relatively short period of time is remarkable, but it would be a big mistake to credit him with any kind of political savvy to make this happen. Instead,  it was  a case of being  in the right place at the right time.  Never short on ambition, his crude and abrasive in-your-face  personae became the perfect medium to personify and give voice to the spiteful and less generous side of human nature on behalf of  those on the political right wanting to express their resentment and anger with their country’s status quo.

Trump and the political right rise to power must be seen within the context of many Americans having been manipulated  to perceive  the  looming threat of “socialism” during the eight years of the Obama administration. Despite being among the top world economic powers, the US remains the sole industrialized nation in the world without universal health care coverage. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) – nicknamed Obamacare – aimed to provide affordable health insurance coverage for all Americans – it  would be portrayed as another major  step towards socialism by those who opposed it.