Lately, Donald Trump has been missing the mark, one that he usually hits without fail. As a brilliant counter-punching tactician, he could take down his opponents with a cutting nickname. He could enflame his supporters’ passions by finding just the right distortion of his opponents’ records and dominate news cycles, almost effortlessly, by misdirection.
It has been an amazing first act in American politics, but lately something strange has been going on. Now his political needs are at war with the prudent conduct required of a president during a pandemic. And he is walking an existential high wire, literally a life-and-death high wire, for himself, his supporters and everyone else.
Start with the masks. Trump cannot resist going mask-less, even though it may expose others to greater risk of infection. Some folks see it as a deadly game, but for Trump and many of his supporters it’s just a game, and he grins when asked about it.
His suggestion that doctors explore injecting disinfectants and inserting ultraviolet lights into the body in order to kill the virus on contact were met with an immediate outcry in the media. Drinking bleach surely will kill you, and Trump was roundly ridiculed, which may have stopped some poor souls from giving it a try.
Trump startled even some of his supporters with his endorsement of hydroxychloroquine, an anti- malaria drug, and his exhortation that it be used as a coronavirus treatment. This may have been more dangerous, because it was cloaked in medical legitimacy and was not as obviously stupid as his other suggestions.
A recent study reported in The Lancet concluded that there was no anti-coronavirus benefit from the drug, but there was unnecessary harm, including a greater likelihood of death from heart failure. Trump claims that he took it as a preventive measure, and because of his support for it, people who actually need the drug for lupus and malaria are finding shortages.
Trump’s latest move is his demand that the Republican National Convention be held as usual, with thousands of party loyalists gathered tightly in a grand hall, coronavirus be damned. He has threatened to move the convention from North Carolina because the governor is considering cautionary measures. And he relishes the tough-guy image he thinks that creates for him.
In the end, it is Trump’s decision. He surely will find a governor somewhere who is willing to do his bidding without regard for what the physicians and scientists say about the grave public health risk. With some luck, the convention would fall between the first and second waves of the virus, and we will beat the devil.
If he plows ahead, there will be no masks and no half-measures. One imagines his family there and his cabinet, alongside congressional supporters and leaders like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Let’s hope that they will be smart enough to not shake every hand and not hug every delegate, because they all will be coming home to the rest of us when it’s over.
Maybe the best way to get Trump to give up this dangerous idea is to convince him that his political opponents will be very disappointed if he abandons his plan.
