Donald Trump’s vectors of death
As far as we know, a grim statistic was passed Tuesday night. I say “as far as we know” only out of a necessary excess of caution. We are unsure at this time how much the Trump administration is interfering with coronavirus death statistics. But as far as we know, 200,197 American have died of COVID-19, as I write this. It may be a lot more. In any case, that appalling number will probably triple and may even quintuple before Donald Trump finally leaves office (if we vote him out) at noon on 20 January, 2021.
This is the difference between being passively anti-science and being actively anti-science. Passive anti-science is for the common disavowal of the lazy who don’t want to think, and prefer to believe fairy tales about the earth’s origins and the causes of global climate change. Active anti-science is the deliberate participation in the destruction or concealment of scientific findings, as when Trump admitted to Bob Woodward on tape that he wanted to “play down” the deadly danger of coronavirus. Or as when Trump allows people to suffer and die for the sake of his Nuremberg-variety rallies, rallies he exploits to feed his sick and famished ego.
It’s little wonder then, that for the first time in its 175 year history, the venerable monthly magazine “Scientific American” has endorsed a political candidate. They have come out in favor of Joe Biden, saying, “The evidence and the science show that Donald Trump has badly damaged the U.S. and its people—because he rejects evidence and science.”
As I say, this new species of Trump’s anti-science comes in the form of his Nuremberg-style rallies. With them Trump has, in a sense, out-Hitlered Hitler. He is now using his rallies not only as a means to deploy his lies and hateful propaganda, but as a deadly vector for coronavirus itself. It’s like Hitler combining Nuremberg and Auschwitz into a single event on a single night.
Once again, Trump conducted a rally on Sunday, the first since his infamous Tulsa rally, in an overcrowded Nevada venue without social distancing and where few masks were in evidence. Trump’s dismissal was typically Trumpian, when he said, “I’m on a stage and it’s very far away. And so I’m not at all concerned.” In an event where he breached Nevada’s fifty person limit and his own administration’s coronavirus guidelines, Trump, as usual, made it all about him.
You can expect more rallies from this murdering monster before the election is held. Win or lose you can expect more rallies after the election. Trump holds rallies for one reason and one reason alone, to gratify his limitless megalomania. He doesn’t care how many human lives it costs. His ego needs feeding and it’s the best way he knows how to feed it. It’s just another priority that he places well ahead of his job as president of the United States, along with golf, watching TV and tweeting. Trump has shot 200,000 people dead on Fifth Avenue, and we are forced to watch and do nothing. Meanwhile he loses not a single vote from his rabid, hateful base.
There are a million reasons why Donald Trump is unfit to be president of the United States, this has been another one. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.