“the end of the pandemic is in sight....”
The above words are a direct quote from Donald Trump from remarks he gave on Thursday October First. He said them even after his close advisor Hope Hicks was showing signs of the virus herself. And then he and his wife Melania tested positive themselves.
Although the irony of a president who has bungled the pandemic response so thoroughly getting the virus himself is not lost on me, I take no pleasure is his condition. Sure, I've used words like "fascist", "bigot" and "psychopath" to describe him, but I'm also a progressive who has argued against the death penalty. I truly hope that Trump recovers, loses the election next month, and eventually winds up in the jail cell I think he deserves to be in.
But I can't feel any real sympathy for his sickness. I just can't. My reaction is much like how I felt when Rush Limbaugh recently came down with lung cancer after years of publicly denying the risks of tobacco usage on his show and constantly smoking cigars. He should have seen it coming.
A list of all the times that Trump downplayed the coronavirus threat could fill an encyclopedia: from the beginning he said it was nothing to worry about, that it would disappear when the weather got warmer, that the country needed to reopen, that masks were unnecessary. He often has contradicted his own administration's advice, and insulted his own advisors when they disagreed with him. And perhaps worst of all, he has held indoor rallies without mandatory mask wearing. Even after one of his supporters, Herman Cain, attended one of those rallies and died from the virus shortly afterwards, he didn't stop. Given all of this, I can't say that I feel sorry for our president.
If there is one good thing that could come out of this, it's that it may push his supporters into realizing just how serious this pandemic is. Hopefully, people will start wearing masks without complaint and listen to scientists instead of getting caught up in the crazy conspiracy theories running around the virus. And who knows how this will affect the already unreal upcoming election. Assuming Trump recovers, will this prove to voters just how disastrous his pandemic response has been? Or will it garner him a sympathy vote? How much will Mike Pence have to step in, and will that help or hurt Trump's campaign? The only thing we know for sure is that twenty twenty is continuing to be the craziest year in modern history, and the results of that craziness can't be seen right now.
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