Trump is ending his campaign on an ugly new low — and barely anyone noticed

Donald Trump, tragically occupying the office of president of the United States, possibly has uttered the ugliest words of an ugly career defacing the national stage. And they barely led the news anywhere.

Trump has been claiming at his super-spreader rallies for the past week that American doctors are profiting from the death of COVID-19 patients. Take a step back and absorb this atrocity. This man just invented a mendacious lie from scratch, not even remotely rational and in the process denigrated the frontline heroes who have been risking their lives and those of their families in a 9-month struggle against the worst pandemic in a century.

It didn't even dominate a news cycle. The nation has been so numbed by this Hitlerian character that this singular slander cannot be distinguished from all his other regurgitations.

But it was far worse.

It was as ludicrous as suggesting people ingest Clorox to treat COVID-19.

It was as invented as the 3 million people who voted illegally in California in 2016.

It was as vulgar as talking about grabbing women by the genitals.

It was as unpatriotic as groveling at Putin's feet at Helsinki.

It was as insulting as calling Mexicans rapists and murderers.

It was as vicious as telling four U. S. congresswomen to return to their home countries.

It was as monstrous as seeing fine people on both sides at Charlottesville.

It was all those grotesque abominations rolled into one. But the nation is so exhausted and bitter and divided and crazed that it barely noticed that the most powerful man in the world created such an evil falsehood, apparently to find still another scapegoat for his complicity in one of the worst avoidable tragedies in human history.

Trump falsely ascribed some profit motive to wonderful men and women–across the spectrum of race and ethnicity– people who have wept at the bedsides of 225,000 Americans as they died despite every ounce of energy, knowledge and skill that they could muster to save them. And this swine–whose undeserving hindquarters were saved by the very medical profession he besmirches–he is going to convince millions of his incognizant followers that the doctors are to blame for the pandemic because they were cashing in on it?

This is like wishing cancer on the children of someone you despise. This is as low as human speech can descend.

And yet we barely noticed.