April Fools’ Opinion: Ranking the 2020 Fiascoes (So Far)
CNN: A walking fiasco … very chaotic
By Emily Dalgleish, Opinions Editor
2020 has had its fair share of national and global crises– so many that it is difficult to keep track. For that reason, I have created a definitive ranking of the fiascoes of this year from least to most chaotic.
5. Roger Stone sentencing
After Stone was convicted of seven crimes, including lying to Congress and obstruction of justice, prosecutors recommended he be sentenced to seven to nine years in prison. Trump, both as a close friend to Roger Stone and someone familiar with obstruction of justice, found this sentence far too harsh and tweeted so. By some coincidence, the same day, the Department of Justice overruled the prosecutors to lessen the sentence, leading all the prosecutors to resign. Though both the Department of Justice and the Trump Administration said that Trump did not pressure the Department, Trump tweeted praise for Attorney General Barr for changing the sentencing. Though this situation is a mess, it ranks in a cool fifth for being forgettable in the scope of 2020.
4. Senate Impeachment Vote
Despite their confidence that Trump did nothing wrong and had a perfect phone call, Republican Senators blocked all witnesses from Trump’s impeachment trial. Soon after, Trump was acquitted. Senator Susan Collins expressed that Trump had “learned his lesson,” and need not be convicted. Immediately following his acquittal, Trump ousted two impeachment witnesses, Colonel Vindman and Ambassador Sondland, a true sign that he learned his lesson and did nothing wrong to begin with. It is a concerning indicator when an impeachment vote does not make the top three fiascoes in the first three months of a year.
3. Iowa caucuses
At this point, the Iowa caucus debacle seems so quaint. Remember the days when the numbers the media was obsessed with were the number of delegates? Regardless, this fiasco comes in a strong third place for embarrassing Iowa, the Democratic party, and our democracy. A mere 24 days after the caucuses, the final results were released in the dead of the night. The final results showed Buttigieg winning narrowly, but came out only three days before he dropped out of the race. Oops.
2. Iran and Qassem Soleimani
Within the first few days of the decade, it seemed that we were starting a war with Iran. After Trump ordered the killing of Qassem Soleimani using a drone strike, Iran threatened retaliation. Trump’s attempt at de-escalation included a threat that the US would bomb Iranian cultural sites (which, I may add, is completely illegal). This fiasco comes in second place for causing many Americans and people across the world to believe that World War III was impending.
1. Coronavirus
You never would have guessed it! Coronavirus comes in first place for the most chaotic fiasco of 2020. Need I say more? With nine months to go, who knows what could possibly surpass these fiascoes?
Nuclear meltdown? Nuclear war? Return of the dinosaurs? Asteroid collision? Explosion of the sun? Full-scale apocalypse? A two-term presidency? Only time will tell.
