by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Given what China was able to do, I’m beginning to think that maybe there’s some hope. Maybe. Maybe Trump’s hope that COVID19 will just vanish in a few weeks will come true and he can go back to plotting his consolation of power to found the Fourth Reich.
Is it possible that we may have a big spike in infections for about two weeks then it will subside like in China? I don’t know. I’m not an expert. The issue is, of course Trump. In fact, I would go so far as to say Trump’s mental state is probably the most mediated crisis we face with what happens with COVID19
Even if we have a best case scenario and after a significant spike in cases over the course of the next fortnight the cases drop, Trump could very well snap mentally in the meanwhile. When it becomes apparent to him that the previously absolute personal fidelity he enjoys with the MAGA base might not be as absolute as it has been, he might just snap. Either he’s going to implode or explode. I honestly don’t know which one.
If he implodes, then we’ll have something of a Pence Regency where we see Pence all the time and Trump just tweets really weird things — like usual. The only tip off we might have is he simply stops doing public appearances or any of his Nuremberg rallies. If he explodes, meanwhile, that will make an already bad situation far, far worse. He will begin to tweet really passive-aggressive things. He will abuse the “Presidential Alert System” in some astonishing ways. It will be a gross, historic national embarrassment for the ages. Trump will at last be seen by all for what he really is — an American Caligula.
But, again, it may be that we have a really, really wild two weeks or so (maybe until the end of April) and then things settle down. I just don’t know exactly the dynamic of what happened in Wuhan. Or, put another way, since this is a process, not an event, events are moving so fast and I don’t have a frame of reference to know what’s important and what’s not.
One thing I will say — things may get so bad so fast that even if they subside equally as dramatically in early April, Trump is not going to walk away from this unscathed politically. The economy is probably going to lock up in the near term under the best of circumstances. The fundamentals are sound, so I guess it’s possible Trump’s vision of losing the popular vote and winning the Electoral College will, again, happen and, well, lulz!
Or, to put it another way — nothing has happened yet to indicate Trump will suffer any long term political confluences even if some of the more dire things I’m worried about — The Gray Plague, the Wuflop — happen. As always, there’s only one person Trump has to worry about in real terms — himself.
If he snaps and finally does something so astonishing insane that even, say, Matt Schlapp has to admit, at last, that maybe we’ve enjoyed the tax cuts enough and Pence can give him just as many young hack MAGA judges as Trump.
Oh, who am I kidding, Trump is the anti-Christ and that’s why MAGA supports him. Even if Trump turns the earth into a post-nuclear hellscape, MAGA will just say everyone who was vaporized really went to heaven as part of the Rapture.
Ugh.
