Necessary memory

On Saturday I received an email from the dedicated couple who, in December 2016, launched the Indivisible movement to help people come together to build collective power and use the tools remaining in our democracy to make their voices heard. Lots of times they ask for money or promote campaigns. But this letter was about something less tangible, but also important: we must hang on to what our eyes have seen and our ears have heard.

One form of resistance in moments like this is to simply to insist that reality is reality. We resist by insisting that the past is not just whatever they say it is. We have to cling to real, honest-to-God truths, otherwise the authoritarians will control our future. We’ve felt this at various times during the Trump presidency, but never more than we do now.

Ezra & Leah

As so many suffer and die in an epidemic which Trump administration mismanagement has allowed to run unhindered, we cannot allow the rush of news and the ongoing pain to push aside the memory of failure from the top. Here's an incomplete list:

Jan 8th - First CDC warning

Jan 9th - Trump campaign rally

Jan 14th - Trump campaign rally

Jan 16th - House sends impeachment articles to Senate

Jan 18th - Trump golfs

Jan 19th - Trump golfs

Jan 22nd - “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. It’s going to be just fine.”

Jan 28th - Trump campaign rally

Jan 30th - Trump campaign rally

Feb 1st - Trump golfs

Feb 2nd - “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China."

Feb 5th - Senate votes to acquit

Feb 10th - Trump campaign rally

Feb 15h - Trump golfs

Feb 19th - Trump campaign rally

Feb 20th - Trump campaign rally

Feb 21st - Trump campaign rally

Feb 24th - “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA… Stock Market starting to look very good to me!”

Feb 25h - “CDC and my Administration are doing a GREAT job of handling Coronavirus.”

Feb 25h - “I think that's a problem that’s going to go away… They have studied it. They know very much. In fact, we’re very close to a vaccine.”

Feb 26th - “The 15 (cases in the US) within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.”

Feb 26th - “We're going very substantially down, not up.”

Feb 27 - “One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”

Feb 28th - “We're ordering a lot of supplies. We're ordering a lot of, uh, elements that frankly we wouldn't be ordering unless it was something like this. But we're ordering a lot of different elements of medical.”

Feb 28th - Trump campaign rally

March 2nd - “You take a solid flu vaccine, you don't think that could have an impact, or much of an impact, on corona?”

March 2nd - “A lot of things are happening, a lot of very exciting things are happening and they’re happening very rapidly.”

March 4 - “If we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work — some of them go to work, but they get better.”

March 5th - “I NEVER said people that are feeling sick should go to work.”

March 5th - “The United States… has, as of now, only 129 cases… and 11 deaths. We are working very hard to keep these numbers as low as possible!”

March 6th - “I think we’re doing a really good job in this country at keeping it down… a tremendous job at keeping it down.”

March 6th - “Anybody right now, and yesterday, anybody that needs a test gets a test. They’re there. And the tests are beautiful…. the tests are all perfect like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect. Right? This was not as perfect as that but pretty good.”

March 6th - “I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it… Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.”

March 6th - “I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn't our fault.”

March 7th - Trump golfs

March 8th - Trump golfs

March 8th - “We have a perfectly coordinated and fine tuned plan at the White House for our attack on CoronaVirus.”

March 9th - “This blindsided the world.”

March 13th - [Declared state of emergency]

March 17th - “This is a pandemic,” Mr. Trump told reporters. “I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.”

I never listen to the guy live; he just obfuscates and/or lies. But he clogs the position from which leadership ought to emanate. His phony words matter -- not as much as his deeds -- but certainly to our sanity. Remember and act.