You might recall that in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic hitting the United States back in March, President Trump objected to allowing the 21 passengers and crew aboard the Grand Princess cruise ship back onto American soil.
At the time, Trump stated, "I like the numbers being where they are. I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn't our fault."
Just over two months later we are now nearing 1.5 million COVID-19 cases in the United States and have eclipsed 85,000 deaths.
Nobody likes those numbers being where they are. Neither does President Trump. But in Trump's case it is because he thinks the numbers are artificially high and now he is bringing pressure upon the CDC to revise how they tally COVID-19 deaths.
Trump's motivation is clear. He wants to manipulate the numbers to justify reopening the economy and thus maximize his chances for re-election. This act is consistent with the behavior of a man who brags about having total authority but refuses to take any responsibility.
The question is whether Americans will accept Trump's manipulations and obfuscations to downplay the impact of COVID-19. I suspect that more Americans think the COVID-19 numbers are very bad and could possibly be worse than the number of Americans who think the COVID-19 numbers are inflated.
But how many of those of people in the latter group live in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida and other swing states? Can Trump fool enough of those people in these states to grant him a second term? Or will enough of these people have family and friends who have been afflicted with or have succumbed to COVID-19 to tell Trump to peddle his lies somewhere outside of the White House? I guess that will depend on how much Trump likes the numbers being where they are.
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