Donald Trump Has COVID-19
I wouldn’t wish sickness on anyone, but Donald Trump isn’t just anyone. He’s the man trying the hardest to unravel our democracy for personal gain. He’s spent countless hours denying the gravity of and spreading misinformation about the pandemic which now ails him because he thought it made him look bad, and the optics were more important to him than the 200,000+ lives lost as a result of his negligence. Karma is a bitch, and Donald Trump deserves this.
This news raises a few practical questions and concerns for the next few weeks. Will Trump get a boost out of pity? Will his base see this news as a national tragedy and rally around him, potentially pulling in some undecided voters? I doubt it. I don’t see how news of Donald Trump getting infected with the virus he played down for months will do anything other than make him appear weak to his base, or force them to believe he was lying the whole time. If anything, I think this will raise concerns about Trump’s longevity and help Biden. After all, Trump’s beloved stock market doesn’t seem to have a ton of confidence in him.
Some people have suggested that the president may not have COVID-19 at all, but I don’t think that’s the case. I think any “look how strong he is for beating COVID” bump he may receive would be extremely small, and the people who would say that are almost certainly in his base already. It could drive turnout a little bit, but I doubt it. A campaign’s most valuable resource is the candidate’s time, and even if Trump wanted a get out of jail free card for the last two debates, having to spend half the time between now and the election quarantined is an astronomically high price to pay.
If his case is asymptomatic or very mild, he could actually take this as a chance to say “look, I had it and it wasn’t bad, so it was smart of me to downplay it”, which could be more influential for undecided voters.
However, reports indicate that Trump is already experiencing mild symptoms, which raises the question, if his sickness progresses and becomes more debilitating or even life threatening, what happens? Surely, Trump won’t participate in the next presidential debate in person. Could the rest of the debates be cancelled altogether? If Trump’s sickness progresses the point of requiring ventilation, what happens on Election Day? Mike Pence will be in charge of the country while Trump is incapacitated, and presumably, votes for Trump will be counted as usual and he will resume power after he comes off the ventilator. What if he were to die before the election; do votes for Trump then count as votes for Pence? Can the Republican Party nominate someone else in the days before the election? Can votes already cast for a Trump/Pence ticket then be converted to support the new nominee? I don’t think so.
Another important question: what if Joe Biden gets sick? He spent nearly two hours on stage with the man yelling like a maniac. Fortunately, Joe Biden and his wife Jill have just tested negative, so we won’t wander too far down the path of hypotheticals, but man, there’s a lot to ponder.