NOBODY'S SMARTER THAN ME

Shortly after Donald Trump somehow won the White House, he had a conservation with former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg.  Bloomberg told him that Trump's ascension into the presidency was not unlike his own ascension into becoming the Mayor of New York City.  He advised the soon to be president to surround himself with people smarter than him and listen to them. Trump quickly replied, "Nobody's smarter than me."
In February the president held a conference of the nations's governors at the White House, and after the opening music played, he mentioned that   "Believe it or not, a long time ago, I was told I have a great ear for music by somebody.  I took a test.  They said, 'He has a wonderful aptitude for music.'"  This kind of empty boasting is par for the course for a man who has repeatedly called himself a genius.   Recently during a press briefing discussing the coronavirus, Trump pushed his boasting even further, stating that when it came to the global pandemic  that "People are surprised that I understand it. Every one of these doctors said, 'How do you know so much about this?' Maybe I have a natural ability."  Yes, we have a national leader who thinks that he needs to take time during the discussion of  a virus that could kill millions of people all over the world to stop and tell everyone how all the researchers think that he's smart.
I mention these  examples of Trump's ridiculously bloated ego not just to illustrate  how narcissistic he is (that's been obvious for years), but also to show that his swaggering self confidence has become outright deadly in our new age of pandemic.   With Trump, we have a man who believes that has been and always will be right in every way.  And if his view of the world contradicts that of experts around him, well then he'll just ignore them.  And, according to eye witness accounts, if those experts persist in their opinions, he will often call them names and throw a tantrum.  (According to Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig's book,  "A Very Stable Genius", he once yelled at a room full of military personnel:  "“You’re a bunch of dopes and babies!”)
And today, after already publicly downplaying the dangers of the virus last month in a way that surely helped it spread around the country, (on February 26th. he said  "... you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero"), Trump is already saying the country should return to business as normal as soon as Easter Sunday.  This despite multiple experts, many in his own administration, who have said that that is nowhere near long enough.  It's obvious why he wants Americans to return to work: he views a strong economy as vital to his reelection effort, and in his mind, if some people have to die in order for him to get a second term, who cares?  He is putting a strong economy over human life.  If that sounds harsh, consider that he has not once publicly shown the tiniest bit of sadness or remorse over what is happening.  Think of George W Bush addressing the nation somberly after 9/11, or Barack Obama tearfully talking about the children gunned down at Sandy Hook.  And now think of Donald Trump, insulting the press and bragging about the great job he is doing while discussing the coronavirus. He is clearly incapable of caring about any other person in the world other than himself.  Even a pandemic can't change a psychopath.

A DISASTROUS HANDLING OF A DISASTER

Since 2016, I have found myself in a constant state of despair as Donald Trump has violated the norms of presidential behavior (and basic human decency) time and time again.  From his failure to condemn a white supremacist rally, shrugging off of multiple sexual assault and rape charges, to the family separations on the border or his pardon of bigoted sheriff Joe Arpaio, and endorsement of credibly accused pedophile Roy Moore,  it seems that Trump's bigotry and misogyny has no bottom.

Now we can add incompetence to that list, as a  new depth has been reached in his administration's  response to the coronavirus.  Now, to be fair, back in late January, his administration decided to prevent most foreign nationals from entering the United States if they had recently traveled to China.  That appears to have been the right move, and it's the last and only  right one he has made so far.
After that, his first impulse about the virus was to ignore it.  But as his precious stock market began to fall because of imperiled global markets, he reluctantly acknowledged that it could be a problem. But even then he tried to downplay the dangers of the virus, openly lying (as always) about the number of people infected in the country and boasting about what a great job his government has done, along with saying that there's a good chance that the virus will just fade away in the Spring (there's no way of knowing that now) and that a vaccine will arrive soon (only if by soon he meant over a year, which is how long his own experts are estimating it will take to make a new vaccine).  He's also dismissed it as a "hoax", and tried to blame the slow vaccine response time on decisions made by Barack Obama when he was president, because he would blame every sports rain delay on Obama if he could.
He also appointed Vice President Mike Pence to be in charge of containing the virus.  It should be pointed out that Pence once wrote an editorial saying that tobacco doesn't actually kill people, has questioned evolution, and as governor of Indiana  disastrously ran an HIV prevention program that wound up causing an outbreak.  So, hardly a man that can be expected to listen to and trust scientists when they tell him things that contradict the president.  And even he  admitted last Thursday that there aren't enough viral testing kits available for everyone in the country who thinks they need one.  Somehow, South Korea has managed to test thousands of their citizens, including having a drive thru test, and we don't have enough to go around.
Once again with Trump, our country has landed in a unique and terrible place: oh sure, we've had presidents before that have terribly bungled disasters, like George W Bush's horrible handling of hurricane Katrina.   But I can't think of any time before when our president has repeatedly told lies that are threatening the health and safety of the American public.  By downplaying the dangers of the coronavirus, Trump is putting his own worries about being reelected over the  lives of American citizens, plain and simple.  Considering the cult like devotion of Trump's supporters, it is entirely likely that some of them will listen to his dismissal of the danger of infection and not take precautions, which could lead to their deaths.
And Trump's media lackeys aren't helping any:  Rush Limbaugh has already said that the virus is no worse than the common cold (this after thousands of people around the world had already died from it) and Trump's son Donald Jr. has gone so far as to say that progressives are rooting for the virus to kill millions of people(!). Meanwhile Trump himself did an interview on Fox News in which he said that he thought that the estimated mortality rate of the virus by the World Health Organization was wrong and that the actual rate was much lower because he had a "hunch."
It is possible right now that Trump could be proven right about the virus not being serious, and perhaps it will be contained in a few months,.  Hopefully it will, but for now his comments are appallingly irresponsible and dangerous, to say the least.