Win or lose, for Donald Trump the COVID-19 pandemic ends on November 4

As the November election approaches, the American media still haven’t wrapped their heads around an essential fact that maybe, just possibly, might inform their thinking a little; namely, that when the last polls close on the evening of November 3, 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic will come to an abrupt halt, as far as Donald Trump is concerned.

All of the happy talk about a vaccine “just around the corner,” all of the half-measures trumpeted by this administration, all of the vociferous push to reopen businesses, will come to a screeching halt on November 4. From that moment on, the Trump administration will suddenly go dark on any further efforts whatsoever to halt the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. And that will be the case whether Trump wins or loses the election.

If Trump loses the election, there is absolutely no reason to believe he (or any of the federal agencies now thoroughly under his thumb) will lift a finger to do much of anything to help Americans dig themselves out of this public health catastrophe, because Trump will no longer have any “skin in the game.” Up to this time his focus on the pandemic—as dismal and negligent as that focus has been—is solely a consequence of his desperate desire to be reelected. If he loses, the entire reason for attention to the pandemic disappears as far as he is concerned. His only concern at that point will be how to make his exit, how to profit in any way he can, and how to set himself up for a life that he doubtlessly hopes will not include an endless series of prosecutions by the Southern District of New York. The COVID-19 pandemic, which has been—let’s face it—a nagging thorn in his side for the last seven months—won’t just be put on the “back burner.” It will be cast away, out of his thoughts forever.

In this respect his behavior will be no different than he has exhibited in the past when his casino businesses failed: he habitually takes the path of least resistance, filing for bankruptcy after bankruptcy, walking away and leaving others to clean up whatever ashes are left.

If, however (God help us) he wins the election, there is likewise no motivation remaining for him to maintain any effort to combat the pandemic. Again, his utter lack of concern about the virus when COVID-19 was barely a blip on anyone’s radar was based on a belief—wrong, as turned out—that it could never affect him personally. If he had considered the pandemic to be the existential threat to his reelection that it ultimately turned out to be, he would likely have taken the appropriate steps to get it under control at the outset. After the spread of the virus became too ubiquitous to ignore, he turned his attention not to combating it by instituting any protective policies for Americans but by attempting to ameliorate the economic damage it was causing to his “numbers”—by recklessly pushing for reopening of businesses and schools. But (and this is the critical part to understand) this wasn’t done out of any concern for Americans’ well-being—either their physical or economic health—but for sole purpose of keeping himself in power.

Once the clock strikes midnight on November 3, none of those things will remain a concern for him. He is either a lame duck, headed out the door on January 20, or he skates through another four years of corruptly enriching himself and his cronies at the expense of Americans. Either way, he no longer has that motivation in getting reelected, and therefore no motivation to do anything to stop the pandemic. It can burn itself out forever, for all that he cares. Russia still has a tower waiting to be built for him, after all, and there are many favors he can do for Vladimir Putin between now and 2024.

Meanwhile, as Juliette Kayyem, writing for The Atlantic, observes, this country will be entering a far more harrowing phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Because winter is coming:

Americans frustrated with Trump’s mishandling of the pandemic have trained their eyes on the November election, but even if Joe Biden wins, the status quo is essentially locked in until at least early next year, if not later. Trump owns the winter. If he loses the election, he may lose any lingering interest he had in fighting the pandemic—and go out of his way to make Biden’s task more difficult. If Trump wins, he’ll take it as validation of his approach to the crisis.

Joe Pinsker, also writing for The Atlantic, set forth in detail last month just how bad things could get for Americans this winter, with the dual influx of seasonal flu virus coupled with the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic threatening people cooped up in their homes. Pinsker interviewed Dr. Ashish Jha, Director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, for that article, concluding that two possible scenarios were looming:

The U.S. may still be able to avert the most dismal predictions for winter. “I am more optimistic that November, December, January, February are not going to be some kind of apocalypse that looks like what life felt like in March or April,” Jha said. “I think we can do better than that. But it will require policy intervention.” Namely: widespread, affordable, and quick testing; strongly enforced masking mandates; and improved ventilation in classrooms and other indoor spaces.

But Jha can also envision a “nightmare scenario” playing out, with people cooped up indoors, schools closed, a still-weak testing regime, and a bad flu season. Americans could be living like that for months. “I think it is wholly avoidable, but 150,000 deaths later, a lot of this was avoidable,” Jha said. “So I don’t put it past our nation to botch the next phases of the response.”

Unfortunately what Jha doesn’t take into account is that this administration will have no motivation to do anything except “botch the next phases of the response,” thanks to the wholly self-absorbed character calling the shots from the top.

In the last week we have all been allowed to revisit the thought processes of Donald Trump in the context of his crass attitudes toward our fallen servicemen. The media focus has been on Trump’s characterization of servicemen captured or killed in action, as “losers” or “suckers.” But there was something even more revealing about these disclosures, something even more telling about how Trump views everyone and everything around him. Speaking at Arlington before rows of gravestones marking the dead, Trump’s words spoke volumes about his attitude:

When Trump and Kelly, who served as secretary of homeland security before becoming the White House chief of staff, visited Arlington on Memorial Day in 2017, the two men stopped at Robert Kelly's grave. Standing there, Trump reportedly turned to Kelly and said: "I don't get it. What was in it for them?"

Whether Trump wins or loses, Americans are going to suffer the consequences this winter of having a monster, with no concern about American lives, still steering at the helm of state. The only question Americans need to ask themselves at this point is whether they want to endure those consequences only for a few months, or four more dismal years.

Because for Donald Trump, this pandemic ends on November 4, win or lose.

from Daily Kos https://ift.tt/3hjNdUQ