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Just in case you were about to feel an unfamiliar spasm of sympathy for Donald Trump following his contraction of coronavirus, this week has provided a helpful reminder not only of his morally repugnant character but also of the danger he poses to the United States and the wider world.

Firmly in the first category is his attempt to blame his infection on the grieving relatives of slain soldiers, citing Gold Star families tendency to come within an inch of my face. Speaking to Fox Business on Thursday, Trump said, They want to hug me and they want to kiss me, and so perhaps it was them who had made him sick. Clearly keen not to keep all that viral load to himself, Trump later told Fox News in between coughing bouts that he plans to host a rally in Florida on Saturday and another in Pennsylvania. Hell doubtless repeat the gesture he premiered in his bargain-bin Mussolini performance on the White House balcony on Monday night, ripping off his mask with a flourish as if to prove that nothing and nobody will stop him shrouding his devotees in a cloud of his contaminated breath.

More serious are his assaults on democracy, which become ever more explicit. Lashing out at his own henchmen, he channelled Elton John to warn that the slavishly loyal attorney general, William Barr, would find himself in a sad, sad situation if he did not indict Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden for the greatest political crime in the history of our country, namely the federal inquiry into the 2016 Trump campaigns links to Russia. Like strutting on a balcony, threatening to jail your predecessor along with your former and current opponents for political crimes tends to be a feature of darkly authoritarian states rather than democratic ones.

As if to confirm that Trumps threats to democracy are not empty, that the signals he transmits are received, 13 men were arrested in Michigan on Thursday over a violent plot to kidnap the states governor and try her for treason. Youll recall that in April, Trump urged his followers, angry about the states lockdown, to LIBERATE MICHIGAN!. Trumps chief response to the revelation of this episode of domestic terrorism was not contrition, but rather a rebuke to the governor for failing to say thank you to my justice department for uncovering the conspiracy. That my is telling: it is the grammar of the authoritarian strongman.

Most Republicans continue, like Trumps doctors, to act as enablers in all this. Especially eye-catching was a tweet from infected senator Mike Lee of Utah, arguing that democracy was less important than liberty, peace and prosperity and that sometimes Rank democracy can thwart those goals. Few Republicans dare echo the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, who rather generously described Trumps increasingly unhinged ramblings as evidence that hes in an altered state.

And yet, the admission by the Republican leader in the senate, Mitch McConnell, that he had not gone near the White House since 6 August because of the administrations lax approach to masks and social distancing, was striking. Now, McConnell is not a man to speak without prior thought: unencumbered by scruples, he is a political calculating machine. And what that remark suggests is the calculation that Republicans need to distance themselves from a president they suspect is heading towards defeat.

Theyve seen the polls, same as everyone else. Those show Bidens lead growing when the race should be tightening, the Democrat consistently ahead in every battleground state bar Florida, and breathing down Trumps neck in states that should be reliably Republican, including must-win Ohio. Whats more, Bidens lead has increased since Trumps diagnosis a week ago. Hard-headed Republicans are beginning to suspect that the pandemic will be the presidents undoing.

If thats right, there would be a compelling, even karmic, logic to it. For Covid-19 could almost have been designed to expose the essence, and failings, of Trumpism.

Consider that one of Trumpisms defining traits is its contempt for truth, facts and science. It was during Trumps first weekend in office that he had his officials lie about the size of his inaugural crowd and speak of alternative facts. Opponents railed against this epistemic vandalism, but truth always seemed an abstract, even elitist concern. And then came coronavirus, accompanied by Trumps insistence that it would just disappear like a miracle, or that it could be chased away with an injection of bleach, as if to demonstrate in the starkest possible terms where a disdain for facts and for science leads: namely, to the graves of more than 200,000 Americans.

Similarly, Trumpism adapts the traditional Republican attachment to individual freedom and mutates it into a darker, Darwinian belief that the strong individual can and should do whatever they like, and to hell with the suckers and losers who might suffer as a result. In normal times, plenty of Trump supporters saw that as an exhilarating libertinism, one that allowed Trump to cheat on his wives and pay no taxes, all without consequences. Theyd have lived like that if they could. But coronavirus doesnt work that way. Suddenly the suckers and losers included Trump supporters, or their loved ones. The virus even caught up with Trump himself along with everyone who got near him.

And, of course, Trumpism is defined by its toxic brand of masculinity, mocking Biden for wearing a mask Might as well carry a purse with that mask, Joe, quipped one Fox host forgetting that covering your face is mainly to protect others, not yourself. Trump is still bragging that he is a perfect physical specimen, that hes seen off Covid, but he says it while wheezing. This virus has done to Trumpian machismo what its done to Trumpian disrespect for rules and science: its exposed it as hollow and a failure.

We dont know what further twists await in this long, melancholy drama; we dont know who will win next month. But if Donald Trump is ejected from office, Americans will still have to wrestle with a tough question: what does it say about the US if it took a pandemic to do it?

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

See original here:
Covid-19 has unmasked the true nature of Donald Trump and Trumpism - The Guardian

American society has long portrayed strength as the opposite of disability and feminization, Wool says. Those go together, and are seen to be incapacitating. This is relevant in the case of Donald Trump.

As a patient, Trump has physical traits that place him among the riskiest categories for dying from COVID-19. He is also emotionally brittle, requiring constant validation and reassurance. But as his niece Mary Trump recently wrote, among Trumps family, weakness was the greatest sin of all. So, in lieu of actual strength, Trump excels at performing a specific masculinized version of it, in which aggression, volume, stubbornness, overconfidence, and mockery are stand-ins for might. This is a man who sees wounded veterans and casualties of war as suckers and losers. Hes a caricature of masculinity, says Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, an emerita disability scholar at Emory University.

Read: Trump: Americans who died in war are losers and suckers

But the leaky nature of metaphor allows displays of strength to be mistaken for its presence. Strongman characterizations seem to revolve around the dispositional, temperamental features of a leader, says Martha Lincoln, a medical anthropologist at San Francisco State University, but I think theres some magical thinking about the physical resilience of such a person too. Even when Trump himself fell sick, he and his supporters couched his experience in the language of strength, victory, and courage. Dont let it dominate you, he said in a video.

This strength-centered rhetoric is damaging for three reasons. First, its a terrible public-health message. It dissuades people from distancing themselves from others and wearing a mask, and equates those measures with weakness and cowardice. The more you personify the virus, the more one version of heroism is to ignore it, says Semino. When people take that idea to extremes, they say, Im strong. Im not going to be cowed by this.

Second, it ignores the more than 210,000 Americans who have died from COVID-19, and the uncounted thousands who have been disabled. Such dismissals are already common. In recent years, the ideologies of eugenics, where if youre sick, its your own fault and you dont deserve support, [have] become more and more blatant, says Pamela Block, an anthropologist at Western University. As the pandemic progressed, many saw the deaths of elderly people, or those with preexisting conditions, as acceptable and dismissible. And as COVID-19 disproportionately hit Black, Latino, Indigenous, and Pacific Islander communities, people who believed in the idea of white supremacy felt like the virus was doing their work for them, and could promote the idea that theyre genetically stronger, Block adds. One of Trumps supporters recently predicted that the president would beat COVID-19 because of his god-tier genetics; Trump himself recently told a largely white audience that they have good genes before warning about incoming Somalian refugees.

See the original post here:
Donald Trump's Strength Did Not Beat the Coronavirus - The Atlantic

When the FBI announced in October 2016 that it was reviewing new emails related to its investigation into Hillary Clintons use of a private server as secretary of state, it gave Donald Trump a priceless gift. Not because, as it turned out, Clinton had deliberately mishandled classified information or was about to be charged with a crime, but because it gave the impression of impropriety, which the reality-TV host rode all the way to the White House. Unfortunately for Trump, whose polling couldnt be worse, we are living in the year 2020 and he is running against Joe Biden, not Hillary Clinton. These are the sort of simple questions a doctor might ask a patient to assess whether theyve suffered a traumatic brain injury, yet, weirdly, it appears that neither the president nor his employees know the correct answers.

Speaking to Fox News on Friday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Dana Perino, Weve got the emails. Were getting them out. Were gonna get all this information out so the American people can see it. Youll remember there was classified information on a private server, should have never been there. Hillary Clinton should never have done that. It was unacceptable behavior. Its not the kind of thing that leaders do.... Classified information needs to stay on the right places. Secretary Clinton, when she was here at the State Department, did not do that.... Well get the information out that needs to get outas fast as we can. I certainly think therell be more to see before the election.

The news that the federal government is working on releasing Clintons emails as fast as it can, as though there are no other pressing issues to deal with, comes one day after Trump called in to Fox Business to rant about the fact that his former opponent hasnt been indicted (which may have something to do with the fact that she was cleared of wrongdoing), saying that he was not happy with Pompeo for failing to get her emails out to the public. (He also complained that his attorney general hasnt indicted Biden and Barack Obama, saying that Bill Barr will go down in history as a very sad, sad situation if he fails to prosecute the presidents enemies.)

In a sign of how utterly bizarre it is that Trump is screaming about Clintons emails and thinks releasing them might help his reelection chances, even some of the gang at Fox Business have wondered why he thinks voters care about any of this. President Trump didnt follow what theWall Street Journalwas saying in terms of staying on policy, anchor Dagen McDowell said following the interview with Maria Bartiromo. I am not sure it helped his campaign to talk about Hillary Clintons emails and going back down that rabbit hole like it was four years ago.... It was kind of, well, all over the place. It didnt really focus on the very issues of what the American people want to hear. Some of it did, but some of it clearly did not.

Anyway, its not clear what the president plans to do with his time should he lose in November and actually vacate the White House, but if he does and those close to him finally get him the help he needs, the odds are pretty high hell still regularly be calling in to Fox in 2024 claiming hes got classified information about Clinton thats going to shock voters like you wouldnt believe. Then hell whisper, I gotta go, theyre here while an orderlys key turns in the lock, adding, The DOJ doesnt want you to know this because its part of the deep state, but her husband had an affair with an intern. Its all there in the documents. Then the phone will drop and well hear him yell Stay back! Keep your hands off of me! Presidential harassment!

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And speaking of Trumps mental faculties

Nancy Pelosi is supporting a bill that would create a panel to assess if the president is a stark raving lunatic who should be removed from office:

Pelosi on Friday backed the creation of a congressionally appointed commission that would determine whether a president is capable of performing his duties, insisting that it wasnt specifically about President Trump while suggesting that his recent diagnosis was the motivation for it. Pelosi said Trumps coronavirus infection has raised questions about presidential succession, which is governed by the 25th Amendment to the Constitution. Trump spent last weekend at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, setting off a flurry of inquiries about whether Vice President [Mike] Pence would assume authority, even temporarily.

See more here:
Donald Trump Doesnt Seem to Know What Year It Is, Who Hes Running Against (Hint: Not Hillary Clinton) - Vanity Fair

From getting a helicopter ride to a military hospital with a specialized suite to receiving experimental drugs made available to fewer than 10 people, Donald Trumps experience with Covid-19 has been very different from that of your average 74-year-old American with a serious illness.

The president ignored these disparities after returning to the hospital on Monday night and in a video from the White House Trump said of Covid-19: Dont be afraid of it.

Heres a look at how different the experience of catching Covid-19 is for the most powerful 74-year-old in the US compared with most of his fellow citizens:

First, there is the simple step of realizing someone has the illness.

Trump had access to regular testing, something most, if not all, 74-year-olds do not.

As a white male, Trump was less likely to test positive for the virus. Though testing rates are similar across racial and ethnic groups, Hispanic patients were more than two and a half times more likely to have a positive result and Black and Asian patients were nearly twice as likely to test positive compared with white patients, according to Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF).

This suggests people of color face increased barriers to testing which delay their ability to get a diagnosis until their condition is more serious.

People who test positive for Covid are usually told to monitor their symptoms at home, no matter what their age.

Trump was able to take a helicopter to a military hospital once he tested positive. And at his home, the White House, the president will be receiving an outstanding level of care from a team of well-equipped, dedicated medical staff.

He will have access to an at-home clinic with exam rooms and hospital equipment, including supplies to perform emergency lifesaving procedures. In an emergency, he can also turn to his fleet of helicopters to get him to the hospital in a few minutes.

Dr Krutika Kuppalli, an infectious disease physician at the Medical University of South Carolina, said: The president has access to the best specialists, the best medical care and really any medical countermeasure that he would ever want. That is not the medical care most people have in the United States, or in the world.

If a 74-year-old is admitted to the hospital, they could, like the president, have access to the antiviral drug remdesivir.

But unless they enroll in a clinical trial, they cant access the experimental antibody treatment Trump is receiving. Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, which makes the antibody cocktail, said it had been made available to fewer than 10 people outside of a clinical trial.

After Trumps oxygen levels fell, he also received a steroid usually reserved for people in more severe stages of the illness. Trumps doctors have not clarified if he was given the steroid, dexamethasone, because his illness was more severe than they have described or for a different reason.

Trump is the only person in the world known to be taking that combination of medication treatments. And typically, people are not discharged from the hospital while taking an injectable, experimental drug. The fact that hes able to do that shows how different his care is compared to other people, Kuppalli said.

The president does not have to worry about the cost of his healthcare, even after paying $750 in taxes in 2017, because free health coverage is a perk of being the president.

The other 74-year-olds are mostly looking to the government health insurance for adults 65 and older, Medicare, to cover their costs. Those who arent covered by it either have employer-sponsored health insurance or are not eligible for it because they arent citizens or permanent residents.

After being admitted to the hospital, if a 74-year-old patient has basic Medicare, they would be subject first to the $1,408 deductible, the cost they have to pay before insurance kicks in. Most Medicare beneficiaries have additional coverage which reduces these costs, but 6.1 million people just have the basic package.

If someone with the basic package must stay in the hospital longer than the president, for more than 60 days, they must also pay $352 for each additional day in the hospital.

It is not entirely free for people with Medicare supplements. Add-ons to the program can cost older adults up to $461 in monthly premiums and what is covered depends on what supplement they have.

Like Trump, most 74-year-olds would not need to worry about the cost of treatments such as supplemental oxygen. Much of the other care he is receiving, however, would not be covered for most older adults.

Tricia Neuman, executive director of KFFs program on Medicare policy, said it would be highly unusual for Medicare to cover an air ambulance, experimental drugs like the Regeneron antibody cocktail or remdesivir if it was being administered at home (it should be covered in the hospital).

Medicare patients would, unlike the president, have to pay for the over-the-counter drugs he is taking including vitamin D, zinc, melatonin and aspirin.

Despite the unique level of care Trump has access to, at the end of the day, he is still a 74-year-old man, which puts him at high risk of suffering severe respiratory problems because of his Covid-19 infection.

People between 65 and 74 are also 90 times more likely to die from Covid-19 than people between 18 and 29, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The rates are worse for Black and Hispanic patients. Across age group and sociodemographic factors, they have twice as high a death rate as white patients, according to KFF.

Kuppalli said the presidents existing health vulnerabilities, along with his decision to withhold information about his symptoms, raise questions about his fitness for office.

Kuppalli said: This is somebody who could really have many challenges in the next few years as president, and his ability to execute his functions as president as result of the long-term symptoms of the disease.

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How does Donald Trumps Covid care compare to the average 74-year-olds? - The Guardian

In an editorial titled "Dying in a Leadership Vacuum," the editors of the Journal blasted President Donald Trump (although not by name) for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Here's the key bit:

"Anyone else who recklessly squandered lives and money in this way would be suffering legal consequences. Our leaders have largely claimed immunity for their actions. But this election gives us the power to render judgment. Reasonable people will certainly disagree about the many political positions taken by candidates. But truth is neither liberal nor conservative. When it comes to the response to the largest public health crisis of our time, our current political leaders have demonstrated that they are dangerously incompetent. We should not abet them and enable the deaths of thousands more Americans by allowing them to keep their jobs."

And, the New England Journal of Medicine isn't some fly-by-night organization. It was founded in 1812(!) by John Collins Warren, a doctor and an academic. It was the first medical journal published in New England. It has continued to be one of the most sought-after places for innovative and important medical research to be published. "Our mission is to publish the best research and information at the intersection of biomedical science and clinical practice and to present this information in understandable, clinically useful formats that inform health care delivery and improve patient outcomes," reads the NEJM website.

So, when the editors of such a prestigious medical journal feel the need to break with their 200-plus year tradition of not weighing in on presidential politics, we need to pay attention. Especially when they conclude things like the Trump administration has "taken a crisis and turned it into a tragedy" and "the magnitude of this failure is astonishing." (Worth noting: The editors never explicitly endorse former Vice President Joe Biden in their piece.)

To be clear: This editorial will not change most peoples' minds about the presidential election. For Trump backers, they will dismiss it as the work of a bunch of academic elitists who never liked Trump anyway. For Trump detractors, this editorial will simply be a(nother) data point in their case for why Trump should be voted out in 26 days' time.

This is a massive crisis. It has already cost us so much -- in terms of lives lost and jobs gone. Not to mention the psychological toll. And the impact on kids of learning virtually for months.

There is no question that Trump's slow response to the crisis, his administration's struggle to expand testing capacity, his advocacy of unproven treatments and his skepticism about mask-wearing have had a decidedly negative impact on how Americans have dealt with the pandemic.

That is not political. That is fact. And it's because of those facts that people and institutions that have never been political before -- like the New England Journal of medicine -- feel compelled to speak out about just how not normal this all is.

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This is a stunning and historic rebuke of Donald Trump's presidency - CNN