Donald Trump’s announcement that he and his wife Melania tested positive for coronavirus was just another twist in the blockbuster that has been 2020. Yet, despite the magnitude of the announcement, the news felt eerily like a twist you felt coming. It announced itself with a mic drop, but it landed with the volume on low. After all, Trump has been tempting both fate and coronavirus with his laissez-faire attitude since the pandemic came rumbling into our lives.
Despite the arguably eerie inevitability to the announcement, a mood of fear, anxiety and suspicion crept over people and social media following the news. But while there were obvious concerns over the President’s health, many were more concerned over how the president’s diagnosis would impact the upcoming election, and the pandemic itself.
The president has not been shy about his refusal to take seriously the biggest health crisis of our time. Of course, to the president, the pandemic “is what it is” – a phrase that is more associated in this country with Love Island than it is with our politicians. The fear that Trump would use his diagnosis for his own political agenda was one grounded in Trump’s continued political opportunism.
And that fear became a reality. On the 5th October, Trump confirmed many of our fears: in his eyes, Trump is now the arbiter of truth towards Covid 19.
“It’s been a very interesting journey,” he declared in a video he posted on Twitter. “I’ve learnt a lot about Covid by really going to school. This is the real school. This isn’t the ‘let’s read the books’ school. And I get it. I understand it. And it’s a very interesting thing,” he said.
Trump made his views clear: he knows Covid. He’s not like Joe Biden – who he’s here positioned the out of touch, “bookish” type. No, he’s “been to school.” While Biden is all hypothetical, Trump is the real deal. He’s taken the metaphorical (and perhaps literal) red pill.
But it was his statement that he now “understands” the virus that was most worrying. In saying he “understands” the virus, he is positioning himself as a gatekeeper of knowledge. To follow Trump’s school analogy, Trump is the scholar. This is his school, and we are his pupils. He is here to guide us.
Of course, it’s not as simple as this. This is a school in which Trump is the teacher and he’s quoting from books he’s written with research he’s conducted. There is no debate in the school of Trump, and there are certainly no outside voices to verify his claims. In evoking his first hand experience with the virus, he’s positioning himself above the likes of Biden and experts. To Trump, the school of life means more than the voice of science, evidence and truth ever can.
Yet Trump’s video earlier in the day was only preparing us for the main course: a cocktail of typical Trump arrogance, propaganda and recklessness.
“Feeling really good!” he told us. “Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life.” In saying this, Trump is underplaying the virus that has already killed over 200,000 Americans. In telling people to “not be afraid” of the pandemic, he is allowing people to become slack towards the virus, to minimise its risk.
Donald Trump has continually validated those seeking to undermine the severity of the virus. After thousands took to the streets across America to protest against the lockdown, Trump said that these were “very responsible people”. “LIBERATE MINNESOTA!” he wrote on Twitter amid the lockdown, going against the ruling of the state government. “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” he Tweeted again. By saying, “Don’t let it dominate your life,” he’s given the continued a’okay to his loyal supporters to not listen to official guidance about social distancing and mask wearing. In essence: it is Donald Trump who gets to decide the risk factor of the virus – not the experts, not the doctors. But Donald Trump. After all, he “understands it now.”
Arguably, a Donald Trump that has had the virus and survived it is a more dangerous one than a Donald Trump who hasn’t been infected by the virus, because of (what Trump sees) as the moral superiority he can now claim over his rival Joe Biden, and any reasoned scientific argument Biden or any expert can put forward. If the past four years of American politics have shown us anything, it’s that narrative has more political power than reason.
Because to Trump and his supporters, this isn’t just an argument about Coronavirus. To Trump, this is an argument about freedom. Or more specifically, supposed freedom. A popular mantra during the lockdown protests – which were also dubbed ‘freedom protests’ by many – was “give me liberty or give me death,” a quote harkening back to the American Revolution. From the outset of his campaign back in 2016 and his promise to “make America great again,” Trump’s aim has always been to paint a picture of an envisioned utopia, regardless of the reality in front of us. In saying, “We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge,” he is inviting us into his supposed utopia – even if these claims aren’t based in truth.
To the Trump administration, the perception of freedom, the perception of utopia is greater than the need for an actual utopia, even when America’s reality is one plagued by increasing political divisions, social uprisings and hundreds of thousands dead because of a pandemic that was allowed to run wild. In the Trump administration, truth is always secondary to the perception of truth. In Trumpland, if Trump claims he “understands” the virus, this is more important than whether he actually “understands” the virus, its threat, and its implications for a nation.
Trump has always acted with a self given God complex. However now he has been handed the perfect card to act as adjudicator to a pandemic that has killed over 200,000 Americans.
Let’s hope that Trump really does feel “better than [he] did 20 years ago,” because it’s still a long race ahead.
Juliette Rowsell
Juliette Rowsell 