Monroe Dispatch - No Struggle, No Progress

Hoax: (n) humorous or malicious deception, practical joke, deceive (a person) with a hoax. To swindle, trick, (con) snow job, gyp, deception, flimflam, defraud, cheat, trick and bamboozle. That’s quite a collection of meanings for one word. That also happens to be the one word that President Donald Trump uses when he has nothing else to say. If the president ever goes on trial in a real court (not one run by Republican senators), he would have a difficult time explaining to jurors how every time someone disagrees with him on a particular subject, it is a hoax. The president, as he is prone to do, is making himself out to be a victim by not what someone else has done, but by his own words and deeds. In other words, don’t blame me even though I said/did it, but “they” are out to “get me”. A great example appeared this week when Chuck Woolery (Chuck who?) from the old “Love Connection” TV show, tweeted that “everyone is lying” about COVID-19, that it is “a plot” to sabotage the economy and hurt Trump’s reelection. Of course, President Trump couldn’t tweet fast enough to agree with Woolery. In that phrase “everyone is lying”, Woolery blamed the CDC, media, some doctors and yes, Democrats on holding back the economy in an effort to torpedo Trump in November. But that “everyone” did not include Republicans. One has to wonder why. But seriously folks, if we don’t get really serious about slowing this pandemic down, because it is not the president, or say/do nothing Republicans and people like Chuck Woolery who have your interest in mind, this nation’s death estimate of 200,000 will be reached.

The president is telling the nation/world that Americans don’t need to trust doctors, even the ones who work for him. According to media reports, the White House is gradually laying the framework for President Trump to fire Dr. Anthony Fauci, the leading infectious disease expert, something that Trump and Woolery are not. Nonetheless both have gone on record as saying that the American people are being fooled. It is to them, about keeping the president in office while completely ignoring the 136,000 and counting, people who have died. No one in the Trump administration mentions the death toll at press briefings, nor will the president even tweet out the number of people who are dying on a weekly basis. Woolery and company won’t mention the people who work for the president who have COVID-19, not even Don Jr.’s current companion. If the pandemic is a “hoax”, why did the president let the world see him wearing (gasp!) a mask? The question really is, who is the one that is deceiving (hoax) people into believing that the truth is a hoax? Who has the most to lose? Who has been called a conman? This is not a humorous deceptive practical joke, but it should be seen as malicious because people are dying by the thousands. A hoax will keep the truth from you, something that has been proven(truth) to be the opposite of the president.

Nonetheless people will believe what they want. Who/what would you believe? Would you believe reports of hospitals across the nation at critical stages when it comes to ICU beds? Would you believe that wearing a mask is safer than not wearing one? Do you believe your doctor or the president when it comes to knowing what is best for your health? The U.S. has fallen far behind other nations in containing COVID-19, and that is not a hoax. Some of our leaders would rather play on the ignorance(willful?) of others just to score political points, knowing that the man in charge is looking out for himself. A preacher might say that is a sin for a leader that they say “was chosen” by God to do. However, this reporter hasn’t heard any preachers say that the virus is a hoax and that the president is right by calling the virus a hoax. Look at the words that describe what a hoax is, and then decide for yourself who is playing a hoax. Remember, the world is watching. So is God.