“There is no such thing as stupid questions, only stupid people.”

– Mr. Garrison on South Park

Any casual watcher of hurricane coverage can tell you that the greatest danger comes at high tide. As the water levels rise, the sea reclaims the land and devours oceanfront property. Unfortunately, former President Trump seems ignorant of this basic fact and, therefore, does not understand one of the most basic threats of global warming. While the one-two punch of rising oceans and more frequent extreme weather events, both caused by climate change, have wiped out island communities and threatened the existence of entire countries, Trump perceives a positive outcome. Ignoring the prediction that most of his Mar-a-Lago resort “could be underwater by 2100,” he often says that a rising sea level will somehow create “more oceanfront property.”

The former President has consistently proven himself to be neither stable nor a genius. In addition to missing the basic plot point of the movie Waterworld, Trump repeatedly pushed theories that had no basis in reality. After studying wind energy “better than anybody [he] know[s],” Trump has stated on multiple occasions that the noise from windmills causes cancer. He does not seem to understand the concept of batteries as he has said that electric planes could not work “if the sun isn’t shining while you’re up in the air”. He reportedly believes the human body is like a battery, with a finite amount of energy, which exercise only depletes.

During his failed presidency, Trump’s lack of intellect had real-world implications as he was caught flat-footed by the onset of the COVID crisis. Believing that it was a waste to spend money without an existing threat, he had proposed pre-pandemic cuts to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), National Institute For Health (NIH), and the World Health Organization (WHO) believing that “if we ever need them, we can get them [back] very quickly”. Not that he thought he needed experts; Trump claimed to have a “natural ability” to understand diseases  like COVID and even pondered whether he should have “done that instead of running for president.” As concern mounted, Trump assured Americans “we’re prepared for anything. We’re prepared. We are really very highly prepared for anything.”

When **it hit the fan he was anything but prepared. Even as conditions rapidly deteriorated, Trump declared “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA”. He speculated it would go “away in April with the heat”. He pushed to “have packed churches all over our country” for Easter Sunday.  People kept dying.

Later Trump admitted to Bob Woodward that he purposely downplayed the seriousness of the crisis, saying that he did not “want to create a panic.” Despite his upbeat tone, he understood the severity of the situation:

Even worse than Trump’s refusal to be honest with the American people was the actions he took that put people in direct danger. His signature rallies and other super spreader events continued raising the possibility of his complicity in the deaths of supporters like Herman Cain. Despite testing positive three days before and “showing worsening symptoms”, Trump attended the first 2020 debate with Joe Biden, endangering the life of his opponent as well as everyone else on the set and their families. On the way home aboard Air Force One, he and his Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, joked about his health condition.

Trump’s willful ignorance was most on display as he became the country’s leading purveyor of conspiracy theories surrounding the deadly pandemic. Most notably he pushed the use of Hydroxychloroquine even after the NIH “abandoned clinical trials of the drug.” after preliminary studies showed that the anti-malarial drug “was very unlikely to be beneficial to hospitalized patients with COVID-19”. Even worse, it was discovered that it could cause “psychiatric symptoms” and “heart rhythm problems and other safety issues, including blood and lymph system disorders, kidney injuries, and liver problems and failure” 

In another example of his not understanding his responsibilities as President, Trump asked his experts at a news conference if it was possible that injecting disinfectant could be used to cure COVID. In the aftermath of Trump’s comments, accidental poisonings with household disinfectants were up 121% compared to the same period in the previous year.

One epidemiologist estimates that at least 12,000 COVID-related deaths can be attributed to Trump’s negative or false assertions about face masks. At one meeting in the Oval Office, he made some participants take off their face masks even though tests conducted by the White House showed that they were infected.

As Trump reluctantly gave up the reins of power, the number of COVID-19 deaths peaked at 9.75 per million people. Today, that rate sits at .47. Based on that alone, it is clear that we are better off than we were four years ago. This belief is further solidified by the fact that in 2021 red states had higher COVID infection rates and deaths compared to blue states. While it is commonly believed that advanced age and obesity are more likely to result in death, this same study showed that the biological factors “predicted deaths only in red states.” Vote accordingly, the life you save may be your own.

Carl Petersen is a parent advocate for public education, particularly for students with special education needs, who serves as the Education Chair for the Northridge East Neighborhood Council. As a Green Party candidate in LAUSD’s District 2 School Board race, he was endorsed by Network for Public Education (NPE) Action. Dr. Diane Ravitch has called him “a valiant fighter for public schools in Los Angeles.” For links to his blogs, please visit www.ChangeTheLAUSD.com. Opinions are his own.