In a public briefing this Tuesday, President Donald Trump announced that the White House estimated that 100,000 to 240,000 U.S. citizens would die in the near future due to coronavirus. Even with current social distancing measures put in place, these outrageously high numbers might still go up.
For a “Chinese virus,” as Trump calls it, the virus sure seems to be an American problem. As America leads with the most reported cases of the virus, it’s unfortunately not shocking to say that Trump is only now owning up to the cold, hard facts.
His inadequate administration and leadership are now having to deal with the effects, instead of the cause. If this would’ve been taken seriously from the start, maybe we wouldn’t have 100,000 casualties projected as our minimum fatality rate. Trump is complicit in every single one of these deaths for the misinformation he spread and his willful ignorance of the threat.
The most harmful thing the president could’ve done would be to minimize the seriousness of the virus, and that’s exactly what he did for months, despite awareness of the tragedies occurring in places like China and Italy.
President Trump continued to put the economy before the people, and acted dumb in order to stall attempts at addressing coronavirus. On Feb. 28 in South Carolina, Trump called the virus a “hoax,” and blamed meddling Democrats for raising concerns. He then further downplayed the danger by comparing it to the flu. On multiple occasions, Trump dismissed the seriousness of coronavirus, even claiming that it was likely to go away in April.
Statements like, “Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away,” make you question where the president is getting his facts. Although he may have taken back some inaccurate statements, Trump has still dangerously distorted the general public’s idea of the pandemic going on around them.
Funnily enough, Trump and his supporters had the perfect people to blame for his complete “obliviousness” to the severity of the virus: Democrats and their impeachment trials. However, the attempts at impeachment ended Feb. 5, and they didn’t stop Trump from paying attention to matters like his golf games and reelection rallies.
Shame isn’t a word in Trump’s vocabulary. When asked on March 13 about the lack of testing available to Americans, Trump responded with, “No. I don’t take responsibility at all.”
His narcissistic tendencies have shown themselves more than ever recently, leading his most avid supporters further into blind patriotism, and his most livid critics to logical dark conclusions.
On March 29, as coronavirus cases rose past 130,000 and New York nurses emphasized the rapid deterioration of patients’ health, Trump took to Twitter to tweet about how America will not pay for Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s “security protection,” which is something they never asked for in the first place. That same day, more appallingly, he boasted in a series of tweets about his TV ratings and how they were better than the season finale of ABC’s “The Bachelor.”
It’s no wonder that ratings are so high when our president makes press briefings into reality TV show episodes. Although I should expect composure from the president of the country I live in, I don’t expect it from Trump.
Trump is too self-concerned and worried about Wall Street to care about thousands of dying citizens. He may finally be getting serious and encouraging CDC preventative measures, but he sure better start practicing what he preaches. It’s going to take a lot of soap to wash the blood of thousands of Americans off his hands.
Gabrielle Martinez is a 19-year-old mass communication freshman from Gonzales, Louisiana.
