If the coronavirus has taught us one thing, it’s that Donald Trump would rather people die than he lose the election. With each passing day, he finds a new way to let people know how meaningless their lives are compared to his maintaining power.
He's trying to attain this in several ways.
Death by Denial
First, he claimed the coronavirus was a hoax perpetuated by the Democrats. Fresh off being impeached, Trump denied it would ever cause the massive illnesses that were spreading throughout Europe and Asia. He claimed the initial 15 cases in the U.S. would soon be zero.
It was a false boast he repeated often, even as cases increased exponentially throughout the country. By denying there was a pandemic, he and his followers are refusing to wear masks, practice social distancing or acknowledge the sanitary procedures that were put in place to lessen the severity of the illness.
As coronavirus deaths continued to climb, Trump decided to make the issues of social distancing and wearing a mask political ones. His refusal to wear a mask became a rallying cry for his base; a sign of defiance where they claimed they were showing their freedom. Instead, they are spreading the very illness that resulted in the lockdowns.
All the while, he continues to claim that his administration is doing a great job and that the virus will magically disappear. It is an irresponsible claim that causes even more deaths. He insists that America is doing “more testing than anyone”, while blaming the increase in cases on increased testing.
Even as he denies the effectiveness of testing, Trump and those around him are regularly tested, a luxury he refuses to allow to a majority of Americans.
Death by Deflection
Even as numbers rose and states shut down, Trump continued to insist that everything was under control, yet provided no direction as to how to contain the pandemic. Watching the economy plunge into a recession, he demanded states reopen despite their failure to meet his administration's own CDC guidelines. Instead of having a national strategy to combat the pandemic, he laid the issue on the states while using the power of the federal government to outbid states for necessary supplies.
Because of this, thousands more died due to the lack of adequate medical supplies. Doctors and nurses were among these casualties as they were forced to treat those afflicted with coronavirus while using worn-out equipment.
In some cases, hospitals became so overwhelmed that they simply sent the most serious cases home to die.
Death by Deception
One of the most bizarre suggestions during this entire fiasco was Trump’s suggestion that people inject themselves with disinfectant to somehow eradicate the virus. This resulted in several people who followed his advice being hospitalized.
One person died when he and his wife ingested a version of the unproven drug hydroxychloroquine, which Trump has been pushing as a “miracle cure”. While they didn’t take the actual drug he suggested, they believed the similar sounding product would have the same results.
This approach resulted in more harm to his followers than anyone else, who saw through this ridiculous attempt to do an end-around around the testing process by claiming the cure was already out there.
Even as there are clinical trials being conducted on a possible vaccine, Trump is making the baseless, and many say impossible, claim that a vaccine could be ready by Election Day.
Death by Politics
Even more diabolical, there was a federal response, but White House aide and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner cancelled these plans because he saw the coronavirus as harming states with Democratic governors more. The plans were put on hold, never to be revisited even as the pandemic spread to predominantly red states. To announce they had a plan and didn’t use it for political purposes would result in a huge blowback from all sides, so of course, the White House denies any such plan ever existed.
It’s unclear whether this makes the situation better or worse. On the one side, you have an administration committing political genocide by allowing the disease to run rampant in states with Democratic governors, and on the other you have one so inept it can’t come up with a way to combat the spread of the virus. This is something many European countries have done, yet Trump refuses to do so due to his entrenched “America First” policy, which is a denial that any other country can do something better than the good old USA.
Death by Voter Suppression
As the pandemic rages on through the election season, Trump tries to suppress the vote by claiming there will be widespread voter fraud if people do not vote in person. Despite having zero evidence to support this, he is trying to delegitimize the results of the upcoming election because his poll numbers are lagging in almost every category.
Trump insists people only be allowed to vote in person, except in those states where he sees it to his advantage -- like Florida. As a result, millions of voters would be forced to put their health at risk by standing in long lines to vote when the health of those around them is questionable.
Death by Human Sacrifice
Perhaps the most disgusting form of this process is the means by which he is using the American public as his own personal lab experiment. He has held rallies where he discouraged social distancing and pooh-poohed mask wearing. He didn’t utter a word of warning when thousands of bikers descended upon the tiny town of Sturgis, South Dakota. And he is encouraging, indeed demanding, that schools fully reopen, putting both children and their teachers at risk.
The move behind reopening schools has nothing to do with child psychology, where he claims children would lose out on the social aspects of face-to-face education, or that certain children will fall behind in their education due to a lack of the internet access that would allow them to continue taking classes.
Instead, the motives are purely political.
The economy is in a downward spiral. Even with the recent improvement in the unemployment numbers, they still exceed the worst of the Great Recession. By getting children back in school, Trump hopes that when parents get back to work the economy will “take off like a rocket”, thereby ensuring his re-election.
Typically, he has no back-up plan, when children become ill. As schools reopen, many are already shutting down, in whole or in part, as cases arise.
For all of these reasons, it is painfully obvious. Trump would rather see people die than he lose the November election. How disgusting is that?!
November 3.