The Great Absentee

Trump escapes from the mourning of a country that is on the verge of reaching 100,000 deaths from coronavirus

It was Memorial Day on Monday in the United States, a national holiday created in remembrance of the fallen in the Civil War and extended after World War I to honor the memory of every American who made the greatest possible sacrifice in service to the country. In practice, it is a long weekend which combines the excitement of the end of the school year and the beginning of summer with the patriotic respect for all of those who lie in military cemeteries like that of Arlington.

This year’s Memorial Day has turned out to be particularly introspective due to the lethal pandemic. The New York Times’ moving front page in its Sunday edition—none other than a list of coronavirus victims interspersed with brief personal details—captured the grief demanded by a country that is on the verge of reaching 100,000 deaths caused by an epidemic made worse by the country’s own contradictions: from shortcomings in public healthcare to painful inequalities.

The 100,000 death toll overshadows the number of soldiers killed in the Vietnam, Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan Wars combined. That is why President Donald Trump’s behavior during this emotional Sunday has been impossible to ignore. The occupant of the White House played golf for the first time since March. And between one hole and the next, at his Virginia course, he administered himself a Twitter overdose in which he boosted racist and sexist messages, conspiracy theories and playground insults. These pursuits were what kept him from joining in his own call to attend religious services in defiance of the “liberticidal” lockdown.

From the very first instant, Trump has been a denialist of the coronavirus tragedy. That is why the great absentee in the Oval Office actively outsources his responsibility and thoroughly avoids leading the nation’s mourning that the biggest health disaster since the 1918 flu requires. What actually bothers him, more than the loss of so many fellow citizens, is the loss of economic prosperity hampering his reelection.