Donald Trump has tested positive. Frank Bruni writes that there are at least two morals to be drawn from that news:
The most obvious is that the coronavirus has not gone away and there is no guarantee, contrary to the president’s sunny prophecies, that it’s going away anytime soon, certainly not if we’re cavalier about it.
Which brings up another moral, also obvious but apparently necessary to articulate: There is a real risk in being cavalier. The president is now the embodiment of that. The first lady, too. Also Hope Hicks, one of his closest advisers, and who knows how many others in his immediate circle? That question exists because, from the start, there has been a culture of cavalier attitudes and behavior at the White House when it comes to the coronavirus.
Cavalier is an understatement. Denial is more accurate. Trump has spent his life denying facts. Now those facts have come home to roost:
That culture was on flabbergasting display during those evening briefings the president used to do, the ones that he used primarily to congratulate himself and his administration on their fantabulous job battling the pandemic. They battled it all the way to America’s exceptional status as the world leader in recorded cases of, and deaths associated with, the coronavirus.
That culture was evident in the rallies that the president arranged and insisted on doing over recent weeks. That culture persisted on Thursday, when, according to an article by Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman in The Times, Kayleigh McEnany, maskless, held a briefing with reporters after Hicks’s infection with the virus was confirmed and after McEnany was on a plane with her and exposed to her.
Whether this news will make a difference to Trump's supporters is difficult to say. It would be wrong to wish him ill. On the other hand, his fate -- whatever it turns out to be -- is well deserved.
Image: KING5.com
8 comments:
Trump has a mild infection from which he is very likely to recover from.
He will, no doubt, use his recovery to his advantage.
TB
You can be sure he'll try to spin it, TB. But the number of people infected could be substantial. The man who has denied the science has proved the science.
I'm not convinced he or his frau have the virus. Let's see if he doesn't pull a Lazarus in a few days to remind his base, especially the evangelicals, of his near-divinity and superhuman constitution. Things haven't been going his way in recent days. This might be a good time to step behind the curtain. A reset.
Harvard, MIT, and others have some helpful information about Covid transmission and testing. The rate of false negative tests is nearly 100% in the first few days and only gradually drops over the following week. You can have the virus and be contagious at the outset and have a false negative test.
An election campaign makes this that much worse. The closing weeks are frantic. Aides sort out where public appearances are essential, where they can make a real difference. There's a lot of travel involved. A lot of people exhausted. A lot of people sick. You work until you drop. You spend a lot of time in the presidential incubation tube, a lot of hours mingling with a lot of other people.
I heard a report this morning, I think it was on NPR, concerning viral loading. A passing encounter with someone infectious is a far lower risk than sitting beside that person for hours. I believe the test data were based on six hours exposure.
Given Trump's non-stop lying, your skepticism is understandable, Mound. Given Trump's disastrous performance, this gives him an exit from the debate stage. He'll probably suggest postponing the election -- even though he has badmouthed mail-in voting.
It's going to instructive to see how many people in Trump's orbit test positive -- and what effect that information has on voters.
Spot on, Owen! For any other man, your views might sound impossible. But Trump is such a liar, that I'm not prepared to accept his word that he has the virus. We know the White House backs up anything he says - as do his Republicans. Why would such a moral degenerate waste an opportunity for public attention and sympathy as well as a means of ducking out of another embarrassing debate? Anything for a win!
CD
At his core, Trump is a coward, CD. This provides Trump with an exit -- which he can blame on China.
Blogger The Disaffected Lib said...
I'm not convinced he or his frau have the virus.
Such is the power of Trump.
Where truth are lies and up is down!
Goebbels must be laughing in his grave.
Trump says one thing in the morning and counter in the afternoon thus pleasing both sides of the political debate.
The sad thing is that US voters take it as sincere; perhaps most of the world does?
Trump maybe the acme of modern political discourse but he did not invent it.
Pavlov's dog learned quicker than we do.
TB
Con men survive, TB, because there are millions of gullible people who choose to believe them.
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