Blog No. 254b. The Coronavirus and Trump’s Parallel Universe, Part Two: Trump’s “Good Job”

On Sunday afternoon at the White House, reality made a crash landing into Trump’s parallel universe. This unexpected development came as something of a relief to the President’s own coronavirus team as well as to health authorities, medical personnel and government officials around the country who are struggling to deal with the pandemic. The only people who may have been disappointed were Trump’s disciples on the far right who had been clinging to a claim that the menace of the coronavirus was all a hoax perpetrated by the media, Democrats and the Deep State (and who had been mounting vicious attacks against Dr. Anthony Fauci in the process).

Trump’s sudden grasp of reality, albeit only partial, came as a relief because it forestalled the abandonment of social distancing requirements and the disastrous consequences, measured by deaths in the hundreds of thousands, that would have resulted. Yet, like most crash landings, it was not a pretty sight. The event provided the somewhat dissonant spectacle of a New Trump sharing the stage with the Old Trump. The New Trump accepted the enormity of the situation, abandoning his fantasy of an Easter miracle of crowded churches celebrating not only the sacred religious occasion, but the reopening of America for business. Gone also was Trump’s attempt to undermine the need for social distancing measures with his ludicrous suggestion that the “cure might be worse than the problem.”

The New Trump acknowledged the grim projections that, even if social distancing regulations are maintained and followed faithfully, deaths in the United States are likely to exceed 100,000. He did so with chilling equanimity (“so we have between 100 and 200,000, we altogether have done a very good job”). Indeed, Trump’s calm demeanor might have befitted a discussion of his TV ratings or golf scores (“If I come in under 80 I’ve had a very good round”). Still, Trump’s concept of a “good job” had come a long way from his assurances on March 10 (“We’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”) and March 15 (“This is a very contagious virus. It’s incredible. But it’s something that we have tremendous control over.”) By Tuesday, the gravity of the situation had further sunk in. At the White House, Dr. Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birks put the projected death toll at between 100,000 and 240,000 and Trump advised the public that we were in for a “very, very painful two weeks” ahead (an estimate he later raised to three). But if Trump’s era of magical thinking was over, his penchant for self-congratulation was not (“I think we’ve done a great job.”)

In addition to patting himself on the back, the Old Trump was on display in other respects on Sunday as he squabbled angrily with reporters for asking questions he felt were hostile and renewed attacks on Governors whom he deemed to be insufficiently appreciative of him and his team. All of that might be dismissed as merely “Trump being Trump,” but the overriding fact was that he still refused to accept the coronavirus as a national problem requiring the federal government to take responsibility for the development and execution of a coordinated plan of action. To be sure, FEMA has provided assistance to states on an ad hoc basis, as has the Defense Department, and even Trump himself, but the lack of an overall strategy remains painfully apparent. On Tuesday, the fact that many states still lack sufficient testing kits came as a revelation to Trump. Also as of Tuesday, Governors were still competing with each other to find and acquire ventilators, masks and gloves. Readers who are interested in knowing what an overall strategy would look like can find a cogent and comprehensive outline provided by Bill Gates in the Washington Post.

A continuing mystery is how through all of the disarray, chaos, and misery, Trump’s overall approval rating has improved somewhat and, according to polls, a majority approve of his handling of the coronavirus siege. In general, pundits explain this as the “rally round the flag” phenomenon by which, in a period of crisis, the public desperately wants to believe in, and persuades itself to believe in, the competence of its leader. Gail Collins and Bret Stephens offered another perspective in their weekly dialogue:

Bret: The inability of so much of the public to remember what Trump was saying just a month ago suggests that, in addition to the coronavirus crisis, we’re also experiencing a national amnesia pandemic.

Gail: Maybe it’s just national attention deficit disorder. People do hit a point where they just can’t cope with coronavirus discussions 24-7.

But as the general election approaches, the public cannot avoid exposure to television clips of Trump’s stubborn denials of reality through all of February and almost all of March. Will anyone doubt that those denials, and his failure to take effective action, cost lives?

Can Trump’s approval rating—and his electability—survive a death toll of the proportion currently projected? Frankly, I have trouble even getting my head around deaths in the range of 100,000-240,000; it is an abstraction more than a reality. For purposes of comparison, the lives our armed forces lost in the Vietnam war totaled 58,209. That death toll was enough to drive Lyndon Johnson from office. In this case, deaths are projected to accumulate far more quickly, thousands on thousands per week or even per day. Johnson’s departure was also hastened by sickening pictures of death and destruction appearing nightly on the evening news; in this case, the pictures will be equally vivid, or more so, and they will be on tap 24/7.

As Trump is wont to say, we’ll see what happens.