How one campaigns without accomplishments

During the run-up to a presidential election, with an incumbent president seeking a second term, he and his party point to all the successes achieved during his first term.

But what does the incumbent president do when he has no successes? Continually claim successes and take credit for legislation that was passed by the previous administration, such as the Veterans Affairs Act of 2014, which allowed veterans to seek medical help outside of the VA system and allocated money for additional medical help and for updating medical records. Before the pandemic, this administration claimed credit for the good economy and low unemployment, even though this was just a continuation of the economy inherited from the Obama administration.

Trump may think he has been dealt a bad hand with the pandemic, but his poor "luck" is nothing compared to the unlucky country that has him as its leader. Simply put, the pandemic has magnified Trump's worst traits: ignoring scientific recommendations when they don't agree with his gut feelings, a lack of clear national directives and a refusal to accept responsibility.

First, he denied the existence of the virus, then said it would not affect the U.S., then it would disappear on its own when the weather turned warmer, then prescribed some treatments that have no value but might very well harm anyone taking it.

He refused to order and stockpile personal protective equipment, masks, shields and ventilators, leaving that up to the individual states.

Even after his own public health physicians advocated wearing a mask and social distancing to cut down the spread of the virus, he did not wear or mandate these preventive measures, again leaving it up to the individual states.

With the death toll from the virus climbing over 1,000 a day with projections of 300,000 dead by Dec. 1, Trump has said he accepts no responsibility for the deaths, and in effect has washed his hands of the pandemic to play golf and campaign.

Having failed miserably in the only crisis of his administration he takes the next step and tries to stop people from voting by continuously saying that vote-by-mail will result in a major fraud. Even a conservative investigation estimated that there have been only six illegal mail-in- votes out of every 100,000 cast. If that tactic doesn't work, appoint a postmaster who will slow down the mail and therefore delay the delivery of mail-in ballots so they will not be received by the Nov. 3 election date.

We are very fortunate. In Illinois, every registered voter who has voted in any of the past three elections will receive an application for a mail-in ballot.

Robert Frankel

Schaumburg