Trump's test results are in
As you may have already noticed the coronavirus crisis is damned inconvenient and most of us aren’t even running for public office. Imagine if you were going to be held personally responsible for how things went and if things didn’t go all that well, you could lose your job.
Wait a minute…a lot of you have lost your jobs without doing anything wrong at all, so let’s start over.
Take 2:
OK, this time you’re in charge of a country facing a pandemic and you have several available courses of action, but all of them are going be hard and piss somebody off, so despite being a “leader” you decide to put your head in the sand, tell people there’s really no problem and hope the problem miraculously disappears.
You probably think I’m talking about Donald Trump and I am…but I could be talking about Boris Johnson.
Just in case you didn’t pick “World Leaders” in your home version of Jeopardy: Boris Johnson is the British prime minister with a terminal case of bed head who downplayed the coronavirus problem and then got it.
I could also be talking about Jair Bolsonaro, the Brazilian president who called COVID-19 a “little flu” and ignored social distancing recommendations and often didn’t wear a mask in public and then got the virus.
Or maybe I’m talking about Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus who, if he isn’t already a James Bond villain, clearly ought to be because he’s got the name for it. Lukashenko called concerns about the virus a “psychosis” and recommended drinking vodka to stay healthy and then, despite having what I can only assume is a liver the size of a Smirnoff-soaked soccer ball, got the virus.
You can also add Mike Parson – Missouri’s good ol’ boy governor – to the list of coronavirus-denying politicians who tried to bluff their way through the pandemic and then got the virus themselves.
Turns out, wishful thinking is not a game plan…who knew?
And the correct answer to that is: anybody who had the common sense to listen to the experts in infectious diseases and not their political consultants.
How Trump got the virus
Now here’s a quote from Donald Trump about how he got the coronavirus:
“It’s very, very hard when you’re with people from the military, or from law enforcement, and they come over to you, and they want to hug you and they want to kiss you because we really have done a good job for them. And you get close, and things happen.”
Couple things jumped out at me when I read that quote:
1. As usual, it’s not Trump’s fault. He didn’t get the virus because he insisted on running around without a mask and ignoring social distancing recommendations; he got the virus because the cops and those losers in the military insisted on hugging and kissing him and he’s just too nice a guy to say no.
2. The cops and soldiers want to hug and kiss Trump because he’s “done a good job for them” so Trump once again had to pat his own back while blaming somebody else for his problems. You gotta give him this: Trump’s consistent.
And speaking of Trump’s consistency: the quote about law enforcement officers and military personnel has a pretty good chance of being bullshit.
Nobody knows for sure, but the current thinking is people got sick at the White House gathering honoring Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett which took place back on September 26th. At least seven people attending the event – no masks or social distancing required – have tested positive and that includes Donald and Melania and would mean there’s a real good chance Trump and his pals have exposed even more people than we thought.
But don’t worry; the president says he’s OK.
Presidential healthcare
We are now being reassured that Donald Trump is getting the best medical care possible which I gotta think is true.
When the President of the United States shows up at a hospital, I’m guessing he doesn’t spend a lot of time at the front desk showing his insurance card and answering questions about his medical coverage and whether those vampires in the insurance industry will pay for whatever blood-of-a-Romanian-virgin-drawn-during-a-full-moon experimental treatment the POTUS requires.
When it comes to getting top-notch medical care, Donald Trump is set.
How about all those people he may have infected?
Not everybody gets treated like the Queen of Sheba when they show up at a hospital and while Trump assures us he’s just fine we haven’t heard as much about all the people he may have exposed to a deadly disease and don’t get free helicopter trips to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
A lesson not learned
As usual Trump is very concerned about how he’s coming off to the public since getting sick and going to the hospital and decided to put out a video and said this about the coronavirus:
"I learned it by really going to school. This is the real school. This isn't the let's read the book school and I get it. And I understand it."
So despite medical experts telling him what he needs to do for months and over 7 million Americans getting sick and over 209,000 of them dying, now that he’s had it Trump suddenly understands the coronavirus.
But then the guy who now understands the coronavirus got bored after a couple days in the hospital and wanted some adulation from the public and jumped in a hermetically-sealed SUV and took a drive while two Secret Service agents had to share his airspace.
Trump knows he has the virus and still went right on ahead and exposed a couple of the guys who are willing to take a bullet for him.
As the cartoon suggests, Donald Trump has tested positive for stupidity and arrogance and I hope Walter Reed National Military Medical Center has a cure for those conditions.
But I wouldn’t count on it.
I hope the next ride he takes is in the back of a hearse.
Amen.