Superspreader Superman

When you really screw up, you —the guilty party— only have 2 ways to feign your innocence. You either wash your hands of all responsibility; or, you keep proudly polishing the turds you laid. Trump’s problem, unfortunately, is that he keeps trying to do both. And even the littlest bully on the playground instinctively knows you can’t keep doing both and getting away with it.

But Trump has been doing just that for years. He’s gotten away with so much for so long that he’s even gone to the next level of egregious irresponsibility. Now he’s proclaimed himself as some kind of ersatz superhero who has triumphed over the killer plague. He’s gone from stable genius to unstable demigod. Now he’s the Superman who has contracted, and then recovered from, COVID-19 — and now continually downplays it as a little cold. Just a little cold that’s not even as bad as the flu, he keeps saying. Yet he also deliberately ignores the fact that, as POTUS 45, he received the very best medical care in the world.

In the mythical kingdom of Trumplandia, however, facts don’t matter as much as his lies that re-purpose him as heroic and all-powerful. His lies continue to spin, then recreate, a reality that makes him look good. To him, that’s all that matters: creating and maintaining a self-image that’s really his fake alter-ego.

No, truth isn’t Trump’s kryptonite. He’s way beyond any “weakness” like the truth at this point. He thinks he’s invulnerable now — more powerful than the real Man of Steel ever was. But in 21st Century America, Trump IS the kryptonite that’s going to kill our democracy if he gets re-elected.

He’s a kind of Superman, all right, but only a dysfunctional one from Bizarro World: instead of protecting us, he’s been infecting us.

In his blatant, pathetic(yeah, pathetic—let’s not forget pathetic) efforts to keep up his “tough guy” image, he has recklessly infected others with this virulent contagion. The COVID-19 snafu was his fault. He failed. Not Jared. Not Hope Hicks. Not Hillary. He’s the one to blame.

He screwed up big time. He reacted selfishly and boorishly by “playing down” this Coronavirus. He unfairly shifted focus on Hope Hicks, slyly implying that she was the source of the infection. (Like, he actually did any contact tracing?) He also coyly mixed misinformation and outright lies about his own medical condition. He even implied — then insinuated—that Gold Star families infected him!

It’s almost as if Trump has taken a skewed interpretation of Learned Optimism to the extremes that author Martin Seligman never intended.

In his book, the eminent psychologist suggested techniques for disowning negative things that happen(as in “that never happens to me, this has never happened before”) and owning the positive things that do happen(as in “I’m always lucky with this, it happens to me all the time”). It goes without saying, though, that Seligman never intended his readers to actually fabricate reality with blatant lies. His suggestions were meant to help us focus on the bright side and not dwell or ruminate on the dark side of life.

In Trumplandia, however, these techniques (along with misinterpretations of “positive thinking”) translate to blaming others. Trump thinks that’s how “the game is played.” Well, government isn’t a game, it’s real life. The Donald’s blame-games have only generated more and more confusion and distrust. And they certainly haven’t contained the spread of COVID-19.

Sorry, folks, we don’t need Hercule Poirot or Nancy Drew on the case to figure this one out. Just look at the facts. Pay attention to the clues.

While it might be hard to trace who gave COVID-19 to Trump, it’s pretty easy to see that POTUS 45 was THE source of a lot, if not all, of the infection. After all, Donald J. Trump WAS the common denominator of contact when you look at every case of infection at the White House. FYI, Trump’s residence IS the White House. He lives there. He works in close quarters with members of his Administration, support staff, and visitors from all over the world. AND HE DOESN’T WEAR A MASK THERE. HE ALSO DOESN’T WANT OTHERS AROUND HIM TO WEAR MASKS, EITHER.

Furthermore, Trump disregarded social distancing and COVID-19 testing — despite his repeated boasting that he and everyone around him got tested every day. As usual, he was lying about his practices. As usual, his gullible base of admirers believed his lies.

So, no social distancing, no masks, no testing…But Trump and everyone around him did follow CDC guidelines every day, right?

WRONG! Trump lied about everything! But his loyal supporters still believe in him — and that’s a big part of the problem here. They may not believe him, per se. And yet, because he’s the President of the United States, they believe IN HIM. They honor and trust him as the living symbol of America. After all, He IS the President. As one woman at the recent campaign rally in Georgia told a reporter, “We don’t care…we just love him.”

With him, though, love just doesn’t hurt, it also kills. By Election Day, nearly a quarter of a million people might be dead on his watch. But Trump refuses to take responsibility for his mishandling of this pandemic.

He only takes credit for the good things that happen during his term. Bad things — negative, unpleasant things — are never his fault. He refuses to own up to anything that might make him look bad or mar his contrived self-image. If something goes wrong, if there’s any kind of snafu, it’s always somebody else’s fault.

If he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar, he’d blame the Keebler Elves for making such delicious cookies that tempted him to indulge in the first place. (Shame on you, loser elves! I’m gonna launch an investigation and lock up you sons of bitches!)

Trump’s gullible base — those boosters all too-susceptable to his propaganda — are not entirely to blame for encouraging his fascist behavior, though.

In fact, every time anyone or any group tries to hold him accountable, his GOP sympathizers and media friends falsely portray him as a victim. After Trump lied about his health and kept certain details silent, The Washington Post came up with this headline: “FDR kept secret as he ran for a fourth term: He was dying.”

So let’s not criticize Trump for not telling us he had the Coronavirus because FDR wouldn’t tell America he was dying? Oh, please. Stop. There’s no real comparison here between these two men.

FDR was Commander-in-Chief during World War II, at a time when America didn’t know if we would be able to defeat the Axis powers. No doubt President Roosevelt would have led a much healthier life and probably would have lived longer had he not been so embroiled in this global conflict. But service to his country — and I do mean real, honest-to-God selfless service and hard work — absorbed his entire existence. It adversely affected his health. So it’s ludicrous to compare Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s personal sacrifice during WWII to Donald J. Trump’s reckless behavior during this current pandemic.

Besides, did FDR, infect any Americans? Did he give Eleanor this deadly contagion and send her to an early grave? Did he infect the Joint Chiefs of Staff and weaken our nation’s military defenses?

No to all of the above.

And yet, even the obvious incongruency between the lives and circumstances of these two Presidents didn’t stop The Washington Post from publishing this story. Despite Trump’s repeated attacks against WAPO’s liberal bias(and his paranoid accusations that liberal media outlets “hate” him), the newspaper still tossed him a “both-sides-of-the-aisle-and-Democrats-are-just-as-bad-as-Republicans” life preserver during The Donald’s time of need.

And this news story wasn’t really relevant or current, either. It was just a little article with information gleaned from historical tomes written by Jay Winik(“1944: FDR and the Year that Changed History”) and Jared Cohen(“Accidental Presidents: Eight Men who Changed America”).Trump wasn’t even directly mentioned by name, but this both-sides-of-the-aisle trope was so strategically implied that it was difficult to miss.

But enough, already. Maybe if Trump’s victim card had been confiscated earlier, he wouldn’t have grown up to be such a pathetic excuse for a President. His narcissism might not have evolved to such epic mythological proportions, either.