The Daily Escape:
Autumn view from Lovers Leap Bridge, New Milford CT â November 2017 photo by Mike Jacquemin
The show must go on, and it did for Trump once he returned to the White House from his short stay at Walter Reed Hospital. His Evita-like photo op on the Truman Balcony was designed to show (to which demographic in America?) that his ârecoveryâ is one for the ages, that he’s a strongman. Since he is only a few days into the course of the disease, his recovery might also be a myth.
He has now thoroughly politicized the pandemic. Before he tested positive, all of his efforts to deal with COVID looked first at the political value, before the value to the publicâs health. Now heâs incorporated his illness into a mythology about COVID. From Charlie Sykes of the Bulwark:
âLast night, we got the full cinematic roll-out of âThe Orange Evita,â PRODUCED, DIRECTED, AND STARRED IN by DONALD J. TRUMP.â
Sykes goes on:
âThe video production of his triumphant return to the White House was quintessentially Trumpian. All the power moves: the helicopter, the music, the pageantry, the balcony, the dramatic removal of the mask â all perfectly choreographed by a man famous for his finely honed instincts for entertainment.â
And hereâs what Trump said:
âI learned so much about coronavirus….And one thing thatâs for certain: donât let it dominate you. Donât be afraid of it. Youâre going to beat it….Donât let it dominate you…Donât let it take over your lives…I stood out front, I led…nobody thatâs a leader would not do what I did….Now Iâm better, and maybe Iâm immune, I donât know…â
He ignored that, as of Monday night, 210,117 Americans have died from COVID, none of whom received anywhere near the level of medical care that Trump did at Walter Reed.
Most of us would go through an experience like contracting COVID, and if we recovered, would think about what we learned now that weâre back to health. Weâd consider ourselves fortunate. Weâd also be extra cautious, having just survived an encounter with a potentially deadly virus. Weâd almost certainly follow the proper precautions even if we may have previously ignored them. Weâd now know that COVID is potentially deadly, and that weâre incredibly lucky to have survived it mostly intact.
But that isnât Donald Trump showman, your president.
Trump could have shown empathy for those who have died from the virus. The NYT reports that some in the campaign thought that if Trump recovered quickly and then appeared sympathetic to the public about his own experience, he could have something of a political reset.
But instead, he channeled Evita, opting to show strength. Yet, in the video, he didnât look strong or even all that healthy. He didnât look robust, he looked reckless.
And then on Tuesday morning he tweeted that flu season is coming, and that the flu is more lethal than COVID, something he also said 210,000 deaths ago. BTW, Twitter has taken Trumpâs tweet down as misleading.
It isnât too soon to wonder how many more thousands will die because of Trumpâs recklessness and refusal to take the threat of COVID-19 seriously.
And rather than the songs from Evita, Wrongo is reminded of this from Andrew Lloyd Webber:
Every time I look at you
I donât understand
Why you let the things you did
Get so out of hand
Youâd have managed better
If youâd had it planned