A reporter from one of Viet Nam’s top media outlets asked me (and others) the following questions about the 3 November election. Below are my responses. Yes, I answered most of the questions indirectly. Guilty as charged, but all for a good cause, i.e., to shed more light on the human, policy, and perception disaster that is the Trump presidency. One innocuous quote in italicized bold ended up in the final article.

1 – Have you voted in the 2020 US presidential election? When and how?

2 – Who do you support? Can you tell the reason why you support that candidate ?

3 – What are your expectations if he is elected? My expectations are that the Biden/Harris administration can begin to undo some of the damage that the Trump administration has done to the US, its people, and global perceptions of the US. The rest of the work will take a lot longer.

I agree with Gore Vidal (1925-2012), a US writer and public intellectual, who had this to say about the US political system: “There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat.” Having said that, US voters must, and it appears will, end the malignant narcissist-in-chief, politically speaking, on 3 November, and send his cruel, corrupt, and incompetent administration packing, along with his family from hell. The most compelling reason to vote for Joe Biden is that he’s not Donald Trump. The contrast has never been starker.

Whoever supports Trump is either an elitist, a racist, a misogynist, and/or a xenophobe, or is willing to overlook his faults, which are legion, and his many dark qualities because they benefit in some way from his presidency, for example, a racist, misogynistic, and rich white man who got even richer because of Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy. If you support Trump, you implicitly support his cruelty (keeping children at the US-Mexican border separated from their parents and in what are essentially cages, mocking a disabled reporter), his lies, his bullying, his corruption, his racism, his lunacy (suggesting the possibility of using disinfectant in the lungs as a treatment for COVID-19!), his threats of violence against fellow citizens with whom he disagrees, his anti-intellectualism, and his chronic malignant narcissism.

Put simply, Trump is a man with no redeeming qualities, a spoiled man-child whose inherited wealth has insulated him from accountability his entire life and who has failed at virtually everything in life except being a “television personality.” The only reason he was elected in 2016, having lost by nearly 3 million votes, is because of the obsolete Electoral College system.

[As mentioned in a previous post, the functionally illiterate in the US, who comprise 40% of all people from 16 to 74, are overrepresented in the Electoral College and the larger political system. Under the current system both California, with a population of 40 million, and Wyoming, with 579,000 residents, get two senators. It is estimated that 40% of all US Americans will live in five states by 2040, which means half of the US will be represented by 18 senators and the other half by 82.]

Trump and his administration have done practically nothing to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic with a total of 9.1 million confirmed cases and 233,137 deaths in the US. Yesterday, there were 81,581 new cases and 1,030 more deaths. Since most of the deaths were preventable, Trump’s coronavirus-related inaction and misconduct are tantamount to criminally negligent homicide.

In a speech last week, former President Barack Obama had this to say about one of the benefits of a Biden-Harris administration: “And with Joe and Kamala at the helm, you’re not going to have to think about the crazy things they said every day. And that’s worth a lot. You’re not going to have to argue about them every day. It just won’t be so exhausting.” Trump, a human train wreck and arguably the worst president in US history, belongs in a minimum-security prison. The legal reckoning is coming after he leaves the White House.

After a Biden/Harris victory, all of the racists and white nationalists will be forced to crawl back under their slimy rocks, hopefully, until the US becomes a “minority white” country in 2045.

Feel free to quote from these articles:

Balancing Solidarity & Individualism in the COVID-19 Era and Beyond: a View from Vietnam (18.9.20)

ĐOÀN KẾT VÀ TRÁI ĐẮNG CỦA CHỦ NGHĨA CÁ NHÂN (edited/mildly censored Vietnamese version, 19.9.20)

Unedited Vietnamese version in 2nd comment (19.9.20)

Promoting study in US universities in trying times (18.7.20)

Góc Nhìn Từ Việt Nam: COVID – 19 Nhắc nhở Thế giới rằng Trump chỉ là “Hoàng đế Cởi truồng” (28.4.20)

View From Vietnam: COVID-19 Reminds the World That Trump Has No Clothes (17.4.20)

Postscript: The information contained in this 27.10.20 blog “54% of U.S. Adults between the Ages of 16 and 74 Years Old Lack Proficiency in Literacy” post says a lot about the current political situation in the US.

Shalom (שלום), MAA