Ever since the realization washed over him that he had been elected president of the United States, Donald Trump decided to use the power of the office to not only turn the nation into some kind of reality show, but in the process, destroy what passed for rational institutions of government.

“Catastrophic” is the word that is being used by many people to describe the performance of President Trump in his response to the coronavirus pandemic, but it's a word that should be used for his entire presidency. Using the power of what is arguably the greatest economic and military behemoth on earth, he has systematically turned a large percentage of the people into a zombie electorate, out of which little of substance can come, except for further enrichment of, and added power to, the few who control the country's politics and economy.

It can be argued with much accuracy that the institutions needed change, but when the worst elements of those institutions have been taken in the wrong direction by Trump, his intention to take them off the cliff is clear and both the nation and its institutions are in a free fall. And all of it is for the benefit of the Trump grifter family and their fellow usurpers of the substance of the other 325 million people.

His performance as president has been epitomized in his daily “press briefings,” which have been described as campaign rallies, masquerading as information for the masses about the coronavirus and COVID-19, the pandemic which is rolling across the world. What the people are getting from Trump, however, is his usual self-aggrandizement, his misinformation, his disinformation, his ignorant rantings about his place in history, and his attacks on the press, which he continually describes as “fake news,” which he has said so many times that untold millions of his supporters and others now appear to believe nothing that is in the public domain. For this, and other destructive elements of his persona, he gives himself a “10 out of 10.” With such an ego, he demands adulation and even fawning by his loyalist supporters and his staff. Loyalty over intelligence or expertise is his demand. Why should his staff be any more intelligent than he, who will tell anyone who will listen that his IQ is off the charts?

As anyone who has confronted a schoolyard bully will tell you, Trump, like any bully, is at heart a coward and in possession of the most fragile ego. However, the power of the White House went to his head in short order after the 2016 election and he began his work of tearing down the structures that might curb his worst instincts. His success is the culmination of years of right-wing Republican politics that holds government to be almost useless. Remember the famous quote from President Ronald Reagan, who warned not to ask the government for help with problems, saying, “Government is the problem.”

Trump is the product of an all-out effort by Corporate America and the richest few over generations, to make government so small and weak that the exploiters can ravage the planet and its human denizens without any regard for the toxins they have released and the destruction of the air and water and the forests that have provided living creatures with enough oxygen to survive. Although many have likened Trump to a king, he's just a wannabe king. He is more of a headsman, who lops off the heads of the opponents of the king, when the king orders it. Other than his role as a failed businessman, Trump has found his calling: Clear the way for more plunder and rape of the planet, even though it is obvious to scientists and experts around the world that there isn't much left that can be taken from Earth without making it uninhabitable for most air-breathing and water-drinking creatures. Humans do not escape that fate.

Nothing has made it clearer that he is a total incompetent in guiding a complex government that is in desperate need of leadership than the current coronavirus pandemic. Although he gives himself a “perfect 10” in doing his job in this pandemic, anyone who is at least sentient, with a minimal IQ, knows that he has been a complete failure. What can anyone expect of someone who set out to destroy the federal government and most of its institutions?

Governors of a number of states have shown the way out of the morass that has been created by The Great Destroyer, by taking action on their own, when Trump has caused the federal government to be unable to respond to the crisis. On both coasts, governors have joined their states together in coalition to take action to supply medical equipment and protective gear, to commence testing for COVID-19 on a large scale, and to prepare their states for opening their economies and dealing with the aftermath of the pandemic. And, unlike Trump and his handlers on the right, they are wary of opening their economies too soon, considering the possibility of a second wave of coronavirus contagion, as happened in 1918-19, with the so-called Spanish Flu, which apparently started in Kansas.

The kind of cooperation exhibited by the coastal states has stirred talk of the U.S. breaking into separate nations, five or six at last count, but that would be a tragedy of another kind. Flawed as it is in terms of equity and equality, the U.S. has plenty to offer, if only its governance of 2020 were based on the philosophies and ideas of the founders: A government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Most Americans would like to continue to visit the national parks and mountains of the West, the plains of the Mid-West, the historic sites of the East (with all of their wonders and warts), without a visa or travel papers. Considering what Trump has managed to do to the nation's trade with most of the rest of the world, do the people need to deal with another half-dozen nations in North America? The answer is, probably not.

If the coronavirus pandemic has taught anything, it is that even in isolation in their homes, people have found ways to cooperate and do without much of what is thought to be necessary in modern life. It has taught that people in families and neighborhoods can find ways to cooperate and take care of one another. This is what frightens the ruling class, because there is little profit to be made when people share with one another and when they take care of each other. This can be done, but it will take great organization and great organizing. The evidence is already here in sharing food from urban gardens, from farmers' markets, from community organizing for reclaiming and maintaining decent housing, in the efforts to create neighborhood health clinics and supermarkets, to keeping local hospitals open, and to modernizing local schools and to keeping streets safe. It's all in the cooperation of people in the neighborhoods and in the cities. It can be done; it has been done in times past, and can be done in the future, which belongs to the people, not to corporations that today attempt to commodify everything in modern life. The people can counter that, if they are in solidarity with one another.

Talk of “returning to normalcy” turns to the question of what has been “normal.” If control of most of modern life is in the hands of a few and of giant corporations, and this is what a return to normal means, it is time to redefine what “normal” is. The people can speak and the major changes that are needed to make this a nation of the people, by the people, and for the people can be accomplished. But it will not be because of a “return to normalcy.” The changes need to be in the economy and in the culture of modern life and that includes the two major political parties, both of which need to be in the control of the rank-and-file, which they are not. Also, it should never be forgotten that the ultimate form of cooperation (affecting the entire economy) is the union movement, which brought more millions of Americans a decent standard of living, even at the expense of profits of the rich and corporations. That's why unions have been under assault in Trump's and the GOP's war on workers and their unions. Defy them and join the union!