{"id":3491,"date":"2020-10-21T15:34:08","date_gmt":"2020-10-21T20:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/104.131.56.60\/?p=3491"},"modified":"2023-12-11T14:02:31","modified_gmt":"2023-12-11T14:02:31","slug":"trumps-infection-was-inevitable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/features\/trumps-infection-was-inevitable\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump’s Infection Was Inevitable"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

The president\u2019s minimization of Covid-19 led to the complacency which caught him the virus<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"\"<\/a>
President Trump at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, October 3, 2020.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n

Perhaps the greatest surprise of Trump\u2019s infection was that it took him over eight months since the first U.S. case of Covid-19 to contract the virus.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

He spent these months minimizing the pandemic, unrelenting even when it arrived at American shores. \u201cWe have it totally under control. It\u2019s just one person coming in from China,\u201d he said in an interview<\/a> with CNBC. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be just fine.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Seven more U.S. cases and a travel ban later, \u201cWe pretty much shut it down coming in from China,\u201d he said when interviewed<\/a> by Sean Hannity.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cWe can and should be prepared for this new virus to gain a foothold in America,\u201d Dr. Nancy Mesonnier of the CDC warned<\/a> in February.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cWhen you have fifteen [cases], and the fifteen within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that\u2019s a pretty good job we\u2019ve done,\u201d Trump said<\/a> less than two weeks later.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Trump\u2019s optimism regarding Covid-19 despite the warnings of countless experts has been a threat from the start, one which was only exacerbated by the politicization of the virus. \u201cThis is [the Democrats\u2019] new hoax,\u201d Trump proclaimed<\/a> at a February 28 campaign rally in South Carolina. And with that, he maneuvered himself into a position in which his contrarian politics demanded that he attack the legitimacy of the \u201choax\u201d; he could not acknowledge the severity of the virus without ceding defeat.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

As evidenced by numerous interviews, speeches, and tweets throughout his presidency, Trump is a man who cares deeply about the projection of strength. However, while bombast is by no means new to the political arena, the devastation it has wreaked on the U.S. over the course of this pandemic is significant. The recently published book Rage by Bob Woodward, Washington Post associate editor and Watergate scandal investigative reporter, details the Trump administration\u2019s response to the early stages of pandemic, revealing that as early as February, Trump acknowledged<\/a> that \u201c[t]his is deadly stuff.\u201d And yet, \u201cI think it\u2019s all going to work out fine,\u201d he assured the public three days later at a rally in New Hampshire.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cI wanted to play it down,\u201d Trump said in March in an interview<\/a> with Woodward. \u201cI still like playing it down, because I don\u2019t want to create a panic.\u201d Even so, as complacency led to disregard for masking and social distancing, one might argue that some panic would have been beneficial. Rather, what Trump has revealed of his temperament and principles over the last four years is that public opinion is of such importance to him that he would deny the imminent threat of a pandemic that has reached his shores if it meant preserving the facade of control\u2014which is precisely what he has done. \u201cThe Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA,\u201d he tweeted<\/a> in February.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Predictably, the consequences for this have been dire. The way Trump dragged his feet in his personal response to the virus\u2014only beginning to wear a mask as late as July and continuing to hold massive campaign rallies despite experts cautioning against large gatherings\u2014left him vulnerable. Furthermore, as is to be expected with such a leader, this dismissiveness of the pandemic\u2019s severity was endemic in the White House. Despite the use of rapid testing that was known<\/a> to fail in detecting infections where concentrations of the virus were below a certain threshold, those who tested \u201cnegative\u201d went about without masks, and often convened in close quarters, indoors.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

On September 26, the White House hosted its own super-spreader event in the Rose Garden, where two hundred guests gathered\u2013unmasked and closely packed\u2014for the announcement of Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination. This followed an indoor reception with at least 100 guests, who were also unmasked and closely packed, and were photographed making physical contact nonetheless. Though the White House refuses<\/a> to undertake comprehensive contact tracing, the timeline of the development of Covid-19 symptoms suggest that at least eight people contracted the virus at this event\u2014including Trump.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"\"\r\n
Two hundred people gathered in the Rose Garden September 26 for the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Trump\u2019s infection was the culmination of months of dissembling the threat of the virus to propagate an illusion of control. His obsession with this illusion and his contrarian approach to policy are not new; they have been common themes throughout his presidency. In Rage, former White House Staff Secretary Rob Porter was quoted<\/a> saying, regarding Trump\u2019s decisions on foreign policy, \u201cThis was no longer a presidency. This is no longer a White House. This is a man being who he is.\u201d This has been true, too, regarding his response to the pandemic. Speaking about the catastrophic death toll in the U.S., former Vice President Joe Biden articulated<\/a> this in the first presidential debate: \u201cIt is what it is because you are what you are.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Indeed, \u201cI had no choice,\u201d Trump said about the irresponsibility of his conduct, in a video statement<\/a> released after his infection. He was incapable of defying his nature; he simply continued the patterns of behavior that he has practiced for years. Even now, having apparently recovered from his infection, Trump continues in his attempt to maintain his illusion, tweeting<\/a>, \u201cFeeling really good! Don\u2019t be afraid of Covid. Don\u2019t let it dominate your life.\u201d But it remains that this illusion facilitated complacency and inadequate precautions that made the White House outbreak which infected him inevitable.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The president\u2019s minimization of Covid-19 led to the complacency which caught him the virus Perhaps the greatest surprise of Trump\u2019s infection was that it took him over eight months since the first U.S. case of Covid-19 to contract the virus. He spent these months minimizing the pandemic, unrelenting even when it arrived at American shores. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":3493,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11,25],"tags":[103],"class_list":{"0":"post-3491","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-features","8":"category-united-states","9":"tag-covid-19","10":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}