It occurred to me that Covid-19 might yet save Donald Trump's presidential campaign. I imagined that he might have a moment of epiphany. Lying in his hospital bed, an oxygen mask strapped on his face, fearful of what might lie ahead, he might think of the 210,000 Americans who had died on his watch and consider the mistakes that he made along the way.
His fear would be real. He had described Covid-19 as a killer in his conversations with Bob Woodward, even if he had perpetuated to this day the belief among his followers that it is something between the common flu and a Democrat hoax. Now was the moment that he would come clean, and it could be a powerful, cleansing moment for the country. He would apologize for failing to be honest with the nation. He would promise to do better, and to lead the nation to health. He would assure the country that as we put the pandemic behind us – really put it behind us – he would rebuild the economy to greater heights than ever.
He might even apologize specifically to those who had been most adversely affected. Frontline workers, people of color, service workers whose sources of livelihood had disappeared. He would call on his supporters – his MAGA fire-breathers and wealthy donors alike – to follow his lead and heal a pandemic-stricken nation.
There are 30 days left until Election Day, and short of revving up Bill Barr's goon squads and the Proud Boys and their ilk, such a moment of confession and renewal might be the only path forward to reelection. Swing voters and suburban women, whom he has alienated step-by-step for months now, culminating in his 90 minutes of rage at the first presidential debate, would respond positively to the contrition and the humility.
It would be a long shot, but it might actually keep him in the White House, and his family out of jail.
I don't know if it was a moment of reverie or fear, but it passed.
Contrition and humility were never in the cards. "Tremendous progress has been made over the last 6 months in fighting this PLAGUE," Trump tweeted this morning. I don't know what I was thinking.
Before I left for a hike this morning, I thought back to when Len Bias died. One of the great college basketball players of my lifetime, Bias died of a cocaine overdose three days after he was drafted number two by the Boston Celtics. From that moment, recreational cocaine use on Wall Street visibly fell out of favor. I thought that perhaps the President lying in Walter Reed Hospital with Covid-19 might have a similar impact.
I was wrong. Like always, a large percentage of hikers that we passed along the narrow trail continued to disdain wearing masks. The hiker with a "Trump 2020" tee-shirt smiled and greeted my dog warmly. But he did not wear a mask.
When I drove to the store a bit later, I passed a Trump rally on the street corner. A dozen or so people waving American flags, holding up signs, and darting into traffic to hand out fliers. But, as always, they were clustered close together and only one or two wore masks.
Clearly, the lessons of Donald Trump lying in the hospital, and the growing toll of the super-spreader event on the White House lawn, had meant little or nothing.
The norm of prayers and condolences in these moments are well understood across society. When someone is sick, you wish them well. When someone dies, you tell people you are sorry for their loss. And the wishes and sorrow should be sincere, and usually are. We are all human, and no one should wish suffering or harm on anyone.
Yet Donald Trump has changed all that. He has made causing suffering and harm a deliberate goal – or at least a widely acceptable consequence – of public policy in ways we have never seen before. He made it a matter of policy to separate parents from their children along the southern border, and locked their children in cages. He did it with such incompetence and reckless disregard that many could never be reunited. Now, we hear reports of the forced sterilization of young women. It is barbaric, and it is all in our name. We are Americans and this is our policy.
He has used the pain and suffering of others as props in his never-ending political reality show. Now, we are supposed to express our sympathy for a man who publicly derided Hillary Clinton when she was stricken with pneumonia during the last campaign, and who made fun of a disabled journalist, and who promoted or instigated conspiracy theories accusing any number of politically useful targets of unspeakable acts.
I thought, perhaps, being stricken with Covid-19 might produce a moment of epiphany, even as I knew that was not possible. From the moment I heard that he had been sent to the hospital "as a precaution," I immediately suspected it was a lie. And what has ensued has been a stream of lies. We really have no idea what his condition is from one moment to the next.
Lying has become a matter of habit in this administration. From the top. Donald Trump has always lied, whenever and however it serves his purpose. And those around him must lie. It is a condition of employment, part of the culture. He went to the hospital because his condition was serious, but they cannot call him sick, because that sounds weak, so they lie.
Today, driving home in the car, after the hike and after the Trump rally, I turned on the radio and heard a physician begin to address the media. My immediate thought was, finally, a doctor with no spin. Then he started. "The patient is 74 years old. Male. Slightly overweight..." There it was, I thought immediately, this is not a Walter Reed physician, this must be Trump's personal physician. And it was. He was spinning Trump's weight, as they have since the beginning. And so it went. A reporter asked, "Has the President been on oxygen." It is a reasonable question for understanding the extent of the illness. "He is not on oxygen now," the doctor responded. He evaded the obvious follow up. More spin. Slightly overweight.
My notion that Donald Trump would emerge from Walter Reed a changed man was an illusion. Perhaps there will be a sympathy vote; we are a forgiving people by nature. But as with all things Trump, the sympathy and compassion will only go one way. His own experience with the nation's best medical care will not leave him sympathetic to those whom his administration is aggressively seeking to deprive of medical care. His own brush with death will not humanize him to the point where he apologizes for his policy failures and cruelty, or shows a modicum of empathy toward those who have suffered under his watch.
It has been 48 hours since Trump's last tweetstorm, where he lashed out at his enemies, near and wide, as he is wont to do. Whether Covid-19 changes him at all will be measured by how long that hiatus lasts, and how soon the viciousness that is his nature and that his supporters love so dearly returns for all the world to see. For a moment there, I suspected that it was possible that things might change. I now realize how unlikely that is.
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