“The bigger the lie, the more they believe it."
I know most of you will think me a cynic for what I am about to suggest, but actually, I think this view is rather optimistic, for if I am right, it means our commander-in-chief is in no serious jeopardy. Besides, when it comes to Trump, I find that cynicism is the best policy.
What if Trump isn't really sick? What if he is just gaslighting us?
Let's first start by looking at Trump's
Week In Review
You can see the Rose Garden affair here, but fast forward for eleven minutes because that's how long Trump made them wait, maskless, seated cheek by jowl, for him. I nominate him the least likely person to get Covid at this affair because he was up front, away from the others. The only person he was close to for any length of time was Amy Coney Barrett, and she wasn't a danger because she's already recovered from Covid.
Monday was not a good day. Thanks to the New York Times, we finally got a good look at his tax returns, and Donald Trump was revealed as a tax fraud and a failed businessman. The next day brought more of the same from the NY Times. This is very bad for him. He was already running 8% behind in national polls, and 4-6% in some key battleground states.
Tuesday was debate night. It was his big chance to turn things around, but it did not work out well for him. His adolescent antics didn't win him any new supporters, and pissed off many formerly undecideds. His refusal to just say no to white supremacy, and his marching orders to the Proud Boys, did manage to push his tax returns off the frontpage, but only at the cost of spending Wednesday denying the obvious. Trump, besides being perhaps the greatest con man that ever lived, is also a racist.
Wednesday was also the day Cornell University release a study naming Trump “the single largest driver of misinformation around Covid.” Not “a good look” when a quarter-million of the citizens you are suppose to serve are likely to be killed by Covid before election day.
The incubation period for the novel coronavirus is from 5 to 12 days, so the first indications of the Saturday super spreader now known as the #RoseGardenMassacre would have started trickling in on Wednesday. By Thursday, they would have known they were looking at another big public relations disaster. Never mind how many might die.
By Thursday morning, Trump's unwillingness to disavow white supremacy was competing with his refusal to guarantee a peaceful transition of power if he loses, for headlines, and post-debate polls were shouting that this was the most likely scenario. With only two days to go, it was turning into a pretty lousy week for candidate Trump, one month ahead of the election.
His campaign has been flailing around for weeks. They pulled their ads because they weren't working. They were running out of money. Local officials were rejecting his super spreader rallies, and the campaign manager he just replaced turned suicidal. But his most intractable problem remained the novel coronavirus. With more than 7.4 million infected, and more than 210 thousand killed in the United States, he just couldn't con enough people into believing it's a hoax. He needed a reset for his whole campaign. More than anything, he needed a face saving way of re-aligning his Covid policy in the face of the big spike in both infections and deaths this Fall is likely to bring ahead of the election.
Doctor, my eyes ..Just say if it's too late for me
Then he changed everything in an instant. At 10:44 PM ET Thursday, Trump tweeted out that Hope Hicks had tested positive for COVID-19, and that he and Melania were awaiting results:
Hope Hicks, who has been working so hard without even taking a small break, has just tested positive for Covid 19. Terrible! The First Lady and I are waiting for our test results. In the meantime, we will begin our quarantine process!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 2, 2020
Two hours and ten minutes later, Friday @ 12:54 AM ET, he tweeted out that they both had tested positive. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Trump had received the test results only an hour before announcing them.
Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 2, 2020
Suddenly, it's as if he had turned the world on its head. The news all day Friday was about Trump and his illness. In the morning, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows was outside the White House telling reporters that Trump had “mild symptoms.” It was topic #1 for White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany's morning press conference. About 4 PM ET, the White House announced that Trump had received a dose of Regeneron, and would be checking into the hospital soon, “out of an abundance of caution.” A few hours later he took a helicopter ride to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. It's as if all that had gone before was behind him. From being the perpetuation of their misery, he had joined the Covid victims. All concerns went to him. All the criticisms, even from the beginning of the week, were drowned out. The Biden campaign even pulled its negative ads without expecting, or receiving, reciprocity.
"If you can't beat'em, join'em"
This age-old wisdom is never lost on the good con man. Sometimes a change in tactics may be necessary, and sometimes this can be a guide. For eight months now, Trump has been trying to “beat” Covid as a political problem with “magic,” snake oil, and other tricks of the con man. None of that is working; a vaccine can't come soon enough, and now, between the Rose Garden fiasco, and the general uptick in cases we are seeing all over the country, he is about to lose that battle for good. So, instead, he checks himself into the hospital, and neutralizes all that. Later he can emerge victorious, saying: “It was just like the flu, just like I said.”
It's very strange that he should first test positive less than 24 hours before he needs hospitalization, for someone who is tested regularly. That's much faster than the normal progression of the disease. It's certainly possible that his doctors wanted him there, out of an abundance of caution, even for a mild case, but I don't think he'd go along with them if he thought it would hurt him in the election. If he had listened to his doctors about wearing a face mask, we probably won't be having this conversation in the first place.
As we've all been told a thousand times over: You wear masks, not just to protect yourself from the virus, but also to protect others from you, if you happen to have the virus without knowing it. If it was only the former, only for self-protection, I might be inclined towards a libertarian bent, and say the wearing of masks should be optional. But even then, not in the case of the president. To the president I would say: We provide you with special cars, special planes, a big security detail, and a whole suite of rooms waiting at the local hospital while some Covid patients lie on gurneys in the hall waiting for a bed, not because you are Donald Trump, but because you are the President of the United States, and the welfare of the president is important to the welfare of the country. We spend billions on your security, and they can protect you from many things, but they can't protect you from a virus. So, while you may not like it. this is the job you signed up for. So once again, WEAR THE DAMN MASK!
They can't get him to wear a mask, so I don't think they could get him to check in to the hospital unless he wanted to. I suspect there are enormous resources that can be bought to bedside in the White House, if he wanted to avoid the spectacle of checking into the hospital. No, if Trump wasn't at death's door, he checked into the hospital with his “mild case” because he thought the drama of it all would help, rather than hurt, his efforts to stay in the White House. Being in the hospital assures that his illness will remain the top story, even as so many others are reporting sick.
Note, this scenario is only the slightly more honest version of the totally unscrupulous one I am proposing. In this one, he is overplaying a mild case of Covid for effect, in mine, his Covid is made out of whole cloth. Either way: Cui Bono?
To hear Dr. Sean Conley describe Trump's condition, it sounded like he had no problems at all. True, “Thursday he had a mild cough, some nasal congestion, and fatigue,” but that was all better now. He did quite a bit of gaslighting around the question of whether Trump had received any supplemental oxygen with repeated comments like “He's not on oxygen right now.” He wouldn't answer the question directly, like “yes, he has received oxygen.” Most reporters took it that he was trying to strongly imply that Trump had received oxygen, but wasn't being allowed to say. Later “sources” confirmed that he had received oxygen. I think he hadn't received any oxygen at the hospital, and the doctor's coy answer was the closest he would come to supporting that particular lie. Doctors have ethics. Conley led with the same kind of opiate line with regards to Trump's temperature, saying, “He's been fever free for the past 24-hours.” Only during the Q&A did he clarify, “He did have a fever Thursday and Friday,” although he was shy about giving us any numbers. He said all his organs were good, everything else was fine, and his blood-oxygen levels were normal. It sounded as if he had never been sick at all. Nevertheless, they started a five day treatment of Regeneron on Friday, and that needs to be administered in the hospital, so he is likely to be there through Tuesday. They didn't say that. I deduced it. Mark Meadows shepherded them back into the building before the questions got too specific.
A little later Meadows returned as “a source familiar with the president’s health” to sharply contradict the rosy picture painted by the doctors:
The president’s vitals over the last 24 hours were very concerning and the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of his care. We’re still not on a clear path to a full recovery.Apparently the rosy picture wouldn't do. Looking at all those doctors telling us what a picture of health Trump is, I was reminded of the line from The Usual Suspects: “Sure you brought enough guys?” Meadows knew he needed to give us all something to worry about to keep the story interesting. A lot more people than Trump are getting sick, even in his small circle. All the talk about the contradiction between what Trump's doctors said, and what his White House said, amounted to today's distraction.
Later on Saturday, Trump tweeted out a well-produced four-minute video to a waiting, and sympathetic audience. If you ask me, he doesn't look, or sound, like someone even recovering from the flu. He looks more like someone who took off his tie to act like he is recovering from Covid.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 3, 2020
I hope Trump comes home from the hospital soon, but if he does, we may never know whether his Covid's first name was Slim or None. In anycase, he is going to try to use this to reset his campaign. All that has gone before is in the past. He now “sees the light” on masks. He will be re-born in the fight against #COVID19. He will try to leverage his “near-death experience” into four more years in the White House. This is his first October Surprise.
Actually, this gambit isn't even all that creative. I mean, it won't exactly be the first time someone called in sick to deal with a sticky situation at work.
Just my 2¢ worth.
Clay Claiborne
Continued on: Trump's doctor isn't a very good Spin Doctor
Also on Tuesday: The Trump Show hospital episode closes
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