Donald Trump knows only one way of handling a vexing problem … to knowingly downplay the situation and offer an alternative, biased interpretation of the “facts” in order to sway public opinion in his direction.
And so it was with the outbreak of the coronavirus.
Trump went from claiming the Democrats were making the coronavirus “their new hoax” to saying “it will go away.”
As the outbreak was worsening, Trump kept downplaying the potential for the virus to spread throughout the U.S., even suggesting without scientific evidence, that the number of cases would soon decrease.
At a news conference only 10 days ago, Trump said the number of cases “within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero. That’s a pretty good job we’ve done.”
“We’re going very substantially down, not up,” Trump added.
Of course, this couldn’t have been further from the truth. The number of confirmed infections, and deaths, only continues to increase.
As one might expect, and surveys bear out, Democrats take the gravity of this pandemic more seriously than do Republicans.
And, according to Jennifer Rubin, Republicans are doing so at their own peril.
Appearing on MSNBC’s “AM Joy”, the Washington Post conservative columnist said the daily drumbeat of misinformation coming from the White House and Fox News that has downplayed the coronavirus pandemic will likely lead to more deaths among Republicans than Democrats.
Taking aim at the Fox News propaganda machine, Rubin offered, “Here is a particular cruelty/irony that it is their core viewers, the Republican older viewers, who are the most at risk. And when you think about it, which party immediately canceled all of their rallies? Which party immediately started having their political figures really portray and use their lies as an example? It was the Democrats.”
Some may cynically wonder if this isn’t just another example of Darwin’s theory of evolution (survival of the fittest).
No matter how much Trump and his sycophants wish otherwise, the coronavirus pandemic is here; it is spreading. And like gravity, it’s a fact that can not be politically spun.
Photo | Evan Vucci/AP Photo
