An indelible image of this pandemic: Trump, without a mask, on a golf course

It was the murderous dictator Joseph Stalin who supposedly said that one death was a tragedy, one million deaths a mere statistic. One hundred thousand deaths are difficult to get one’s mind around. The toll in our nation from covid-19, as it reaches that horrific milestone, must be seen as a catastrophe — and an indictment.

The long Memorial Day weekend gave the pandemic an indelible visual image: President Trump, wearing a ball cap but no mask, enjoying himself on his Northern Virginia golf course. Last week, you will recall, Trump declared it was “essential” that Americans be able to spend Sunday at church services. He chose to head for the links instead.

Primary blame for those 100,000 deaths must go to the killer itself — the novel coronavirus that spreads so easily, overwhelms defenseless immune systems and turned New York hospitals into charnel houses. But not all of covid-19’s victims had to die. Some responsibility must be laid at the feet of a president who ignored the threat until it was too late, who failed to mount an adequate response and who still, after so many lonely deaths and socially distanced funerals, insists that the enemy will somehow just magically disappear. Continue reading.