Had we had a competent President when COVID-19 first appeared on the scene, things would be much different now. President Obama knew the dangers of an inevitable pandemic, and had a plan in place when, not if, the worst happened. Trump, being Trump, ignored it all because, of course, Obama. Yep. A competent President, and we likely would have avoided all this, ahem, unpleasantness.
So stipulated, Your Honor.
But we’re here now. There are no time machines to go back and fix our egregious national error in electing this clown. It is what it is, as we say.
So, just for a moment, put yourself in Trump’s shoes. Forget about going back and treating COVID-19 as the real threat it was. It’s here now, and we have it worse than any other nation on the planet.
What do you do?
As I see it, the choices are binary:
1. Take whatever actions are required to get a handle on this damned thing. Impose a national mask requirement. Shut those businesses and activities that congregate people — restaurants, gyms, churches, schools. Work feverishly (pardon the pun) to develop both therapeutic and preventive drugs and measures. Take whatever time is required to get it done right.
But there’s a consequence to that course of action, isn’t there? The economy. We’ve already seen what a half-hearted application of the preventive measures has done to the economy. Do it right, and the economy (and people) will suffer more.
2. Don’t worry about COVID-19. Keep the economy, and even those dangerously congregating businesses, open as usual. People will die, but everyone dies eventually. What is important is to have a functioning economy for the survivors.
Every President is faced with impossible decisions — decisions that have no good and definable solution. Presidents through history have managed, for the most part, to thread the needles and work for a mostly acceptable solution.
But not Trump.
Clearly, Trump has chosen Option 2.
Could there not exist a synthesis of the two options? Impose strict preventive behavior measures while propping up the economy to keep it from crashing altogether? I think so, but apparently Trump and his “experts” do not.
So, why did Trump choose Option 2? Even worse, with COVID-19 now hitting his base and his safely red states especially hard, why is he so callous about allowing his very voters to die? Is that not the height of political lunacy?
I submit that Trump is counting on the selfishness of his voters. Sure, many of them will die, but so will many people who were going to vote for Biden. Trump is counting on being able, in the last weeks before the election, to say (whether it’s true, or not) that something he did is the reason the survivors survived. If there’s a vaccine, he’ll claim total credit. If there’s a cure, he’ll claim total credit. If there is no vaccine nor a cure, he’ll make something up. Anything, whether it be fact or fiction. He knows his base will believe any lie he tells.
Because Trump knows that dead people don’t vote. Survivors vote. He’s counting on the survivors saying, “Yeah, Grandma died, but she was old anyway and, after all, I got her Buick. President Trump saved me, though, didn’t he? He saved the most important person — me.”
I know I’m cynical, but….