Donald Trump, the Capo-in-Chief, at today’s CoVID press conference (a ritual that has become more farce than informational)  gave us another lesson in alternative history.

“The closest thing is in 1917, they say, the great pandemic. It certainly was a terrible thing where they lost anywhere from 50 to 100 million people…..Probably ended the second World War, all the soldiers were sick.”

Not many caught that he was wrong when he called it the “1917” pandemic instead of the “1918” influenza pandemic as historians refer to it.  But most of us grew up knowing about when World War II ended (1945).  And almost all of us know that 1945 is not 1917.  Of course facts never stopped Trump from falsely claiming credit for a victory that has yet to materialize, exaggerating his accomplishments to the point of absurdity or telling one more lie to his slavishly gullible base.

“we would’ve had one and a half or two million people already dead…”

Had it not been for his uber-competent leader and his

“firm understanding of how the novel coronavirus functions..”

China’s on the rise. Russia is more capricious than ever testing the resolve of the league of democratic nations (of which we are no longer a member).  We are circling the drain of another Great Depression with unemployment north of 10%.  The USPS is in its death throes under the “leadership” of one of Trump’s billionaire henchmen. 160,000 Americans have died from CoVID-19.  Climate change is approaching the threshold of an extinction-level event faster than scientists predicted.  The nation is more divided than in any other time since the Civil War.  Our schools are closed.  A national depression has set in as people experience unprecedented levels of anxiety about their health care, social security, the rent, their jobs.

This is a time of unprecedented challenges and threats to our nation.  The world has become a much more chaotic and much more dangerous place than it was just 4 years ago due in large measure to Trump.  Even if Trump were a person of character, even if he were a true patriot, even if he understood and respected our democratic institutions, why would we in this time of unprecedented challenges and threats to our nation consent to be ruled by someone with such a tenuous grasp of history?  Someone who demonstrates every day that he has no understanding of the destructive geopolitical forces that he himself has unleashed.

Even if Trump were a person of character, even if he were a true patriot, even if he understood and respected our democratic institutions, his ignorance in these times would be our undoing.