For one brief moment over the weekend, it appeared Donald Trump finally grasped the seriousness of the situation.
An infected, weary and grateful president posted a video to his infamous Twitter account thanking all the healthcare workers at Walter Reed Medical Center, and he assured the American people that he had learned a lot about COVID-19. Could it be that, at long last, getting knocked on his ass by the coronavirus knocked some sense into the man?
Nope.
In a shocking 24-hour display of recklessness that once again illustrated the president’s inability to show any empathy or compassion toward others, Donald Trump endangered his Secret Service detail by taking a joyride around Walter Reed, tweeted a message further downplaying the virus and then, as his coup de grace, tore off his mask upon returning to the White House to shoot, and re-shoot, a commercial.
As his allies, aides and staff fall ill by the dozen, Donald Trump has a new message for Americans: “You can’t let Covid dominate your life.” Well, that’s easy for him to say!
Here’s what Donald Trump somehow fails to comprehend. Ordinary Americans aren’t going to get a helicopter ride to a top military hospital and receive the best healthcare the nation can provide. For free. We rely on expensive, overrun emergency rooms and overwhelmed, overworked doctors and nurses. And, if we survive, we’ll likely get a bill for thousands of dollars.
The president gets all the latest treatments, including experimental cocktails not available to the public. We roll the dice with whatever our community hospital has in stock. Fingers crossed it’s the stuff that works, and we don’t get charged $100,000 for it.
There was some hope that this man, who has shown such staggering indifference to the health and safety of the American people since the start of the pandemic, would change his ways now that he is fighting the virus himself. But that dream has been extinguished. He will never change.
Donald Trump doesn’t care if you get sick. Donald Trump doesn’t care if I get sick. Donald Trump doesn’t care if every member of his entourage gets sick. Donald Trump only cares about one thing: His reelection. And it’s apparently full-steam ahead.
What we have now is an individual who thinks, ‘well, I beat it. It’s not so bad. So should you.’ Of course, he is so out of touch with how everyday Americans live, he has no concept of all the advantages he has to defeat the disease. Advantages that no other American possesses.
There’s also another very important thing Donald Trump doesn’t seem to realize. He’s not in the clear. It is well known at this point that those who suffer from the virus frequently feel better before their condition deteriorates. Trump, who thinks he’s going to debate Joe Biden again next week, could very well be back in the hospital come next Thursday instead.
Trump supporters have been following their cult leader’s irresponsible lead for months. He politicized masks, so they don’t wear them. He doesn’t care about physically distancing, so they gather in large numbers.
Now, even though Trump has first-hand knowledge of how miserable the virus can be, he is portraying himself to have beaten it, when he hasn’t yet. That will lead to more negligent behavior from his supporters, who will begin to take more unnecessary risks. As if 210,000 dead Americans weren’t enough, now that tally is going to rise higher and higher.
Trump’s behavior is insane. He is truly acting like a madman. One report Monday even indicated that the president’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., wants to stage an intervention, because he thinks his father is “acting crazy.”
He is acting crazy, and America needs someone, for once, to put a stop to it.
When Donald Trump Jr., becomes the voice of reason, you know there’s a problem.