The dear and wise leader wants you to know that whatever good the government does for you is actually being done by him and him alone, since his authority is “total.”
No, we are not North Korea and don’t yet live under a totalitarian system. But President Trump’s demand that his name be affixed to the stimulus checks authorized by Congress to ease the economic impact of the coronavirus crisis tells us three things.
First, everything he does is self-serving. (He doesn’t mind if he delays your check.) Second, his instincts are authoritarian. Third, his bravado, designed to conceal, only highlights his awareness of the deep political trouble he’s in because of his “corruption, carelessness, self-dealing, disinformation, ignorance and just plain meanness.” After all, “pandemics have a way of cutting through a lot of noise and spin to remind us of what is real and what is important.”
