I’ve been warning since the 2016 election that the presidency of Donald Trump would be bad for our nation, and even our world. My primary concern centered on the probability that President Trump would be faced with a disaster he just couldn’t solve, due to a combination of ignorance and a complete inability to lead.

Frankly I thought it would be a geopolitical problem and so far he appears to have dodged that.

But this week, I believe, was his reckoning.

Almost from his first day in office he bragged about success in the Dow Jones average. Necessary spoilers: the Dow Jones average isn’t the economy and there is reason to believe that the Standard and Poor’s 500 Index is a better gauge. But everyone looks at the DJIA so here we are.

And for the past 3 years I’ve heard from Trump supporters that they are willing to overlook his lack of a moral compass, his history of sexual assaults, and, well you get the message. The one thing they tell me is that he has been good for the economy. They tell me that Trump will make them rich and nothing else matters.

Until last week. You can read about this here: in five days the index lost 3,583 points or 12.4%

It’s the consensus that this downturn is a direct result of the recent Corona virus also know as COVID-19. These things happen when you’re president. The virus began in China but has now spread globally. The need to limit travel of people and goods badly impacts the world’s economies and global stock markets’ downturn results directly from this.

So what do you do if you’re President Trump? Well, that’s the problem. In 2018 he fired the Pandemic Team from the Center for Disease and Prevention. They were the scientists who would have been the front line of battling the Corona virus. But they’re gone.

Instead he went to his playbook: claim credit for everything that goes well and blame others for everything that goes wrong.

And that’s what he’s done. He’s blamed the Democrats and the media for the downturn. He’s also tried to downplay the seriousness of the pandemic.

Speaking as both a Democrat and blogger let me say this: despite what you’ve heard, we don’t want this to happen. An economic downturn not only hurts our retirement savings it also hurts the most vulnerable among us. Our taxes depend on three things: income (income tax), purchases (sales tax), and property values (property tax). A recession hurts all of these: rising unemployment lowers income tax. People who are out of work (or fear becoming out of work) don’t buy things. People who fear an economic downturn put off moving and this lowers property values and therefore taxes.

Simply put, our history tells us that when government has to cut or eliminate programs it doesn’t hurt the wealthy, it hurts the poor and vulnerable.

It looks like it’s going to be a tough ride.