The Disease Of Trump

Now that the disease in the Oval Office is threatening American lives perhaps more viscerally than ever, will President Donald Trump loyalists in the electorate finally snap out of their cult-like trance?

Predictably, Trump is more concerned with a slumping stock market -- due to the threat of the Coronavirus to the United States homeland -- than American lives.

"Trump has become furious about the stock market’s slide, according to two people familiar with the president’s thinking," reported The Washington Post recently. But the actual threat of a deadly virus outbreak, in Trump's view, is no big deal.

The President's reported anger with CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) official Dr. Nancy Messonnier's pre-emptive press conference Wednesday to knowledgeably inform the citizenry of potential dangers of the Coronavirus, which has infected some 60 Americans in the States, is more par for the of course.

Nothing matters more to Trump than his perceived successful economy that caters to the richest one percent at the expense of the middle class and poor. Expect more obfuscation of the truth now that Wall Street has officially suffered it's worst week since the 2008 start of the Great Recession.

It doesn't help matters that Trump irresponsibly fired the U.S. pandemic response team and cut CDC funding in 2018, reportedly as a cost-saving measure. The cuts forced the CDC to abandon its foreign aid to prevent the spread of infectious disease in countries -- including China, according to Judd Legum's "Popular Information" newsletter.

And Trump's move of late to appoint Vice President Mike Pence to oversee the U.S. response to the Coronavirus threat doesn't inspire confidence either. As Governor of Indiana, Pence was criticized for mishandling an HIV outbreak that infected more than 200 people in a single county between 2013 and 2015. It took Pence two years before authorizing a needle exchange program that eventually curbed the number of HIV cases.

In a further disturbing move, that reflects Trump's drive for autocratic control, the President has ordered that all government health officials must clear any statements about the Coronavirus, detected in 47 countries and which has caused more than 2,000 deaths, through Pence's office.

At his damage-control press conference, the President also misrepresented the time frame for the availability of a Coronavirus vaccine, seemingly in an attempt to reassure investors of a faltering stock market. A red-faced Trump claimed a vaccine "is coming along quickly."

More than once, administration officials have been obliged to refute Trump's placating embellishment. In that same press conference, a National Institute of Health physician stated that it would be at least a year before a Coronavirus vaccine is available.

In the meantime, right wing hate radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh was downplaying the Coronavirus, likening it to "common cold" and absurdly insinuated that Dr. Messonnier's warning to Americans to prepare for the virus, was part of a plot to undermine Trump.

Americans by no means should panic in light of the increased threat of the Coronavirus spreading in our country. But to what degree has President Trump's cuts to the CDC, downplaying and slow response of the virus's threat, already put vulnerable citizens' lives at risk?

Obsessive Trump believers, in the coming days and weeks, may have their best chance yet to more soberly assess just whose side the President is truly on, and for their own good, rethink their undying allegiance.