Dealing with a major flair-up in coronavirus AKA SARS CoV-2 or Covid-19 cases, 74-year-old President Donald Trump finds himself caught in the sticky-wicket, losing public support nationally for his response to the crisis. While there’s little that could be done differently, including more testing, more personal protective gear including masks, more social distancing, more contact tracing and more shutdowns, Trump’s now blamed for the unending infectious disease crisis that’s not going away anytime soon. Trump Democrat rival, 77-year-old former Vice President and presumptive nominee Joe Biden, has let his handlers play Trump like a fiddle, making the otherwise high-energy president look reckless. Trump’s refusal to wear a mask was mocked today by 79-year-old, heart transplant patient, former Vice President Dick Cheney, another Trump critic.
Nationwide economic shutdowns to slow the spread of the virus, recommended by Trump’s infectious disease team, have caused serious damage to the U.S. economy, causing mass layoffs and spiking the unemployment rate to over 15% nationally, levels not seen since the Great Depression. Trump finds himself in quicksand with Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans smelling blood. Unable to climb out of his hole, Trump can only push ahead with more campaign rallies, like the June 21 rally in Tulsa. Trump found himself humiliated by a low turnout, sabotaged by 51-year-old TikTok “grandma” Mary Jo Laupp, now working with Biden campaign, who used her teenage students to order untold numbers of Tulsa rally tickets to never show up. Trump shook off some rust in Tulsa, following up June 22 with another rally in Phoenix. Trump’s only chance now is to put down his head and grind.
Four years older than in 2016, the indefatigable president must do it his way regardless of all the obstacles. Democrats know Biden can’t keep up with Trump, preferring to play it safe and let his Zoom conference call town-hall meetings and interviews leading him to the White House. So far, Biden’s 59-year-old campaign manage Greg Schultz has played it safe, keeping Biden out of harm’s way, speaking in public. Wearing his fashionable black mask, Biden’s content to send the contrasting message to Trump, showing voters he’s the responsible adult. But with Trump so far behind in the polls, he can only do what he does best, spending as much time as possible in campaign rallies, assuming he can get people to go. One thing’s for sure, the media’s running against Trump and Trump’s running against the media, making his reelection bid all the more difficult.
Trump’s public presence without a mask flies in the face of his Coronavirus Task Force led by 61-year-old Vice President Mike Pnce, 80-year-old Dr. Anthony Fauci and 64-year-old Dr. Deborah Birx, all of whom wear masks, at least sometimes. Recent Covd-19 surges in Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma, Arizona and California slap Trump in the face, considering how hard he pushed to reopen the country. In fairness to Trump, the country had to open up regardless of the surge in infections. Collateral damage to the growing unemployed population, driven into homelessness, depression, suicide, drug-and-alcohol abuse and violence has been seen widely. “If we have this ping-pong effect—you see the Rust Belt, you see the South [where cases have spiked] those people then travel and migrate and then place like Maryland, where I am, get it back again,” said Yahoo medical director Kavita Patel.
Expected spikes in Covid-19 have occurred in places where governors have relaxed stay-at-home orders, letting people go to parks, rivers, beaches, public places in general where more people are subject to infection. “Beaches, parties, proms. You’ve go all sorts of people, younger ages, getting together and creating what we call super-spreader events,” Patel said. Dr. Birx said Friday at a Task Force press briefing that 10% of people tested in Texas have come back positive. Trump told his Tulsa rally that we’re doing so well with testing that more people have been identified with Covid-19. “We now have more case from a spread, which means more virus present. The fact that we don’t have as many people dying from it . . . that’s because we’re smarter at taking care of patients in the hospital,” Patel said, forgetting that the 18-40 demographic has seen the largest upsurge in cases.
Fighting his way out of the current Covid-19 economic dilemma, Trump needs to go back to what worked in 2016. Unlike 2016 when he faced former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Biden’s got much less energy to compete with him in full campaign mode. Letting Biden stay cloistered to set a good example won’t last long when Trump starts getting out the word about what’s at stake in the 2010 election. Watching street violence destroy historical statues and monuments around the country gives middle-of –the-road voters reason to pause, even if Trump doesn’t wear a mask. Whatever surge in coronavirus cases happens after reopening, it’s a necessary consequence of returning people back to work. Any vulnerable population should stick to social distancing and shelter-in-place orders. Young-and-the-restless should wear masks even in bars and nightclubs.
