Trump and COVID-19: Where American Populism Failed the Test

It has been a turbulent final year for Donald Trump’s term as president of the United States. While he may be used to dealing with money and power, he much like the rest of us could not have anticipated a pandemic. When the stakes were lower for everyone in the world, his ignorant and inhumane rhetoric was easier to laugh off or sidestep. Michelle Goldberg has choice words for the cultural peril that Trump’s presidency represents: “This is what American exceptionalism looks like under Donald Trump…

At the federal level as well as in many states, we’re seeing a combination of the blustering contempt for science that marks the conservative approach to climate change and the high tolerance for carnage that makes American gun culture unique.” While glossing a variety of issues, Goldberg’s point is that in lieu of pragmatic suppression of the virus, Trump and his constituency are more likely to rally around their ‘American exceptionalism.’ As Donald Trump hosts rallies where COVID measures are not enforced, he actively encourages American citizens to risk their health in the interest of his own re-election and economic cash flow. 

But what exactly is ‘American exceptionalism,’ and why does it compel Trump supporters to attend crowded events during a pandemic? Seymour Martin Lipset, American sociologist, describes the uniquely American outlook: “the nation’s ideology can be described in five words: liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, populism, and laissez-faire.” As American mythos was built around these ideas, deviation from them would naturally be considered ‘un-American.’ Some would prefer to go back to these traditional values at all costs, hence “Make America Great Again.” Commitment to the platitudes of the American outlook, as defined by people in power, has and will continue to take precedence over the well-being of the general public. Nobody is ignoring safety precautions because they are unaware of the pandemic – they defy the pandemic by towing the ‘American’ line, becoming psychologically invincible.

In times like these, the social contract we have with the government supposedly implies protection. Instead we have talking heads that prioritize the circulation of money in the economy over public health. Just recently, on June 25th, the president tweeted this optimistic take: “Coronavirus deaths are way down. Mortality rate is one of the lowest in the World. Our Economy is roaring back and will NOT be shut down. ‘Embers’ or flare ups will be put out, as necessary!” While, according to FactCheck.org, it is true that mortality rate has declined, the leap in logic from fewer deaths to a “roaring Economy that will NOT be shut down” indicates that the tweet is mostly lip service. According to Dr. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a subdued mortality rate does not mean we are in the clear: “Deaths always lag considerably behind cases.” As rates of cases and death fluctuate back and forth, Trump attempts to remedy the situation through sheer force of will.

To list all of the lies that the president has uttered regarding COVID is a task fit for a Russian novelist. Since we can’t judge him by his word, we can try to judge him by his demeanor about the situation. At his recent rally in Tulsa Oklahoma, he hazarded a joke: “When you test — when you do testing to that extent, you’re going to find more people. You’re going to find more cases. So I said to my people, slow the testing down, please” (CNN, Cilliza). In the face of 2.4 million cases, over 123,000 deaths, and lingering fear of infection, this joke did not fare well in the press. At best, it is tone-deaf for the sitting president to publicly minimize a global pandemic. At worst, he is discouraging testing because he would prefer the numbers coming out of the United States to make him look good in the election year.

Trump’s staffers, along with his jokes, did not fare well at the rally in Tulsa. It turns out that the laissez-faire approach to large public gatherings is still dangerous; more and more of Trump’s staff continues to test positive for COVID-19. According to the Trump campaign staff: “The two positive tests, first reported by CNBC, bring the total number of Trump advance team staffers in Tulsa who tested positive for coronavirus to eight (Nobles).” As the president was joking about slowing testing down, his staffers were contracting the virus even though they were wearing masks. It turns out that the crowd at the rally was not required to take the same safety measures as Trump’s staffers: “Attendees at Trump’s rally were not required to wear a mask or practice social distancing, despite the Trump administration’s top public health officials stressing the importance of both measures in preventing the spread of coronavirus.” Since the disease has become a politicized subject, the act of caring for one’s own health is now a partisan decision. Nobody wanted to restrict the crowd at Tulsa from expressing their American sense of freedom from a virus.

The Us-Them-ing of basic health practices does not stop at the divide between Liberals and Conservatives. The future is grim as Trump continues to rally his voters while he seeks re-election. Paul Krugman weighs in on the snowball effect of ignorant thinking: “And the next Trump rally, on Tuesday, will take place in Arizona, where Covid-19 is exploding, but where the Republican governor not only refuses to require mask-wearing but refused until a few days ago to allow local governments to impose their own rules.” It is not the sign of a functioning democracy when governors are risking their state’s public health in the interest of scoring political brownie points.

Trump recently remarked that the virus is “fading away.” In reality, where the virus is a threat to our health and actionable information is sparse, our concern will last a bit longer: “Dr. Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, said on CNN, ‘Not only is it not fading out — this will be with us for at least another 12 months, and that’s the most optimistic scenario for having a vaccine.’ As we look forward longingly to that vaccine, government efforts to help the American people has been based in two major methods: testing, and economic stimulus. Many will remember the $1,200 stimulus check that rolled out a couple of months ago, and a new stimulus check is in the works. According to the American Census, the median monthly salary was $3,714 in 2017. Meanwhile, in the same stimulus package, $500 billion was set aside for American companies with no Democratic oversight. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was blocked from this position, and said position was never properly filled.

The president has emphasized getting the economy back in motion as a reason for lifting COVID restrictions. Unemployment has skyrocketed and the ripple effects of frozen capitalism are still on the horizon. It is also true that the economy has shown signs of life as restrictions go away, such as home sales jumping from 5.2% in April to 16.6% in May (Reuters). However, prioritizing the health of the economy over the health of American citizens is irresponsible. As we continue to deal with COVID together, the American people need to come together in support of each other; what we don’t need now is the empty rhetoric of a figure like Donald Trump.