Trump’s COVID-19 Infection Turns into an Election Show

For several days, the world’s leading media outlets discussed the U.S. president’s coronavirus infection. However, Donald Trump’s sudden recovery and return to the White House from the hospital was equally unexpected. How has this event affected the political positions of Trump and his opponents?

“Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

This famous quote from Frank Herbert’s “Dune” was apparently interpreted and adopted by Donald Trump’s public relations team. This resulted in a perfectly designed public relations move in which the president demonstrated that he had not only overcome the coronavirus, but showed Americans how to conquer fear by his own example.

American Spirit

The exercise itself began on Oct. 2, when the U.S. president and his wife were diagnosed with COVID-19. After that, Trump, who was in quite bad condition for a 74-year-old man, was taken to the hospital for treatment.

However, after only a few days, the U.S. president returned to the White House as a champion of both the coronavirus and the fear related to the illness. After having helicoptered back to the White House, he posed in front of an American flag, defiantly removed a mask from his face and shoved it into his pocket.

“Don’t be afraid of COVID. Don’t let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago,” the U.S. president tweeted.

One could argue for a long time about what did the trick. Which “great drugs & knowledge” helped Trump overcome the coronavirus in three days? Or was Trump not even initially sick with the coronavirus? In this case, it is not important. All that matters is that the president is using his defeat of the disease to score political points.

It’s not really even so much that his coronavirus infection brings Trump closer to the nation, but it destroys the image constructed by Democratic press outlets of a “greedy oligarch, who doesn’t care about anyone but himself.”* The U.S. president displays masculinity — which is lacking for those Americans who wallow in racial dramatics and sexual (in every sense of the word) conflicts. The fact is that in the United States — as it is now in Russia — there is a very serious debate over how government and society should conduct themselves during the coronavirus pandemic. Someone probably prefers the behavior of Trump’s opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, who is sitting in a bunker, speaking to a camera all alone, as if a circle is drawn around him.

Yet, those who prefer Biden’s response have drifted far from the American spirit. The spirit that filled the colonists who conquered the Wild West. The spirit that made America the most successful country in the world. The spirit that filled American politicians who were not afraid to take a hit and, as a result, prevailed in the Cold War against the mighty Soviet Union. Not to mention the fact that the tactic “sit in a corner and isolate yourself” hurts U.S. citizens’ wallets.

Breaking Fortresses

That’s why plenty of Americans are extremely dissatisfied with the Democrats’ calls “to stay safe.” “While following the spirit-destroying injunction ‘to stay safe,’ the United States has destroyed its level of prosperity, which was attained by decades of hard work. Shutting down the economy has crushed the dreams of thousands of entrepreneurs and stripped millions of their jobs. Megalopolises — New York, for example, — have started to look like dying ghost towns.… Children are instilled with a culture of fear,”* journalists have written.

The culture of fear, which Democrats impose on the entire society, is already being recouped by the Trump administration. For example, the Commission on Presidential Debates’ decision to add additional security measures at the debate between Vice President Mike Pence and candidate Sen. Kamala Harris is the result of Democrats’ requests. A plexiglass wall was installed between the debaters.

Trump is not simply building fortresses — he is tearing them down — and is encouraging every American to follow him.

“I had to confront [the virus] so the American people stopped being afraid of it, so we could deal with it responsibly,” Trump stated. By “responsibly,” the president means apparently “not sit[ting] in quarantine established by state authorities which do not want to remove these restrictions.”* Trump, we recall, needs to lift the state restrictions not only to free people, but to revive the economy.

It’s not surprising that Trump’s behavior elicited a very controversial response from the American media.

Some praise him. “Donald Trump is not a guy in a basement,”* his supporters say. “Of course, he could have been like Joe Biden and have spent the last five months sitting in the White House. He’d appear like a quarantined president cowardly hiding from a Chinese virus. The symbolism of such a move would be a disaster for the most powerful nation on the planet. Trump had to show his fearlessness in the face of the virus.”* Yes, as some experts correctly write, this theatricality smells of authoritarianism — but America needs a strong leader.

Others even say that the country not only needs a strong leader, but one who is competent. Adults are able to admit their own mistakes and not repeat them. “Trump’s illness appears to have solidified his unwavering faith in the catastrophic policies that left not only him and his staff unprotected from a pandemic, but encouraged Americans to take deadly risks and pay with their lives,” CNN said, outraged. Biden also incites fear. The former vice president, who sees himself as the future president, said, “210,000 people have died already. And the expectation is, if nothing changes, we’re going to have another 200,000 dead by the end of the year.”

Liberals continue to assure people that these vast death tolls from the coronavirus are not a consequence of poor American medicine (confined to the treatment of the rich), but of Trump’s personal mistakes — the current head of state’s disregard for the threat of the pandemic. That’s why the incumbent president continues to be blamed for intentionally belittling the danger of the illness. Liberals published the statements of ordinary Americans and survivors of the coronavirus who are outraged at Trump’s disregard for its dangers. They write about panic among White House staff. They display ratings that show 60% of Americans don’t share Trump’s call “not to fight the coronavirus.”

While a number of U.S. citizens publicly condemn Trump for his recklessness, they are modestly silent about the fact that many privately appreciate the head of state’s courage and real American spirit. Fear didn’t destroy his mind or paralyze his will.

*Editor’s Note: The original quotations, accurately translated, could not be verified.