To the Editor:

About the failed pandemic response, Democratic nominee Joe Biden says that Trump won’t “do the work”. He’s being polite. Here’s what “doing the work” looks like and what it doesn’t.

Consider the example of opening schools during a global pandemic. Doing the work: Start detailed planning and actions in May. Not doing the work: Tweet in August “Open the schools!” Doing the work: Gathering the FDA, scientists, national labs and innovators with the objective of creating a rapid, low-cost test for daily school entry by August 1.

Not doing the work: Disbanding the task force in May and abdicating responsibility for testing. Doing the work: Going to Congress and crafting a budget to retrofit schools safely, and to provide the contact-tracing, isolation & mental health resources schools need. Not: Letting McConnell dismiss the Senate without delivering any support, unchallenged. Doing the work is something I like to call “what we pay you for”, “the bare minimum”, or “doing your job.”

Tens of thousands of people dead, and you get a report that more tens of thousands of people may die soon, you don’t say “it is what it is.” You don’t fly off to golf. You don’t brag over how bad things could have been. Instead you do the work. If that means getting masks and essential PPE, you manufacture, import & distribute like life itself was in the balance. If it means closing bars, limiting travel and mandating protection, you make sure that happens.

If it means moving people out of nursing homes and other hotspots, you orchestrate that. You live by this mantra daily: Every. Single. Life. Means. Something. You and your staff repeat it. You mourn every single loss. You get the names. You call families. You make it as unrelentingly uncomfortable as possible for everyone around you until the dying stops. That’s part of doing the work.

Doing the work means you have the best people on the planet working on nothing but this. President Obama once said “all the easy decisions get made before they make it to my desk. Everything that comes to me will be tough decisions.” To do the work of being President, you embrace the challenge, or it terrifies you.

The cowards end up frozen and confused. You tell the governors to figure it out. You remind us constantly that the virus didn’t initiate here and you dodge responsibility. You let decisions drift. You distract and change the topic, and you require subordinates to say that you’re doing a good job. All that, but you don’t do the work.

Instead of doing the work, if the polls are down and you are about to face judgment in the election, you reflexively try anything to stymie the balloting. You sabotage the Postal Service and ask, “who can be expected to deliver the mail?” You promote fear and intimidation to stop the voting without regard to Constitutional norms. Instead of doing the work, you get angry that your ego is tattered. You fire good people, you malign them publicly, and you waste hours watching your sycophants on TV.

This is what work feels like to you, so you don’t recognize that you’re not doing the work. This is just the amount of work you’ve always done. Spinning. Bullying. Scheming. But not planning. Not deciding. Not saving lives. Because that would imply you had the power all along, and that you have failed.

We’ve seen in Canada, Germany, France, Greece, New Zealand, Japan, Taiwan, and Korea, the real leaders are not fragile egomaniacs. These leaders do the hard and necessary work – not the string of Presidential absences punctuated by frivolous posturing – to save both lives and their nations’ livelihoods. There’s a hiring opportunity soon, and we can hire a team in Biden/Harris ready and willing to do the Presidential work.

Fred Call
Newry

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