President Donald Trump continues to refuse to take the Coronavirus crisis with the seriousness that it demands. As cases, deaths, and hospitalizations from the virus continue to increase around the country, Trump took to Twitter on Saturday morning to insist that the media was blowing everything out of proportion — which is, of course, nonsense. Would Trump like to personally tell the many families who have lost loved ones across the country that the situation isn’t really that bad? It’s a crisis, and the president of the United States keeps refusing to (metaphorically) show up.
On Saturday morning, Trump tweeted the following outrageous message:
‘The Fake News is talking about CASES, CASES, CASES. This includes many low risk people. Media is doing everything possible to create fear prior to November 3rd. The Cases are up because TESTING is way up, by far the most, and best, in the world. Mortality rate is DOWN 85% plus!’
The Fake News is talking about CASES, CASES, CASES. This includes many low risk people. Media is doing everything possible to create fear prior to November 3rd. The Cases are up because TESTING is way up, by far the most, and best, in the world. Mortality rate is DOWN 85% plus!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 24, 2020
This tweet’s fundamental claim is nonsense — and the tweet is also rather dangerous, because it gives the president’s supporters an incentive to dismiss the seriousness of the virus. His characterization of basic reporting about the Coronavirus crisis as “fake news” is roundly toxic. A Wisconsin nurse named David Eggman shared the following sobering anecdote in a story published in recent days in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
‘We have many patients who have come in here and their last words before we put a in breathing tube are they didn’t realize it was as bad as it was.’
The president of the United States could help appropriately prepare Americans for the breadth of the crisis. Instead, he continues to claim that a vaccine is imminent while simultaneously insisting that Americans should not let the virus “dominate” their lives. Is a fighting spirit — or whatever — going to bring back the Americans who have lost their lives while the president has prioritized complaining about media coverage of the crisis? No, it’s not. Trump fails to grasp the basic realities of the problem, and he fails to majorly develop his approach to the virus. He has spent months claiming that the Coronavirus really isn’t that bad after all and everyone should just simmer down — but while he has been pathologically obsessing over his public image, Americans have died.
Check out Twitter’s response to the president below:
