Delusional: Pete Ricketts Continues To Defend Trump
Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts’ incompetence and fealty to Donald Trump has resulted in one of the nation’s worst responses to the Covid-19 pandemic. At the present time, Nebraska is number nine in the country in terms of new daily COVID-19 cases per capita. What’s more, according to the Harvard Global Health Institute, Nebraska is in the so-called red zone. That means that Nebraska is now suffering from unchecked community spread.
Unfortunately for the people of Nebraska, Ricketts’ policies have largely replicated those of his hero Donald Trump. Recently, Dr. James Lawler of UNMC correctly pointed out that Trump’s failed policies cost thousands of lives. “The result of that is we have 400,000 dead Americans,” Lawler said in an interview with The World-Herald. “It didn’t need to be this way.”
Oddly enough, even after Trump’s failed coup killed five people, Pete Ricketts rushed to the defense of the former TV reality star who occupied the Oval Office for four years. According to the Omaha World Herald, the billionaire governor indicated that he he “disagreed 100%” with the assessment by Lawler, who is regarded as a national expert on pandemics.
Ricketts’ defense of Trump’s handling of the pandemic is laughable in light of the fact that it is out of control in the U.S. and that Trump didn’t have a vaccine distribution plan. The numbers on the pandemic are simply damning for the worst president in U.S. history.
I will share with you some of the key statistics that best illustrate Trump’s utter failure regarding Covid-19.
Final U.S. COVID deaths per month for 2020, from CNN:
January 0
February 1
March 5,277
April 60,738
May 41,703
June 20,112
July 26,446
August 29,532
September 23,418
October 23,974
November 36,964
December 77,572
In the first half of January 2021, there were already 43,000 Covid 19 deaths. Unfortunately, the pace of infections and deaths is accelerating.
Just to show how much of an outlier the U.S. is from better performing First World, developed countries, here are covid-19 deaths per million people (adjusted for population) since the pandemic began:
Japan: 21
Australia: 35
South Korea: 12
Norway: 74
New Zealand: 5
Taiwan: 0.3
U.S.: 948
According to a study from Columbia University, Trump’s incompetence caused over 200,000 Americans to have unnecessarily perished to this dreaded disease. The U.S. has had one of the worst responses to the pandemic of the First World industrialized countries.
Pete Ricketts continues to defend Trump because he is in the words of a Nebraska Republican insider: “A true believer conservative.” The former T.D. Ameritrade executive actually believes in the GOP’s intellectually and morally bankrupt so-called limited government philosophy. In reality, only the wealthy and the owners of war weapons enjoy so-called smaller government.
Ricketts continues to defend the disgraced, former one term president because he has future presidential aspirations in mind. That’s why Ricketts has been a regular at right wing meetings like the NRA, Red State, the Federalist Society and CPAC. Moreover, Joe Ricketts is setting up his own national news outlet to promote Pete’s political future.
Don’t laugh. If Donald Trump could win the GOP nomination, Ricketts could do it as well. Ricketts will run as a well behaved version of Trump and have unlimited money supporting his bid.
What we need to do as Democratic activists is remain focused on the upcoming elections. If we get a good result in the city elections in Omaha and Lincoln this year, we could lay the foundation for a successful 2022. The Republicans will always be the party of Donald Trump. We must never let the voters forget that. History matters.
Now let’s get it done!