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He downplayed the virus and scoffed at protective masks. Now Covid-19 has hit the president of the United States.
The US President’s medical team before a press conference in front of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, where Donald Trump lies.
Photo: Susan Walsh (Keystone)
In 2015, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump mocked New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski and mimicked his disability. In 2016, he imitated Hillary Clinton, who fell ill with pneumonia and stumbled. And for months, the president has been scoffing at wearing protective masks, even during the first television debate with his challenger Joe Biden. The Democrat even donned a mask when he was “200 feet away,” Trump scoffed.
Now the virus, which the president played down for months and wanted to lie outside the world, hit him. And his White House has become a true virus launcher, where the courtiers, in accordance with the king’s wishes, refrained from wearing protective masks and indulged in the spirit of machismo even after the pathogen began to surround them.
Of course, we wish the ailing president a speedy recovery. But tens of thousands of Americans would likely still be alive if Donald Trump had been a more effective president. He underestimated the danger that Covid-19 posed and did not even support the simplest and most effective protection measures against the pathogen. Instead of presenting a national plan against the pandemic, the president held political events and was cheered by crowded and unmasked fans.
The mask in particular became a political issue; Using it was not a matter for Trump or his Republican allies in Congress, where particular Republican heads like Representative Jim Jordan demonstratively and to the horror of their colleagues appeared unmasked at committee meetings. The protective mask became the subject of the Kulturkampf, the political location in the middle of a pandemic was marked by a small piece of cloth.
Even when people were shown to be sick after Trump’s additional pandemic tours, for example in Tulsa, Oklahoma in June, nothing changed. The fact that former Republican presidential candidate and Trump fan, Herman Cain, might have been infected while attending the event in Tulsa and later died of Covid-19 didn’t matter – those who listened to Trump and believed his loose talk were convinced that that the pathogen was in the last hole he hissed.
Unmasked Icon of the Kulturkampf
Daily case numbers might suggest otherwise, but the president stuck to his whitewash: just around the corner, normalcy always hailed, the economy was great again, Covid-19 was barely worse than the flu. Speaking like this against his better judgment was irresponsible and cost American lives.
Despite this, and despite the number of infections rising again, the terrible reality only collided with Donald Trump’s fantasy world this weekend: last Tuesday, during the debate with Joe Biden, members of his family, including Melania Trump, who is now also ill, were sitting in the Cleveland auditorium without masks. When employees of the renowned Cleveland Clinic, which was one of the organizers of the debate, offered them protective masks, they refused.
So now that the virus is rampant in the immediate vicinity of Donald Trump, three Republican senators are as infected as Trump’s friend Chris Christie, his campaign manager Bill Stepien, his close adviser Hope Hicks, former employee Kellyanne Conway and Ronna. McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee. More cases are likely to be made public, and it is also unclear exactly when the president learned of his infection. The tendency for lies, deception, half-truths and cover-ups in the Donald Trump White House should never be underestimated.
On Saturday the president was reportedly a little better, perhaps also because he was being treated “according to the latest scientific standards,” as Dr. Sean Dooley, one of his physicians at Walter Reed Military Hospital in Washington, says. How ironic that this president, who generally doesn’t care much about science and never missed an opportunity to contradict his top infection adviser, Anthony Fauci, is now being cared for by top doctors with the help of experimental therapy.
Will your illness change you? Or will he reappear after his recovery as an unmasked icon of the Kulturkampf and mobilize his followers against the crown’s protective measures?
After what has happened in the last 48 hours, both Kamala Harris in her next vice presidential debate with Mike Pence and Joe Biden in the remaining debates with Donald Trump must insist that everyone present, including the Trump family! – Wear protective masks in the auditorium. On the other hand, all presidential debates could be canceled. After the embarrassing bullshit show in Cleveland, this would hardly be a loss.
