Existential Dread

 

With the late night-early morning announcement of the president’s COVID-19 status, we face many questions.

1.  What other members of the administration are positive and showing symptoms?

We hear that individuals who traveled with the president are positive; others are negative, including family members.  We also know, as of this morning, that Joe Biden tested negative.  The important word from now on is transparency.  We know a number of people are sick among the president’s advisors.  That fact, in and of itself, is alarming.  We need to know all the facts as we face uncertainty about who is running the country.

2.  Is this Trump’s way of getting out of the remaining debates after his poor performance last Tuesday?  Or, is this a way for the president to drop out of a race he knows he is losing?

Anything is possible when the administration is not forthcoming about the extent of this crisis.  But here is the thing:  Trump has locked himself into a losing strategy should the remaining debates take place.  If he comes out and observes the rules agreed upon by both candidates, he looks soft and cowed.  If he comes out with another shrill, hysterical performance where he allows no one to speak, the moderator or Joe Biden, he will lose votes.  His only way out of this mess he created is to get out of the debates altogether.

He is losing the race according to most polls of likely voters.  But I do not think he is ready to throw in the towel yet.  His ego won’t let him.  His plan has been in place for a long time now:  call the results into question and scream that the election was “rigged.”  He wants to foment chaos and violence so he can argue he should remain in power to control the uprisings that will ensue and to ensure his autocracy.

3.  Will he emerge after a short period of time and say COVID-19 is not a threat and more of a hoax?

He has proclaimed this from the start.  It might work to his advantage to declare himself sick only to rise again after a few days, a sort of “Jesus moment.”  He is, reportedly, showing symptoms of the disease.  If he is sick, and his condition worsens, that will disrupt his preferred narrative.  Because he has been so reckless with his rallies, and he rarely wears a mask in public, it would seem true to the nature of the virus and its spread that he would eventually become sick.  Science, something the president has held up for ridicule and scorn, is clear that this is a deadly disease easily spread from human to human.  Again, transparency is key, and if the administration is not forthcoming, then we must rely on journalists to get the story and keep us informed.

4.  Does the president’s illness threaten our national security and our financial stability?

Yes, and this is the most immediate threat.  A president who is in quarantine or the hospital and showing symptoms of a disease that can be fatal to patients in his demographic makes our country weak and vulnerable at the moment.  This is another reason for transparency and a clear signal of who’s in charge.  The Constitution allows for a temporary transfer of power, but Trump has to let go of the reins and allow Mike Pence to assume his responsibilities.  It is unclear if he is predisposed to do this.

The financial impact is clear even in the early morning hours when this story broke.  Stock market futures declined almost immediately.  In the economy, everything is connected.  If this is handled correctly, with clear leadership and factual accounting, that will keep investors on an even keel, but Trump, even as he crows about his economic prowess, has not been a failure with the resulting unemployment and near-depression level decline.  So as we move through this crisis, we can only hope that the market settles down.

5.  Could Trump use this to postpone the election?

The president has said the election should be postponed until “people can vote safely.”  There is no evidence that voting is dangerous as long as we maintain social distancing and wear a mask.  Based on these previous comments, he wants to postpone the election and stay in power.  This is something Rudy Giuliani tried to do as the mayor of New York after 9-11.  Constitutionally, he cannot postpone the election, but that does not mean he won’t try.

Democracy is not a point of perfection.  It is always a work in progress.  Living in a democratic society requires diligence and constant vigilance to maintain the freedoms so often taken for granted.  We are going through a period of intense growth and consequential challenges while also facing a referendum on the mistakes made in the past.  It is our American reckoning for atrocities like slavery, violent racism, war, and destruction of our environment.  We have elected a pathological liar who obfuscates and assigns blame for his atrocious missteps and incompetence.  He is, by all measures, the worst president in American history, and we are left on the very brink of the precipice.