It’s easy to mock the president’s supporters, as they put their lives at risk for the opportunity to cheer him on and see him speak.
The vast majority of them don’t wear masks, they willingly cram themselves together in close proximity, and they don’t seem to care or even be cognizant of the danger. Some of them still believe the novel coronavirus is a hoax. Others think “the good lord,” will protect them.
So we point our fingers at them, mock them and make jokes about Darwin thinning the herd. But there’s just one problem: These people aren’t just endangering themselves.
These are super-spreader events, and when they end, the spreading has just begun. After spending two hours infecting each other with COVID-19, Trump’s hard-core supporters then go home and pass their newly acquired poison to their family and friends.
All those people then, in turn, interact with the rest of us in public spaces, be it at grocery stores or gas stations or wherever. And, not just that, these same selfish people sickening their families are also the ones running around town refusing to cover their faces, showing no regard for the rest of us.
Donald Trump isn’t just endangering his base of supporters with his reckless negligence. He is putting us all at increased risk for contracting this insidious virus that he publicly dismisses and privately fears.
The president knows how contagious and fatal the virus is. We have now heard audio of him telling famed journalist Bob Woodward as such in recordings from conversations they had in February, March and April. On Monday, we heard Trump tell Woodward back in April that he once ran out of a room in the White House with great haste after an individual near him sneezed.
Yet, here we are. With almost 200,000 Americans now dead, a number that is certain to keep rising, Trump continues to stage his death rallies. This narcissistic man is so desperate for the adulation he craves, he doesn’t care how many people die to deliver it to him.
It started in Tulsa, where Trump dismissed public-health officials and packed more than 6,000 people into a basketball arena, an event that more than likely led to former presidential candidate Herman Cain’s demise. He then moved on to Arizona and South Dakota before taking a pause.
Now, the rallies are back, and they’re not going to stop. Thousands packed an airport hangar last week in Michigan. Over the weekend, the president defied Nevada state law with two separate events, one outdoors and one at an indoor venue. The proprietor of that indoor venue has since been fined $3,000.
On Monday, Trump held another indoor rally, his second in Arizona. This time, campaign staff did cursory temperature checks outside, as if that would prevent anything. Asymptomatic carriers of COVID-19 can spread the virus without having a fever. No temperature check would catch that. They are essentially pointless, meant to give the attendees a false sense of security.
Donald Trump has spent the last six months misleading and deceiving the American people into believing the virus is no big deal. The majority of us know, and have known for a while, that he has no credibility. However, there remains a large minority of Americans who believe him and will blindly follow their beloved leader straight to the grave.
The problem is, they’re not just drinking the proverbial cyanide-laced Kool-Aid themselves.
They’re unwittingly injecting it into the rest of us.