This column, from the weekly opinion piece MATTER OF FACT, first appeared on BrooklynReporter.com, the Home Reporter and Spectator dated May 1, 2020
As of April 28, The United States had surpassed one million confirmed coronavirus cases and over 57,000 deaths. In three months, COVID-19 claimed as many American lives as the entire Vietnam War.
On April 23, President Trump spoke about testing whether bringing “ultraviolet or just very powerful light… inside the body” and using “disinfectant… by injection inside… in the lungs” could be effective treatments for COVID-19 patients.
As is usually the case when the President says something like this, his most ardent supporters found ways to explain why it made perfect sense because, in their minds, he is never wrong and he knows more than the experts.
When I expressed my shock at the fact Trump had said something so absurdly false and dangerous, die-hard supporters of his provided me with unsourced materials they claimed were evidence this was sound science.
However, the next day, Trump claimed he was just being “sarcastic.” At that point, Trump supporters who had spent an entire day defending indefensible theories, suddenly heard him claim that he never actually meant something so ridiculous.
Tens of millions of Americans have decided that the leader they follow can never be wrong and will argue two completely opposing ideas, from one day to the next, as long as Trump tells them to. They will twist themselves into pretzels one day, trying to prove that an insane idea is brilliant, and then completely reverse course the next day.
As Dr. Deborah Birx was caught on camera, shifting uncomfortably in her seat while Trump went on at length with his UV light and disinfectant remarks, it brought to the fore the dilemma these experts face. The White House Coronavirus Task Force includes some of the best scientific minds in the world, but instead of just focusing on the task at hand, they need to constantly balance trying not to offend Trump when faced with his ineptitude and ignorance.
“What type of person spends ten times as much time praising himself as offering sympathies for the tens of thousands of Americans who have died on his watch?”
CDC Director Robert Redfield was recently called on by the President at a press conference to refute reports that he said a second wave in the fall will be worse because Trump has instead said, “it may not come back at all.” However, when asked if the Washington Post quoted him correctly, Redfield admitted they had.
Trump reportedly had to be convinced not to fire the CDC’s director of immunization & respiratory diseases, while a director from Health & Human Services who is the government’s top vaccine expert was ousted from his position two weeks ago. The reason they each found themselves in the president’s crosshairs was simply because medically proven facts they had been sharing were contrary to unfounded theories of Trump’s.
The Washington Post analyzed the daily White House press briefings over three weeks and found that Trump had spoken for 13 hours, in which he spent just 4.5 minutes expressing condolences for victims, but 45 minutes praising himself and his administration, and 2 hours attacking others.
What type of person spends ten times as much time praising himself as offering sympathies for the tens of thousands of Americans who have died on his watch?
And make no mistake, despite saying multiple times that he takes no responsibility, he is responsible. We weren’t the first country COVID-19 spread to or the nearest to where it broke out. We are the richest and most scientifically advanced nation in the world. It takes colossal ineptitude to have so many advantages and wind up with the most confirmed cases and deaths in the world.
Facts matter, especially when it comes to science, and especially when that science is what we are relying on to prevent hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of deaths. Spouting false information after having the worst response in the world to this pandemic is dangerous, but blindly defending it doesn’t make America great.
People often throw out the “drink the Kool-aid” term that originated with Jim Jones, but in this case, Trump really was pushing to have people put something in their bodies that could very well poison them and yet many will deny reality, insist a failed businessman and gameshow host knows better than the scientific experts in these fields, and happily drink it up.
