Can a leader’s slanderous insults, falsehoods and lies make a nation great?
Yet, it’s what we hear during these past three years on live TV and read from a barrage of daily (and nightly) tweets.
For decades, America been recognized as a great global leader.
Now, when international cooperation is essential for human progress and survival, Trump lashes out at and punishes the only worldwide institution working toward that end.
He cut funding for the UN World Health Organization (WHO), the global health organization saving millions of our planet’s children from ravaging epidemics by immunizations and prevention.
WHO’s record of providing maternal health services cut in half the number of women dying in childbirth worldwide.
These attacks reflect more on Trump’s need to cover up his own early inept and ignorant non-responses obstructing precautionary measures against this contagion.
On Jan. 30, the WHO warned this virus was “a public health emergency of grave global concern” even when there were less than 100 cases and no deaths outside of China.
A nation is not made great again by a leader who fails to take responsibility for ignoring these global warnings and even from his closest Cabinet, intelligence, and scientific advisors — delaying measures that might have saved thousands.
A nation is not made great by a leader who contradicts himself daily, denying false statements recorded earlier.
America’s greatness is achieved with a leader who treats the nation, its allies and international institutions with honesty and respect.
How’s he doing?
Sylvia M. Meyer
Port Angeles