The Trump campaign is now attacking Biden for...not contracting coronavirus.
— Tim Hogan (@timjhogan) October 5, 2020
“He has experience — now — fighting the coronavirus as an individual. Those firsthand experiences, Joe Biden, he doesn’t have those." pic.twitter.com/Qk0Qc8l6q9
Evidently, though, this was (despite the Trump TV chryon) not Mercedes Schlapp because the CNN fact-checker noted
Trump campaign spokesperson Erin Perrine on Fox News today: "Listen, he has experience as commander-in-chief, he has experience as a businessman, he has experience, now, fighting the coronavirus as an individual. Those firsthand experiences: Joe Biden, he doesn’t have those.”
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) October 5, 2020
In good snark (like John Lewis' "good trouble"), one woman tweeted back "I guess men have to get pregnant to vote on the right to choose."
It's a great point in this context, although men do have a legitimate right to have an opinion about reproductive freedom. Even some women oppose reproductive freedom, sometimes ardently and dishonestly, as in the case of the loathsome (now Never Trump) Carly Fiorina. Truth may be stranger than fiction.
The point about men is well taken though perhaps the most insightful came from the fellow who recognized that Trump "has failed as a businessman" and "as a CIF (debt at all time, unemployment all time high), and failed against Covid (I prefer winners and only losers get sick)."\
That highlights two of the fundamental problems concerning coverage of Donald Trump. When Trump was introduced to the public as a candidate, it was as "businessman Donald Trump." When he appeared at a debate, it was as "businessman Donald Trump." As President, it has been "former businessman Donald Trump."
You may notice a pattern. Trump was a businessman decades ago (still is, in a corrupt way) and a very bad one. However, he became a viable candidate because he had only recently proven to be an extremely talented actor (The Apprentice), a talent he has maintained throughout his presidency.
He had been, most recently and visibly, an actor, a thespian, one who pretended to be what he was not. While Trump was given the unmerited favor of being associated with his earlier, failed career rather than the more recent source of his wealth, Hillary Clinton was labeled a secretary, as in "Secretary of State." Her successful career as a United States senator representing the fourth most populous state in the country was negated.
Moreover, Donald Trump does prefer winners and believe only losers get sick. At a recent campaign rally in Bemidji, in a manner consistent with previous remarks, the President declared "You have good genes, you know that, right? You have good genes. A lot of it is about the genes, isn't it, don't you believe? The racehorse theory. You think we're so different? You have good genes in Minnesota."
Some critics would say that for the President, the "good genes" predominate in a state that's overwhelmingly white. But there is a macro, as well as micro, element in it, with Trump probably believing that within any one race, some people were born with the right stuff, some without. You get to live, or you don't. You're a loser, or you're a winner.
With a few exceptions, the media has turned a blind eye to this. It's discomfiting, and in a literal sense almost "unbelievable," that a President of the United States of America would see death from Covid-19 as a benefit, not a bug.
Still, the truth. And it's why, notwithstanding Trump's first hand experience, the President does care about the coronavirus- just not in the way a normal human being would.
No comments:
Post a Comment