No Longer Downplaying The Insanity?

Two articles on the front page of the Washington Post this morning seem to demonstrate that, at least at one newspaper, reporters' gloves are off in describing the divisiveness and insanity emanating from the Oval Office.

First, Philip Rucker and Toulouse Olorunnipa on two actions taken by the Orange Shitgibbon (with the headline "With ‘shooting’ tweet, Trump inflames rather than soothes tensions amid Minneapolis unrest"):

Nobody forced the crisis in Minneapolis upon President Trump. He chose to inflame the tinderbox himself when he issued an ultimatum to people protesting the death of a black man there under the custody of a white police officer.

In a pair of tweets sent at 12:53 a.m. Friday, Trump threatened to deploy the National Guard to use lethal force against demonstrators he denigrated as “THUGS.” His ominous warning — “when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!” — was flagged by Twitter as a violation of the social media platform’s rule against glorifying violence.

Having contributed to another national cleavage over racial justice, a president who was elected to lead the nation through crises effectively retreated from the responsibility of doing so on this one.

At the same time, Trump on Friday abdicated the traditional role of an American president abroad, ceding global leadership by announcing that he was “terminating” U.S. membership in the World Health Organization.

Later in the article, they quoted a political scientist who nailed the Orange Shitgibbon's utter failure at this moment in history:

“He’s perfectly incapable of exercising leadership because he doesn’t understand what leadership is,” said Max Skidmore, a political scientist at the University of Missouri at Kansas City and author of a book on presidential leadership during health crises. “He thinks of leadership as whipping up outrage from a crowd, and having them yell and support him.”

Second, Matt Zapotosky and Isaac Stanley-Becker on the crises facing America (with the headline "Gripped by disease, unemployment and outrage at the police, America plunges into crisis"):

A global pandemic has now killed more than 100,000 Americans and left 40 million unemployed in its wake. Protests — some of them violent — have once again erupted in spots across the country over police killings of black Americans.

President Trump, meanwhile, is waging a war against Twitter, attacking his political rivals, criticizing a voting practice he himself uses and suggesting that looters could be shot.

Both articles also reported on Joe Biden's calming remarks, in which he described the "open wound" of racism and urged a restoration of "the soul of America."  An easy compare and contrast.

We should also note that the national evening news broadcasts are not blinking in describing the Orange Shitgibbon's words and actions and juxtaposing them against Biden's.  Guess it's finally hard to ignore the crazed elephant in the room when there are over 100,000 deaths, 40 million unemployed and cities starting to erupt in violence, all at the same time.