There's a Reason Trump Doesn't Want Us to Fear COVID-19 or Let It Dominate Our Lives

In less than an hour from now, President Trump will be leaving Walter Reed Medical Center to return to the White House to resume his convalescence from COVID-19. In a tweet this afternoon, Trump stated:

I will be leaving the great Walter Reed Medical Center today at 6:30 P.M. Feeling really good! Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago!

It is perhaps fitting that the Trump Administration has developed drugs and knowledge in that order. But there is a reason that President Trump doesn't want us to be afraid of COVID-19 or let it dominate our lives. Because if we don't fear COVID and if we don't think about the reality it has created then it helps win a second term four weeks from tomorrow. The only way Donald Trump wins a free and fair election is if Americans go to the ballot box or mail it by pretending nothing happened in 2020.

But as Trump prepares to leave Walter Reed, America crossed the 210,000 death threshold (210,043). By the time Vice-President Pence and Kamala Harris begin their debate more than 7.5 million Americans will have been afflicted with COVID-19.

Of course, Trump is now part of that near 7.5 million and he wants to tell us it isn't a big deal and that he conquered it. Indeed, Trump campaign communications director Erin Perrine says Biden's lack of "firsthand experience" in having COVID gives Trump an edge. Yes, in Trumpworld, Biden taking proper precautions, testing negative for COVID-19 and not spreading it to others is a liability for him.

Alas Trump's words and that of his campaign staff are of cold comfort to those who lost loved ones and could not be with them in their final hours much less those American families who don't have the luxury of Marine One and taxpayer subsidized health care. Trump is no more knowledgeable about COVID now than he was when he and his maskless entourage went to last week's debate in Cleveland or when he spoke at his last rally in Duluth, Minnesota on Wednesday. A person knowledgeable about COVID-19 would not have risked the lives of Secret Service staff and Walter Reed personnel and patients to take a joyride.

Nevertheless, in the spirit of goodwill, I do Trump makes a full recovery so that he can be well enough to live to see the American people rebuke him. Yet I have a funny feeling President Trump might have to return to Walter Reed. In which case, our fear of COVID-19 won't diminish and it will remain a part of our day to day lives. In other words, COVID-19 won't magically disappear before November 3rd.