The feature film “Pressure,” starring Brendan Fraser as a fierce but principled General Dwight D. Eisenhower conflicted about whether and when to invade Normandy, has disturbing relevance for the current plight of our nation.
So heavy was the burden Ike felt in 1944 from putting the lives of American boys at risk that he wrote a historically famous “in case I fail” note ahead of time, essentially apologizing and assuming full responsibility for lost lives were the invasion to fail.
When D-Day succeeded in turning the tide of the war, Ike discarded the note, which was later salvaged for posterity by an aide. But even after the war ended, historians noted how the empathic general, subsequently elected president and commander-in-chief, was forever saddened and conscience-plagued by every U.S. soldier who died under his command.
The calculus of lives lost weighs considerably on nearly all presidents, not just as commander of the armed forces, but also because of the immense power they wield that affects the lives of so many human beings.
Yet our current president seems unfazed by the jeopardy in which he places people, in view of the frightful number of deaths resulting from his policies and decisions.
Start with, for example, Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Maine, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston, Ruben Ray Martinez in South Padre Island, and Alex Pretti and Renée Good in Minneapolis, all of whom were fatally shot by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. At least one shooting suggests agents were poorly trained. In another, ICE agents targeted the wrong person. In yet another, agents were shown on video to be lying in their self-defense claims.
The federal agents were let loose in American cities and told they had total immunity in going after immigrants by Stephen Miller, the vampiric hireling of Donald Trump who has neither apologized nor unmasked his storm troopers.
Questionable strikes
Equally egregious has been the slaughter of 221 lives in 61 boat strikes in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, ordered by Trump, alleging with no proof whatsoever that they were transporting drugs. Even more cold-blooded, if possible, were the follow-up strikes to finish off distressed sailors clinging to wreckage in the water and begging to surrender.
Such violations of international law, aka war crimes, seemed to have set a precedent for the mass killing of 175 Iranian civilians, including 54 young schoolchildren, by an American Tomahawk missile at the start of Trump’s war with Iran, for which he, again, offered no apology, and didn’t even acknowledge. The horrendous, avoidable tragedy only happened because Trump chose to go to war, absent congressional approval, absent popular support, absent any consistent rationale, and absent a solid reason save for a twisted notion of personal glory for notching a wartime victory. Seventeen American troops have been killed so far, including three last week.
Trump was blamed by the British journal the Lancet for hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths in the U.S. from COVID-19 during his first term because of his irresponsible delay in telling the American people about the pandemic, followed by his administration’s disjointed national response, its indecisiveness and its scientifically dubious recommendations for drugs, cures, masks, social distancing and indoor rallies, all in an effort to downplay the crisis for political advantage.
Through both terms, his executive orders reversing workplace and environmental protections for corporate interests have resulted in tens of thousands of deaths from diseases caused by air and water pollution. The Lancet reported that 22,000 deaths in 2019 were tied to regulatory rollbacks.
How is this serving the people?
Meanwhile, tons of extra greenhouse gases emitted because of Trump’s removal of the U.S. from the Paris Agreement and his regressive orders to undo mitigation measures for global warming are projected by experts to cause an estimated 1.3 million needless temperature-related deaths in the next several decades, according to a joint report by ProPublica and the Guardian.
Coddling the National Rifle Association and gun manufacturers, Trump has done nothing to regulate firearms and reduce school shootings, while rolling back existing regulations. In his first term, gun homicides increased by 34%, according to the Giffords PAC.
His One Big Beautiful Bill cutting subsidies to healthcare, and his mission to end medical research funding to universities he does not like, will kill millions more deprived of potential cures for various cancers.
Thousands have been sickened by measles and other preventable diseases because of public mistrust of vaccines, which is directly attributable to the anti-vaccine advocacy by the administration’s health department and Trump’s anti-vaccination health and human services secretary, Robert Kennedy Jr.
So much death, for which this president is unapologetic, as he exhibits a “let them eat cake” indifference and dwells, instead, on his ballroom, arch and delusions about the 2020 election.
When Trump is gone, and historians characterize his legacy, he will be known more as an agent of the Grim Reaper than a president who served the people.
David McGrath is an emeritus English professor at College of DuPage and author of “Far Enough Away,” a collection of Chicago area stories.