Columns
Jul 20, 2020
Barnicle: “Trump’s Failures Are Erasing the Memory of American Greatness”

In his latest column for The Daily Beast, “Trump’s Failures Are Erasing the Memory of American Greatness,” veteran columnist and MSNBC Morning Joe contributor Mike Barnicle argues that President Donald Trump’s inability to grasp “loss” has obscured the recollection of a better America and instead has led the country into a dire situation amid the rampant and spiking coronavirus pandemic, which has left about 140,000 Americans dead, millions more sick and jobless, most fearing for their families and their future. “What he does not realize is that there has always been one dominant emotion that has bound every American to one another. It is called loss. Every normal person is familiar with it, has experienced it at some level—losing a job, a paycheck, a house, health insurance, admission to a college, a roster spot on a Little League team. Losing hope. Losing a spouse, a child. Pride. Dignity. Self-respect. Losing a sense of place in your own small universe. Comprehending loss is beyond his grasp. He casts himself as a stranger to loss. Losing something, anything or anyone could mark you as a loser. Not him. So this is what we have here in the middle of summer 2020: A man who turns a mask into a joke, who is incoherent and invisible in the heat of a lethal battle against a virus that is consuming our country, battering our confidence, bleeding our economy and provoking legitimate questions about who we are, where we are going and what has happened to the United States of America,” writes Barnicle about America in the era of President Trump.

Read the rest of the column here: https://bit.ly/2ZJ48us