Voters may side with Trump if he pulls through COVID, believing his virus views to be true
To paraphrase Clive James: the president has coronavirus, and so many people are happy.
The glee, especially on Twitter … well, you can imagine.
‘I can’t believe it … he’s been so careful!’ says one wag.
‘Condolences to the virus, getting stuck in Donald Trump,’ says another.
Just hours before the news broke, the Washington Post had tweeted: “Imagine what it will be like to never have to think about Trump again.”
Hastily, they took that one down.
The Post has removed a tweet pictured below, which was written Thursday and released through an automated program, because the subsequent news of President Trump’s infection rendered it tasteless. pic.twitter.com/yVsocNl2MG
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) October 2, 2020
Trump’s prognosis is good. The prognosis for pretty much everyone who gets the virus is good. He has this morning released a four-minute video, in which he says he’s doing okay.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 3, 2020
‘I feel better now,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back, I think I’ll be back soon.’
He wants to get back on the trail. Which is great. We all want to find a way to live with this thing.
‘We’re going to beat this coronavirus or whatever you want to call it,’ he said.
Still, remember when Kim Kardashian tried to break the internet with a picture of champagne bottle balanced on her callipygian behind?
Yes well, Trump’s tweet – at quarter to one in the morning US time -just knocked that out of cyberspace.
“Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!”
Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 2, 2020
People love to talk about the October Surprise but this was astonishing and truly unprecedented: one of the two candidates in a Presidential election is struck down with a highly contagious virus and must self-isolate for two of the final four weeks of the campaign.
Trump then had to go to hospital, to get oxygen.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 2, 2020
More than two hundred thousand have died from COVID-19, the disease it causes. Most of them were older than sixty-five. Trump is seventy-four.
How this pans out – well, who dares to make a prediction?
Is it good for Trump to be off the campaign trail for two weeks, maybe longer?
If you’re one of those who thinks he brought discredit upon himself during the last debate – interrupting and talking over his rival – then maybe.
But didn’t Biden also bring discredit to the debate process, referring to Trump as a clown and a fool?
Did either of them really change the minds of anyone during that terrible spectacle?
Trump has been reckless, vis a vis the dangers of coronavirus. It’s highly infectious, as has now been proved.
But if he survives – the odds are with him – does the base, and those still undecided about whether to give him their vote a second time – then think: see, he’s right.
It is nothing more than the flu.
Do they think: everyone from Tom Hanks to Boris Johnson has had it, and that’s dreadful, but you get over it, unless you’re already old and sick, and then it takes you out, but isn’t that like the flu might take you out?
If that’s the way the thinking goes, then does this in fact help his campaign?
It’s just impossible to say.
And what happens from here?
Already it seems like two weeks and roughly 100 years ago that Ruth Bader Ginsburg died; one week and a thousand years ago since it was revealed that Trump pays less in tax than you do (and good for him, said so many).
The upheaval these past weeks is on a scale not seen since … well, since JFK was shot dead in office? This is clearly not that scale of trauma and tragedy.
What about since Nixon quit? Of course, it’s not that seismic either.
But it’s certainly all-consuming and so, again, who wants to make a prediction, as to how it plays out on polling day?
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