USA TODAY
A just monument to the Trump presidency: Bury the 500,000 COVID dead at Mar-a-Lago
 |
Robert E. Lee's home, now Arlington National Cemetery, became a final resting place for Union soldiers in 1864. We should follow the Union example.
Easy. Let’s bury the dead at Mar-a-Lago.
This small measure of justice would have an obvious historical precedent. Arlington, the former home of Robert E. Lee that is now Arlington National Cemetery, became a final resting place for Union soldiers in the spring 1864 — Who could argue this wasn’t a just punishment?
Families of COVID-19 victims who cannot afford a decent burial should be offered a chance for their loved ones to become permanent members of Mar-a-Lago, without paying the $200,000 membership fee Trump doubled when he “won” the presidency.
There are now over 500,000 COVID deaths in America, and counting. Inspired by the 30 Union soldiers who rest eternally in Mrs. Lee’s rose garden, we should bury as many of them as we can at Mar-a-Lago, until every foot of the property is occupied.?
Given 500,000 victims Mar-a Lago's 15 unbuilt acres could not alas afford grave sites larger than 17 by 11 inches.
There is another problem: canon law proverbially requires burial six feet under, but salt water starts four feet down on the barrier island estate.
Trump’s team also tossed aside the Obama administration’s 69-page playbook for successfully confronting a pandemic based on learnings from containing Ebola.
Even if health experts had been able to blare a timely alarm directly in Trump’s ear, he likely wouldn’t have listened. He was too busy parroting Chinese government propaganda about the outbreak. He did this until he seemed to realize he had been conned by President Xi Jinping and then stepped up his xenophobic blathering against China, which probably helped fuel an outbreak of hate crimes against Asian Americans.
