President Goofy

How's everyone holding up?

I retired a couple of weeks ago, and now I have even more time on my hands than I had when I was working from home. A lot of that time has been spent watching the news, and it isn't pretty. COVID-19 numbers are spiking in many states, including ours. The experts continue to urge the standard precautions: hand-washing, social distancing, masks. Most of the people we've seen seem to be complying, but as of this writing there is one notable exception: our president. Recently, one of his Fox Friends urged him to set a good example by wearing a mask, which I thought was pretty funny, considering the fact that he has consistently set the worst example for every sort of human behavior. It's the one thing he's good at—why, he's almost as good as Goofy.

Allow me to explain.

These days, with students having to attend virtual classrooms, instructional videos are nothing special. Even before the pandemic, I'm sure lots of teachers used them. But when I was growing up back in the middle of the last century, it was a real treat to get to watch a movie at school, even if it came with a lesson. Instructional films taught us to be more polite, be more careful, eat healthier—usually with examples of what not to do. The best ones were the Goofy cartoons by Walt Disney, where the narrator told us what we should do while Goofy did the exact opposite, with hilarious results.

Goofy as a demented driver in Motor Mania

During the past three-and-a-half years, Donald Trump has proven himself to be, at best, incompetent, lazy, and a pathological liar. He has demonstrated just about everything a president should not do, and refusing to mask-up during the pandemic is the very least of it. He has insulted our allies, praised dictators and white supremacists, promoted violence, attacked the press, solicited interference in our elections, and blamed everyone else for his own mistakes.

In short, he is President Goofy.

Look, I understand why a lot of people voted for him. They didn't trust politicians. They wanted an outsider, someone who knew nothing about government. The trouble is, President Goofy is every bit as incompetent today as he was when he was inaugurated. He hasn't learned a thing in the three-and-a-half years he's been in office, and he hasn't shown any interest in doing so.

It's time for this experiment in kakistocracy to end. President Goofy has been a useful illustration of how not to be a president, but now it's time to elect someone who knows how to be a president. If you feel you can't vote for Joe Biden in the upcoming election, that's okay. I will understand. But please, whatever you do, do not vote for Donald Trump.

You'd do better to cast a write-in vote for Donald Duck.